URBAN CHANGE AND THE LATE ANTIQUE COUNTRYSIDEcomplaining loudly about their increased burdens (Chapter 4). Both the cho-
rus of complaint and the theme itself were of long standing, and those who,
such as the Emperor Julian, the rhetor Libanius or the historians Ammianus
Marcellinus and, later, Procopius, saw themselves as champions of traditional
values invariably also took up the cause of the cities whose future they per-
ceived to be under threat.^59 There were some grounds for their fears: gov-
ernment pressure on the curial class, who provided a convenient target for
ways of increasing revenue or at least trying to ensure its collection, certainly
increased as time went on. The city councils themselves faced fi nancial dif-
fi culties, especially those with splendid buildings to keep up. Many found it
diffi cult to keep their councils up to strength with enough curiales of adequate
income. The wealth of curials also varied greatly; many of them were village
landowners of quite modest means while richer ones might hold widely dis-
persed estates. Cities showed an obstinate tendency to survive, and two hun-
dred years after Constantine most were still in a reasonable state, while some
were more densely populated and more prosperous than they had ever been,
but we now also hear of leading citizens under different terms – honorati (ex-
offi cials), or ‘notables’ or ‘grandees’.^60 The urban elites of ‘late late antiquity’
were not identical with the old curial class, though there was no doubt over-
lap. They now included churchmen, and especially in the Balkans, defence
needs now loomed large on their horizon. They also included some of the
successful landowners whose infl uence was clearly felt in the economy of the
sixth century.^61 The ‘notables’ were recognized in imperial legislation under
Anastasius (491–518), and co-existed awkwardly with councils; by the fi fth
century the governor and other civic offi cials (defensor, curator, pater) gained
increasing importance and councils gradually dropped out of participation
in appointments to the latter posts in favour of the notables. Both John the
Lydian and Evagrius, in the middle and late sixth century respectively, suggest
that councils no longer functioned. As for ordinary people, they had no of-
fi cial role, but they could and often did demonstrate and express their views,
as we shall see below.
The style of life which these cities had supported for so long had already
begun to change in many places, and urban life was certainly drastically cur-
tailed in the seventh century (and long before that in most places in the west).
The pressures of invasion, insecurity and increased military expenditure by
the central government were felt in differing degrees in the west and east
and the effects of the Persian and Arab invasions in the east will be discussed
later. A.H.M. Jones famously saw the increased numbers of monks, bishops
and clergy as a component in the excessive number of ‘idle mouths’ who con-
stituted a drain on the late Roman state, and it is true that these men might
otherwise have been producers, or indeed soldiers, or even, as Arnaldo Mo-
migliano thought, have lent their abilities to running the cities and the empire
better. Yet such a formulation ignores the structural change that was taking
place in the balance of town and country. The number and size of gifts and
legacies made to churches, strikingly demonstrated in the rich silver treasures