THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYEutychius, the sixth-century patriarch of Constantinople, performed this serv-
ice for the people of Amasea during his years of exile beginning in 565, and the
early seventh-century patriarch of Alexandria known as John the Almsgiver
acquired his epithet from his reputation for urban philanthropy. Other holy
men and monks also performed similar roles: a story told about St Nicholas
of Sion, near Myra in Lycia, tells how when the plague struck the metropolis
of Myra in the sixth century, Nicholas was suspected of warning neighbouring
farmers not to go to the city to sell their provisions for fear of infection. The
governor and the city magistrates sent for the saint from his monastery, and
Nicholas visited several settlements, where he slaughtered oxen and brought
wine and bread with him to feed the people.^56 Bishops and clergy had long
been involved in the affairs of cities and countryside and in negotiations with
the provincial governor, as is clearly apparent in the letters of Theodoret of
Cyrrhus in Euphratensis (northern Syria) in the fi fth century, where villages
rather than towns seem to have been the norm, while in early seventh-century
Alexandria the patriarch John the Almsgiver was dealing with matters of trade
and taxation alike. The presence of holy men and, in the east, of stylites, such
as Symeon the Elder at Qalaat Semaan in the fi fth century and Symeon the
Younger near Antioch in the sixth, around both of whom substantial monas-
teries grew up, impacted on the rural economy (Chapter 3). Pilgrims required
services, and bought local goods including pilgrim eulogiai, essentially religious
souvenirs, and any important shrine or location of a notable holy man was
soon surrounded by substantial and varied buildings which required techni-
cal building skills. To some extent these, and other large monastic complexes
contributed to a ruralization of the economy.
While the fabric of life in both town and country had thus changed signifi -
cantly with Christianization, Christianity did not itself directly bring about ur-
ban change. Rather, by stimulating church building, by diverting wealth from
secular causes and by infl uencing social practices, it was one among a range
of other factors which together converged to change and undermine the ur-
ban topography and economic organization inherited from the high empire.
The shifting economic relation between the civic authorities and the church,
which came to represent, let us say by the later sixth century, an actual shift
of resources in favour of the latter, was an important feature of the period.^57
As a result, the church’s agents, especially bishops, took on the role of pro-
viders and distributors of wealth which formerly lay with the civil authorities.
Since the role of cities within the empire had always been closely identifi ed
with fi nance – exchange, monetary circulation, collection of taxes – this shift
inevitably had profound consequences.^58
Economy and administration of late antique and early
Byzantine citiesAs we saw, since the fourth century, the curiales, the better-off citizens
on whom the government depended for the running of cities, had been