Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

384 13. specialized production and exchange
the king of the Rugi, who dominated the countryside around the town, to
persuade him to allow them to trade. The market they wished to set up was
probably to satisfy a purely local need: to exchange their own wares with
the foodstuffs produced in the surrounding countryside. On another occasion,
the saint intervened to fill a gap caused by the disruption of long-distance
trade: he gave to the poor of Lauriacum a dole of oil, because
merchants were now bringing so little to the region. 66
In parts of the empire, the advent of war and the collapse or, at least,
decline of a sophisticated economy do seem to have coincided quite
closely. This is the case in fifth-century Britain, in late-sixth-century Greece
and in seventh-century Asia Minor. It is, admittedly, possible that the coincidence
of date between documented warfare and archaeologically-attested
disruption was not always, in reality, quite as close as it now seems. In
periods when datable archaeological materials (such as coins and fine tablewares)
were disappearing or becoming very scarce, archaeological processes,
which in fact took decades to occur, may all seem to have happened
at one single moment (when the last datable object was deposited).
However, there is no doubt that war and economic decline came at roughly
the same time in all these three areas. And, conversely, it is equally striking
that the period of the east’s most evident economic prosperity (the fifth
and early sixth century) is one of exceptional peace for the region (with the
important exception of the Balkans).
In other parts of the empire, however, war and peace were probably
more contributory than principal factors in their changing economic fortunes.
For instance, in Italy and Africa there was no lack of trouble (from
Visigoths, Vandals, Berbers, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Franks and
Lombards – to name only the principal protagonists); and there is sufficient
documentary evidence to prove that warfare and raiding did harm the
economy. There were also protracted periods of peace (for example, in
Italy, forty years under the Ostrogoths). However, the underlying pattern
in both Africa and Italy is more of slow and steady decline (in Italy probably
starting well before the main period of invasion) than of marked
downward and upward steps coinciding closely with known periods of
insecurity and of peace. This is a pattern best explained in terms of longerterm
changes. 67
It is, indeed, worth wondering, even in the case of those regions whose
economies do seem to have been knocked out by war, why they did not subsequently
recover. Both in late antiquity and in other periods of history,
other economies appear to have been more resilient. Greece, for example,
66 Vita S. Severini ed. R. Noll (Berlin 1963), caps. 22 and 28 (English trans. L. Bieler, 79 and 83).
67 Within the basic pattern of a downhill slope, there may also be some steps down (possibly attributable
to known periods of insecurity, such as the Gothic and Lombard wars in Italy). At present the
available data are insufficiently detailed to reveal them unambiguously.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008