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CHAPTER 23
THE BALKANS AND GREECE 420–602
michael whitby
i. introduction
The 420s mark a turning-point in the history of the Balkan provinces of
the Roman empire. Since the 370s the region had been under pressure from
various tribes who were themselves being stimulated to challenge the
strength of imperial defences by the threat posed to them by the westward
movement of the awesome Huns across the south Russian steppe. By 420,
but not much before, the Huns had reached the Danube, establishing
themselves on the Hungarian plain, asserting their authority over other
tribal groups along the Danube, and beginning to challenge Roman imperial
authority in both west and east. 1 South of the river, the prosperity of
urban and rural life varied. Most cities survived the period of Gothic ravaging
and settlement, partly because Goths were not skilled besiegers, but
rural hinterlands upon which the vitality of cities depended had been seriously
affected. This stimulated a significant change in the pattern of settlement,
with the abandonment of isolated rural villages that previously had
served as nuclei for exploiting the countryside and a migration of population
to the safety of urban defences or upland refuges. 2 Some cities might
benefit from an influx of wealthy rural inhabitants who now relocated their
grand villas inside the walls, while others in more exposed places received
impoverished country people but lost their élites. Walls were strengthened
or rebuilt, perhaps to enclose a restricted, more defensible, circuit, though
habitation might still extend beyond the central defended area, as at Athens.
Urban and rural prosperity basically increased with distance from the
Danube, in areas which had been less intensively ravaged in the fourth
century and where, as for example in the Thracian plains, the expansion of
Constantinople stimulated interest in the countryside and made agricultural
land a desirable commodity.
North of the Stara Planina, however, and particularly in Pannonia, conditions
were very different. Although some areas seem to have remained
prosperous until the Hun raids of the mid fifth century – for example, Upper
1 Heather, Goths and Romans 227–30; Heather (1995); Whitby, Maurice 66–7.
2 Amm. Marc. xxxi.6.4; 15.15; Poulter (1983b) 90.
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