288 Grey
beyond the grand narratives that have hitherto stood in for explanation and
begin upon the process of constructing more nuanced and subtle accounts of
the experiences of different rural communities in different parts of Italy in the
period. That is, the employment of these concepts allows us to pose a series of
questions about the rural economies of Italy under Ostrogothic rule.
These questions can be preliminary only at this stage and they may be unan-
swerable. Nevertheless, I suggest they serve to reorient our attention in pro-
ductive and thought-provoking ways. Thus, for example, we could ask what
characteristics or qualities might render certain rural populations more or less
vulnerable than others in this period? Were the inhabitants of the Campanian
plain—who may be observed requesting tax relief from Theoderic in perhaps
512 on the strength of ongoing volcanic activity on Vesuvius and were the sub-
ject of forced grain sale in the 520s or 530s, but who enjoyed especially fer-
tile and productive growing conditions precisely because of the presence of
Vesuvius to their south-east—more or less vulnerable than the populations
of the Po River valley—who appear to have witnessed an influx of barbarian
settlers in the late 5th or early 6th century, but also perhaps to have been the
victims of quite frequent flooding in the period?113 Did the presence of those
barbarians stimulate economic activity—as has been inferred from the pres-
ence of large quantities of coins in areas inhabited by members of the military
during the 4th century114—or was it an unsupportable economic burden that
caused intense hardship to local landowners—as Theoderic seems to accept in
a letter relieving taxes to the residents of the Cottian Alps?115 Did living near a
large landowner such as Theodahad expand the number of survival strategies
available to small agriculturalists in Tuscia, or did it enhance the risk that they
would be forcibly dispossessed—as Procopius accuses?116
When we turn to the consideration of the reorientation of markets and trade
networks in the period, we may ask whether production for a local market—
or for the church of Ravenna or in response to an unforeseen grain shortage
around Rome—encouraged farmers to adopt certain agrarian regimes, and
whether those regimes made them more or less able to manage the risk of sub-
sistence failure in the medium or long term—especially if changes to envi-
ronmental conditions necessitated changes in the timing of sowing seasons
113 For flooding and its potential implications: Saggioro, “Late Antique Settlement”, p. 521. But
note the critique of the literary tradition by Squatriti, “Floods of 589”, pp. 803–6.
114 Fulford, “Economic Hotspots”.
115 Cassiodorus, Variae 3.36.
116 Procopius, Gothic War 1.3.2.