Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

war, disruption and economic decline 383
in the Roman period. Rather, the methods of production used were essentially
the same as those of the pre-Roman Iron Age and of the early Middle
Ages. The achievements of the Roman economy depended on developing
tiny surpluses and small-scale production into something much bigger,
through complex and efficient structures. But these structures were fragile,
and if they decayed or were disrupted, nothing of the impressive edifice was
left.
To understand the far-reaching effects of the disappearance of this
edifice, it also helps if we believe that the Roman economy had been able
to encourage specialization of production to the point where consumers
depended for very many of their goods on highly skilled and specialized
producers (who in turn depended for their livelihood on sales over a wide
area). Ironically, if (as in the modern world) economic complexity has
accustomed us to getting what we need by purchase from specialized producers,
when this supply is disrupted, we have no basic skills to fall back
on. This may explain why, say, in fifth-century Britain, a province which had
had highly specialized potting-industries in the third and fourth centuries
reverted to the use of pottery that is technologically far less sophisticated
than that produced by the regional industries of the Iron Age.
x. war, disruption and economic decline
The period 400–650 is marked by the spread of war to almost all regions of
the empire, which had previously (with a rude interruption in the third
century) enjoyed peace for some four hundred years. The relationship
between the arrival of war and the decline of the economy clearly requires
detailed investigation.
Rather than conquest, it was probably war itself and the disruptions that
it caused which brought about change for the worse. As we have seen in
the cases of Vandal Africa and the Arab near east, the arrival of new
peoples (even very different new peoples) did not necessarily cause rapid
economic decline. This is, in fact, unsurprising, since, in all the cases we
know about, the incoming barbarians came to enjoy, not to destroy, the
benefits of Rome. In government and administration, they were certainly
able and happy to employ local ‘middlemen’ to operate those systems of
exploitation that they did not necessarily themselves immediately understand.
Though this is not so well documented, it is likely that they did the
same with the economy.
War and raiding, however, could certainly be very disruptive and damaging
to local production, to systems of distribution and to demand. The Life
of Saint Severinus provides detailed examples of such disruption from a frontier
province on the upper Danube in the dark days of the late fifth century.
At one moment the citizens of Batavis begged the saint to intercede with
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008