THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYHimyar in the 570s affected Byzantine maritime commerce in the Red Sea,^7
and there was variation even within specifi c areas such as the limestone massif
or the area around the Judaean desert monasteries (below).
Various reasons have been put forward for prosperity in the east, among
them the economic benefi ts of the pilgrim traffi c (which included pilgrimage
from Mesopotamia in modern Iraq, to the shrine of St Sergius at Resafa).^8
This was certainly helpful to the region, and had been so since the fourth cen-
tury, but it cannot bear the weight that has sometimes been put on it. Similar
patterns of increased population density are in any case observable elsewhere,
for instance in Egypt. In the case of Palestine and Syria recent explanations
look to long-distance trade as a major factor in understanding the changes
in the region over the period; shipwreck archaeology based on fi nds off the
coast of Israel is one indicator of the density of exchange in the sixth century,
and of a falling-off in the seventh.^9
Long-distance movement of commodities in connection with the annona
has been much studied in recent years through the evidence from amphorae,
and even though its main axis in the later part of our period was from Egypt
and North Africa to Constantinople, it is now clear that other goods travelled
in all directions, and that Palestine and Syria were producing not only olive oil
but also wine on a large scale, amounting to a substantial surplus and source
of local prosperity. Not only shipwreck evidence but also literary sources such
as the seventh-century Life of John the Almsgiver, patriarch of Alexandria, show
that early Byzantine ships were involved in extensive distribution networks
across the Mediterranean and to and from the east, carrying a wide range of
items from metalwork, glass and silverware to spices and perfumes. Cargoes
of specialized items probably also made use of the annona ships on their return
journey having delivered their original cargo. A classic example of private
trade is provided by the sixth-century traveller and merchant known as Cos-
mas Indicopleustes (‘he who sailed to India’), who described trading voyages
to Ethiopia, the Red Sea, India and Sri Lanka in his Christian Topography,^10 but
the material evidence tells a fuller story of long-distance and local exchange
and the interaction of state and private.^11 This picture of extensive non-state
production and distribution in the eastern provinces differs from that in the
west, where the state-led annona accounted for a higher proportion of distri-
bution, and it also refl ects a different kind of settlement pattern, more urban-
ized and with more small producers still doing well, but fewer large estates.^12
Egypt, with its great landowning families, is indeed an exception to this
pattern, though the interpretation of the evidence is controversial.^13 It ought
to follow that the east was less affected when the annona ceased in the early
seventh century, except that that coincided with the invasion and occupation
of most of the east by the Persians; very little is known, however, about the
actual impact of Persian rule (Chapter 9).
Older explanations for the prosperity of Syria and Palestine also appealed
to the caravan trade which had been of major importance in accounting
for the prosperity of Palmyra in the early empire, as we know from ample