URBAN CHANGE AND THE LATE ANTIQUE COUNTRYSIDEloss of life when imperial troops had been sent in under Belisarius. The imme-
diate reasons for this episode had to do with the execution of some criminals
who belonged to the circus factions, the Blues and Greens, but it soon came
to focus on Justinian’s unpopular ministers, especially the praetorian prefect
John the Cappadocian, whom the emperor hastily replaced. These are not
revolutionary uprisings, but short-lived explosions of violence against a highly
unstable background. While religious and political issues were of course likely
to be thrown up as soon as violence began, even if they had not actually trig-
gered it off, sustained movements for religious or political reform are not in
question in this period. Protests against this or that piece of imperial policy,
especially if it had to do with taxation or an unpopular minister, were com-
mon in Constantinople, and similar manifestations elsewhere mimicked those
of the capital, but urban violence in this period, though it was extremely com-
mon, did not turn into revolution.^65 Nor, though Procopius liked to think that
they were the work of the ‘rabble’, can these episodes be read in any simple
sense as expressions of the feelings of the poor or the masses. Only once is a
riot explicitly ascribed to the ‘poor’ (in 553, as a result of a debasement of the
bronze coinage – again the emperor immediately gave way), and riots about
bread or grain were relatively infrequent, thanks to the care which the authori-
ties took to ensure the supply and keep the population quiet on this issue.^66
Apart from the prejudice shown by Procopius and others, including Mala-
las, Menander Protector and Agathias, and the concern voiced in the anony-
mous sixth-century dialogue On Political Science,^67 there is no reason to think
that the better-off or middling parts of the urban population were any less
given to rioting than the really poor; many episodes were sparked off by hos-
tility to individuals or passionate enthusiasm for chariot racing on the part of
all classes, and, as at Constantinople and Antioch, especially by members of
the ‘factions’ of Blues and Greens, the organized groups, effectively guilds,
of charioteers, performers, musicians and supporters who staffed the pub-
lic entertainments of late antique cities, and the wider constituency of their
followers. Graffi ti on seats at Aphrodisias and Alexandria vividly testify to
their widespread following. Association of the Blues and Greens with urban
violence began in the fi fth century, and the level of instability, whether or
not associated with the ‘parties’, evidently rose all over the east in the sixth
century, reaching a peak with demonstrations in many cities towards the end
of the reign of Phocas in the early seventh century. Historians have often sup-
posed that this could only be explained on the assumption that the Blues and
Greens were associated with particular religious or ideological standpoints,
but a strong rebuttal of this theory was mounted by Alan Cameron in the
1970s.^68 More recently Liebeschuetz has reviewed the evidence again and ar-
gued that the position was not quite so straightforward; the Blues and Greens
were not merely sporting hooligans, and while many of the recorded distur-
bances seem to have started in contexts of crowd and sporting excitement,
when there were serious issues, as in the overthrow of the Emperor Maurice
(602) and the turbulent reign of Phocas (602–10), the factions might well be