Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

the political geography 571
Inscriptions continued to be set up in many cities of the region, but there
is an enormous decrease in quantity between the Roman and the late
Roman period. As a result, at very many sites there are only a few late
Roman inscriptions, which are sometimes hard to find and even harder to
evaluate in the epigraphic corpora. 2
In assessing both inscriptions and archaeological material there is a
recurrent problem of terminology: one author will describe as ‘Byzantine’
what another will call ‘late Roman’, and it is necessary to be extremely
careful in reading such descriptions. It is also true that, because the archaeology
of this period has developed relatively recently, the criteria for dating
material within the late Roman period are still rather hazy; but each season’s
work is increasing archaeological accuracy in such matters. This is a field
where our understanding may be radically different in another ten years.
Archaeological discoveries have therefore broken the silence of the historical
sources. The picture which they provide complements that provided
in the saints’ Lives; these texts, which emerge as a literary genre in late antiquity,
provide a new kind of information by focusing on individuals who lived
outside the world of the urban élite. While they are written with no intention
of informing us about social and political issues, much can be learned from
their assumptions and from the incidental events which are mentioned in
them. Lycia in the mid sixth century is brought alive by the Life of Nicholas of
Sion, just as Galatia at the end of the same century is evoked in the Life of
Theodore of Sykeon, and in both cases archaeological work in the area concerned
confirms the witness of the text. 3 What becomes clear is that, while
few events worthy of ‘official’ history were taking place, the way of life for
individuals and communities in the area was changing significantly. 4
ii. the political geography
Asia Minor is a term of convenience. The large land mass which corresponds
roughly to the Asian territory of modern-day Turkey was never in
antiquity a historical and cultural unity; it was inhabited by various peoples,
speaking a number of different languages, who were from time to time controlled
by a single political authority. Over the millennia, this authority had
2 The only collection of such material, Grégoire (1922), was intended to be the first volume of a
series, which never materialized. It is still worth consulting; but the best current source of information
on such material is the section on Christian epigraphy in the ‘Bulletin épigraphique’, a survey of Greek
inscriptions published annually in the Revue des Études Grecques. The easiest source of information in
English is the ‘Review of Roman Inscriptions’ which normally appears every five years in the Journal of
Roman Studies.
3 The Life of St Nicholas of Sion ed. S ˇ evčenko and S ˇ evčenko (1984); The Life of Theodore of Sykeon trans.
Dawes and Baynes (1948).
4 For central Asia Minor this is brought out, with an exemplary use of both archaeological and
textual evidence, by Mitchell, Anatolia ii. For the best account of Cyprus in this period see Chrysos
(1993), and, for the end of the period, Cameron (1992).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008