The Roman West in the Third Century, Parts i and ii: Contributions from Archaeology and History 9781407389578, 9781407389585, 9780860541271, 9781407324951

Table of contents :
Cover Page
Copyright Page
Frontispiece
Contents
List of Contributors
Introduction
1. The Church of the Third Century in the West
2. Cremation and Inhumation—Change in the Third Century
3. Romano-Celtic Temples in the Third Century
4. The Third Century: Crisis of Change?
5. The Economic Effects of Roman Frontier Policy
6. The Decline of Samian Ware Manufacture in the North West Provinces: Problems of Chronology and Interpretation
7. Coinage and Currency in the Third Century
7A. The Circulation of Coin in the Western Provinces A.D. 260-295
8. Continuity and Change in the Design of Roman Jewellery
9. Roman Mirrors and the Third Century
10. Romano-British Mosaics in the Third Century
11. Architectural Patronage in the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire in the Third Century
12. The Burden of Roman Granduer: Aspects of Public Building in the Cities of Asia and Achaea
13. African Building: Money, Politics and Crisis in Auzia
14. The Revolt of the Gordians and the Amphitheatre at Thysdrus (El Djem)
15. Money-Rents and Food-Renders in Gallic Funerary Reliefs
16. The Fate of Gallo-Roman Villages in the Third Century
17. The Third Century Roman Occupation in Belgium: The Evidence of the Coastal Plain
PART II
Cover Page
Copyright Page
Contents
18. Western Gaul in the Third Century
19. The Aeduan Area in the Third Century
20. The Third Century in the Lyon Region
21. The History and Archaeology of Roman Britain in the Third Century
22. Environmental Change in the Third Century
23. London and South East Britain
24. Verulamium in the Third Century
25. Change
26. Third Century Chester
27. Ireland and Rome: The Maritime Frontier
28. The Conventus Tarraconensis in the Third Century A.D.: Crisis or Change?
29. The Trading Connections of Rome and Central Italty in the Late Second and Third Centuries: The Evidence of the Terme Fel Nuotatore Excavations, Ostia
30. Malta in the Third Century
31. The Illyrian Provinces: External Threat and Internal Change
32. Those Crisis? The Archaeology of the Third Century: A Warning
Abstracts

Citation preview

The Roman West in the Third Century Contributions from Archaeology and History

edited by

Anthony King and Martin Henig Part i

BAR International Series 109(i) .1981

B.A.R.

B.A.R., 122 Bai:ibury Road, Oxford OX2 78P, England

GENERAL EDITORS A. R. Hands, B.Sc., �I.A., D.Phil. D. R. Walker, :\1.A.

B. A. R. S 109 (I), 1981, "The Roman West in the Third Century" Part I © The Individual Authors, 1981.

The authors’ moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. ISBN 9781407389578 (Volume I) paperback ISBN 9781407389585 (Volume II) paperback ISBN 9780860541271 (Volume set) paperback ISBN 9781407324951 (Volume set) e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9780860541271 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Frontispiece

Aurei of Postumus and Tetricus I (x2) (Courtesy of Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

CONTENTS Page Volume i Frontispiece Aurei of Postumus and Tetricus I Contents and List of Illustrations List of Contributors Introduction

1

Religion 1. The Church of the third century in the West Henry Chadwick 2. Cremation and inhumation-change in the third century R. F. J. Jones

5

3.

Romano-Celtic temples in the third century Peter Horne

15 21

Fig. 3.1 The use of Romano-Celtic temples in different periods in Roman Britain

22

Fig. 3.2 The building and use of Romano-Celtic temples in different periods in Continental Europe

23

Fig. 3.3 The use of Romano-Celtic temples in different periods in Continental Europe, according to their location

24

Economics and Trade 4.

The third century; crisis or change? Richard Reece 5. The economic effects of Roman frontier policy A. R. Birley Table 5.1 The size of the Roman army, �- A.D. 150 6. The decline of samian ware manufacture in the North West Provinces: problems of chronology and interpretation Anthony King Fig. 6.1 The distribution of Antonine denarii in hoards terminting between �- 140 and �- 270 Fig. 6.2 Silver coinage in hoards terminating between c. - 140 and c. 2 80 Fig. 6. 3 Bronze coinage in hoards terminating between c. - 140 and c. 270 Fig. 6.4 Map showing generalised distribution areas of the principal samian ware kiln centres of the late second and early third centuries

27 39 40 55 55 58 59 60

64

Page Fig. 6. 5 Dated sherds from different kiln centres, expressed as a histogram of the number of coin-dated sherds per ten year period

65

Fig. 6. 6 Relative costs for transporting samian ware to Britain

70

7.

Coinage and currency in the third century Richard Reece

7A. The circulation of coin in the western provinces A .D. 260-295 C. E . King

Fig . 7A .1 British and Gallic sites mentioned in the text and tables

79 89 . 91

Tables 7A .1-7A .16 Coinage of Gallic, British and central Empires, and imitations, from sites in the western provinces 101 Tables 7A .17-7 A .19 Percentage distributions of Gallic Empire, central Empire a nd imitation coins

115

Art 8. Continuity and change in the design of Roman jewellery Martin Henig

127

Plate 8. I Rings of the late second and third centuries

131

Figs. 8. 1-8. 4 A parure of the late second or early third centuries from Lyons (from Comarmond 1844)

134

9 . Roman mirrors and the third century G. Lloyd-Morgan

145

Plate 9. I

Group E mirror, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier

147

Plate 9.II

Group Eb mirror, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier

147

Plate 9. Ill

Group W mirror from Nijmegen, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden

148

Group W mirror from Simpelveld, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden

148

Group Wa mirror, Hamburg Museum ftir Kunst und Gewerbe

149

Plate 9. VI

Group Xc mirror, Castello Sforzesco, Milan

149

Plate 9.VII

Group Y mirror, Narodni Muzej, Ljubljana

150

Plate 9.IV Plate 9. V

Plate 9 . VIII Group Y mirror, Grosvenor Museum, Chester Fig. 9.1

Decorative motifs on group X mirrors in the Rijksmuseum G .M. Kam, Nijmegen

150 153

10 . Romano-British mosaics in the third century D . J. Smith

159

Plate 10.I

Mosaic of A .D. 220...:80, Rapsley, Surrey

161

Plate 10 .II

Mosaic from Harpole, Northants

161

Plate 10. Ill Mosaic of the late third century, Bignor, Sussex

162

Plate 10.IV Mosaic of c. 270+, Room VII, Kingsweston, Glos.

162

Page Architecture 11. Architectural patronage in the western provinces of the

Roman Empire in the third century T. F. C. Blagg

167

Plate 11.1

Corinthian column capital, Chesters

171

Plate 11.II

Decorated pier capital, Bathford

171

Plate 11.111 Beauvais town wall, interior face, East side

172

Plate ll.IV Town walls, Silchester

172

Fig. 11.1

Tuscan columns

175

Fig. 11.2

Tuscan column capitals with steep profiles

177

Fig. 11.3

Tuscan column and capitals from the area around Wa ter Newton

177

Romano-Celtic temples in Continental Europe with evidence of use in some part of the third century

179

Romano-Celtic temples in Continental Europe with evidence of destruction in the third century

181

Fig. 11.4 Fig. 11.5

12. The burden of Roman grandeur:

aspects of public building

in the cities of Asia and Achaea Susan Walker money, politics and crisis in Auzia Elizabeth Fentress

189

13. African building:

Fig. 13.1

199

Histogram of new and repaired buildings per year in North Africa

200

Histogram of new and repaired buildings per year in Africa Proconsularis

200

Fig. 13.3

Map showing location of Auzia

202

Fig. 13.4

Histogram of buildings set up or repaired at Auzia in the third century

203

Fig. 13.2

14. The revolt of the Gordians and the amphitheatre at Thy sdrus

(El Djem) D. L. Bomgardner Table 14.1

211

Comparison of the sizes of the Colosseum and the Thysdrus amphitheatre

Regional Studies:

212

Gaul

15. Money-rents and food-renders in Gallic funerary reliefs J. F. Drink water

215

Plate 15 .I

'Rent-paying scene':

Neumagen

219

Plate 15.II

'Rent-paying scene':

I gel

219

Plate 15.III 'Rent-paying scene':

Trier

220

Plate 15.IV 'Rent-paying scene': El tern 2aar12feiler

Neumagen-Grosser 220

Plate 15.V Plate 15.VI Plate 15.VII Plate 15.VIII Plate 15.IX Plate 15.X Plate 15.XI Plate 15.XII Plate 15.XIII Plate 15.XIV

'Rent-paying scene': Mannheim 'Rent-paying scene': Arlon 'Rent-paying scene': Luxembourg 'Food-rendering scene': Igel 'Food-rendering scene': Arlon Zirkusdenkmal, N e•umagen-Warenverkauf 'Draper's memorial': Arlon

Page 221 221 222 222 227 227 228

Quant's reconstruction of the Igel column

228

Wiltheim's sketch of the Ara Lunae at Arlan Reconstruction of an Arlan 'A' pillar

229 229

16. The fate of Gallo-Roman villages in the third century Edith Wightman

235

Table 16.1

237

The fates of vici in Belgica

17. The third century Roman occupation in Belgium: the evidence of the coastal plain Hugo Thoen

17.2

The Belgian coastal plain in the Roman period, c. 70-270 Late Roman defences along the North Sea coasts

17.3 17.4

Plan of part of a 'Red Hill' at Leffinge Local pottery from the coastal plain

17.5

Prominent trade-routes during the third century

Fig. 17.1 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

245 247 249 251 253 255

Volume ii 18 Western Gaul in the third century Patrick Galliou Table 18.1 Coin distribution for some Roman sites of western Gaul

.259

Fig. 18.1 Fig. 18.2 Fig. 18.3

265 263 Western Gaul in the late second century 266 Western Gaul in the early third century Distribution of milestones of the late third century 269

Fig. 18.4

Distribution of hoards of the late third century

19. The Aeduan area in the third century Bridget Buckley Fig. 19.1 The Aeduan area in the third century, showing sites mentioned· in the text

272 287 289

20. The third century in the Lyon region 317 Stephen Walker Fig. 20.1 Third century sites in the departement of the Rh6ne 327 Fig. 20.2

Third century sites in the departement of the Loire 335

Page RegionalStudies:

Britain

21. The history and archaeology of Roman Britain in the third century Graham Webster Wheeler's plan and section of the tower 228 feet Fig. 21.1 West of the South Gate, Verulamium 22. Environmental change in the third century Helen Porter Fig. 22 .1

Map showing coastal and pollen sites

23. London andSouth East Britain Harvey Sheldon Fig. 23.1 Histogram of terminations of activity Fig. 23.2 Histogram of commencements of activity Fig. 23.3 Histogram of cessations, etc., and recommencements, etc. Fig. 23.4 Histogram of cessations, etc., and recommencements, etc., on rural and urban sites compared Fig. 23.5 Histogram of terminations and commencements on northern and southern sites compared Fig. 23.6 Histogram of cessations, etc., and recommencements, etc., on northern and southern sites compared 24. Verulamium in the third century S.S. Frere Fig. 24.1 Plan of V erulamium Fig. 24.2 Plan of buildings excavated 1955-60 to theSouth West of the forum Fig. 24.3 Fig. 24.4

343 347 353 357 363 370 371 372 374 374 376 383 385 387

Plan of buildings to the North and East of the forum

388

Plan of buildings excavated 1956-7 outside the city to the North East

389

25. Change on the frontier: northern Britain in the third century R. F. J. Jones 393 26. Third century Chester T. J. Strickland Plan of the legionary fortress, c. A. D. 200 Fig. 26.1 Fig. 26.2 Plan of the 'fortress' area, c, A.D. 300

429

Fig. 26.3

435

Plan of the extramural settlement

415 415 421

27. Ireland and Rome: the maritime frontier Harold Mytum

445

Table 27.1

448

The coins from Newgrange

Page Table 27.2

Selected categories of Roman objects (of all periods) found beyond the frontiers in Scotland and Ireland

Regional Studies:

other areas

28. The Conventus Tarraconensis in the third century A.D.: crisis or change? Simon J. Keay Tegula stamp of Lucius Herennius Optatus Plate 28.I A turret of the third century town wall of Plate 28.11 Barcino Plate 28.III The third century town wall at Gerunda, immediately South of the Porta Rufina Postern in the Torre Gironella, Gerunda Plate 28.IV Plate 28.V Fig. 28.1

Fig. 28.2 Fig. 28.3

448

Mauretanian Ostia V amphora in situ in the corner of a thermopolium at Emporiae- -Map of the Augustan provinces of Hispania, showing the conventus in Tarraconensis and the tribes around Tarraco

451 457 473 475 476 476

453 454

Roman sites and settlement intensity in Catalunya Distribution of sites of the first and second centuries A.D.

455

Fig. 28.4

Plan of the fundus at Sentroma

457

Fig. 28.5

Plan of the principal features of Tarraco in the second and third centuries Plan of the Roman town at Emporiae

459 460

Fig. 28.6 Fig. 28.7 Fig. 28.8 Fig. 28.9 Fig. 28.10 Fig. 28.11

Plan of the villa at Torre Llauder de MatarcS in the late second and early third centuries Map of changes in rural occupation in the late second and early third centuries Distribution of late Roman walled towns, and the Diocletianic provinces of Hispania Plan of B arcino Plan of Gerunda

29. The trading connections of Rome and Central Italy in the late second and third centuries: the evidence of the Terme del Nuotatore excavations, Ostia Andrea Carandini and Clementina Panella Fig. 29.1 Histograms of the percentage of amphora rims according to their area of origin present in the main stratigraphic phases of the Terme del Nuotatore 30. Malta in the third century A. Bonanno

465

469 471 474

487 487

491

505

Page 31 . The Illyrian provinces: J. J. Wilkes

external threat and internal change 515

Postscript 32 . Whose crisis? The archaeology of the third century: a warning Martin Millett Fig. 32.1

Abstracts

A tentative model of the relationship between archaeological and historical sources relating to the third century

525

527 531

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Prof. A. R. Birley, Professor of Ancient History, University of Manchester. T . F. C . Blagg, Lecturer in Archaeology, School of Continuing Education, University of Kent at Canterbury. D. Bomgardner, Lecturer in Ancient .History and Archaeology, King Alfred's College, Winchester, Hants. Dr. A. Bonanno, 27, St Gregory Street, Zejtun, Malta. B rid get B uckley , Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Prof. A. Carandini, Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia, Universifa degli Studi di Siena. Prof. H. Chadwick, The Divinity School, St John's Street, Cambridge. Dr. J. F. Drink water, Department of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology, University of Sheffield. Elizabeth W. B. Fen tress , via del Arco degli Acetari 31, Roma. Prof. S. S. Frere, Institute of Archaeology, Oxford. Patrick Galliou, Agrege de l 'Universite, Faculte des lettres et Sciences Sociales, . BP 860, 29279 BREST-Cedex. Martin Henig, 21, Bardwell Road, Oxford. Peter Horne , Institute of Archaeology, London. R. F. J. Jones, School of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford. Simon J. Keay, Institute of Archaeology, London. Anthony King, King Alfred's College, Winchester, Hants. , and Institute of Archaeology, London. Dr C . E. King, Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. G. Lloyd-Morgan, Grosvenor Museum, Chester.

Martin Millett, Assistant Keeper of Archaeology, Hampshire County Museums Service, Chilcomb House, Bar End, Winchester, Hants. Harold Mytum, Sir James Knott Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Clementina Panella, Seminario di Archeologia e Storia dell 'Arte Greca e Romana, Universita di Roma. Helen Porter, 9, Castle Mill House, Juxon Street, Oxford. Richard Reece, Institute of Archaeology, London. Harvey Sheldon, · Southwark and Lambeth Archaeological Excavation Committee, Port Medical Centre, English Grounds, Morgan 's Lane, London SE 1. Dr D . J. Smith , Senior Lecturer ·in Archaeology and Keeper of the Museum of Antiquities, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. T. J. Strickland, Field Officer, Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Dr Hugo Thoen, Seminarie voor Archeologie, Rijksuniversiteit Gent, Blandijnberg 2, B-9000 Gent, Belgium. Stephen Walker, Centre d'Etudes Romaines et Gallo-Romaines, Universite de Lyon Ill. Dr Susan Walker, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum. Dr Graham Webster, The Old School House, Chesterton, Harbury, nr. Leamington Spa, Warwicks. Dr Edith Wightman, Department of History, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Prof. J. J. Wilkes, Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Provinces, Institute of Archaeology, London.

INTRODUCTION

"During that calamitous period, every instant was marked, every province of the Roman world was afflicted, by barbarous invaders and military tyrants, and the ruined empire seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution. The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic memorials, oppose equal difficulties to the historian, who attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration. Surrounded with imperfect fragments, always concise, often obscure, and sometimes contradictory, he is reduced to collect, to compare, and to conjecture: and though he ought never to place his conjectures in the rank of facts, yet the knowledge of human nature, and of the sure operation of its fierce and unrestrained passions, might, on some occasions, supply the want of historical materials." Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Ch. 10.

These remarks by Gibbon, which serve to open his chapter on the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, encapsulate both the popular judgement passed on the third century, and the difficulties facing students who wish to analyse the period in more depth. The century has, typically, been characterised as one of 'crisis', due to the stress laid on political and social anarchy in the ancient sources (cf. AlfMdy 1974); and it is the small extent and often arcane nature of these sources that constrains many studies to adhere to the 'crisis' as a suitable interpretation. A way to supplement the paucity of historical materials, and, in addition, to provide information capable of interpretation in a completely different manner from that of the historian, is to make use of the surprisingly large, and increasing, storehouse of archaeological data, as most of the contributors to this volume have done. This is not to imply that 'crisis' has no place in the vocabulary of third century studies, as a result of new, archaeological interpretations. In fact, the papers in this volume go some way to demonstrating that a sense of crisis and rapid change is often apparent, even in the most un-historical of approaches. The dominant impression, however, that we have gained during the editing of this collection of papers, is that of the variety of interpretations proposed. In part this is because they reflect the labours of scholars in disciplines as diverse as ecclesiastical history and environmental archaeology, military studies and art. Some of our authors see a distinct shock to the Imperial system, others redefine the crisis, somewhat differently, as a time of significant change, not necessarily catastrophic in either its symptoms or its effects. Indeed, some of the papers show that the century was a period of

1

considerable achievem ent in a number of fields-in a rt, in military and administrative organisation, and in religion, especially the growth of the Christian Church. For the honestiores, living standards, as witnessed by villa and toV\rn house building, appear to have risen. On the other hand, civic virtU evidently declined. F ew public buildings were erected, with certain exceptions documented below (pp. 201 and 211); the debasement of the coinage obviously had a debilitating effect on the economy; barba rians and, pe rhaps even more, bagaudae illustrate a breakdown in the high standard of social cohesion, exemplified by Aristides1 panegyric on Rome written in the days of the Antonines (Oliver 1953). Eut perhaps we should not compare the difficulties of the third century with the peace and prosperity of the second. In many respects, the second century was an exceptional period; the terrible events of the year 69 quickly r emind us that acute tensions were a reality in Roman life, however they were masked. The pax romana was never a s complete as some are inclined to think. To strike a note of apology for those who seek a comple te coverage of themes relevant to the third century in a volume s uch as this- we are aware that there are gaps amongst our papers. The subject of the barbarians deserve s a more adequate coverage, as does the German frontier. Literary sources might have been considered (though many of them are Greek and eastern), and the spread of the oriental cults in the West is another important topic~ Most of our attempts to commission papers on art and culture in Italy were unsuccessful. This we especially r egret, for few would deny that what happened in Rome or Milan or Campania was of equal, if not greater moment than the peripheral, even i f interesting, events in a province such as Britain. We a r e less apologetic in not devoting much space to fortifications in the Roman West, as these have been the subject of recent conferences; on the Saxon Shore (Johnston 1977), and on fortifications in the north western provinces (Council for British Archaeology, forthcoming). Despite this, we firmly believe that the volume holds a rich enough variety of papers to satisfy most tastes, and we are very grateful to all the contributors for allowing their articles to be published here, and for co-operating so readily with our requests. The original conference, with r a ther fewer pape rs than are included he re, owed much to Trevor Rowley, Shirley Hermon and Charlie Chambers at Rewley House, and to Professor Keith Hopkins for his admirable summingup, which, however, he did not wish to h ave published. We were also fortuna te to have the good advice of scholarly friends, notably Tom Blagg, Julia n Munby and Richard Reece. The frontispiece was chosen with the kind help of Cathy King and Sara Lucas. Editing was, if anything, made more pleasant by the excitments of the Hayling Island excavations and the comforts of the local inns. Roman Temple Excavations, Hayling Island , Hampshire. September 1980 .

Anthony King Martin Henig

2

AlflHdy, G., 1974. 'The crisis of the third century as seen by contemporaries', Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 15, 89-111. Johnston, D. E., 1977 (ed. ). 18}, London.

The Saxon Shore (CBA Research Report, No.

Oliver, J. H., 1953. 'The ruling power. A study of the Roman Empire in the second century after Christ through the Roman Oration of Aelius Aristides' , Trans. Am. Philos. Soc. 43, 871-1003. (For text and translation.)

3

1. THE CHURCH OF THE THIRD CENTURY IN THE WEST Henry Chadwick

In the West the Christian mission moved more slowly than in the Greek East, except that in the city of Rome it quickly became established and sufficiently numerous to be able to distribute financial aid to smaller and less favoured communities. In the middle years of the third century the Roman church had on its payroll 155 persons on the list of clergy, and more than 1500 widows and needy daily fed from the offerings of the faithful 'by the grace and bounty of the Lord' (Eus., H. E. VI, 43). On the basis of this figure it is conventional and perhaps correct to deduce that the community as a whole numbered more than 30, 000 (Harnack 1924, 806). Its bishop can only have been well known to be a personage of importance to that community. Cyprian attributes to Decius the dictum that he would prefer to confront a rival emperor than to see a new bishop installed in the Church at Rome ~- 55, 9). Apart from the church in Rome, our evidence for the Western churches is principally from North Africa, above all the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian of Carthage. Elsewhere our light on the growth of the western churches in this period is only fitful and fragmentary, mainly dependent on archaeological investigations. A certain amount can be deduced from Latin writers of the beginning of the fourth century such as Arnobius and Lactantius. In this paper it would obviously be absurd to try to recount the history of the western churches of the third century so far as our evidence allows. I shall therefore pick out the theme of the church's relation to society and government, and in particular try to illustrate some of the ways in which the Christians of the century before Constantine moulded the concept of a secular society. In our time many write of the secularisation of society, and the word 'secularisation' has come to have rich harmonics of ambiguous meaning. The early Christians are more responsible than anyone for the notion that there is an entity called the saeculum which is somehow irreligious and alienated from God, whose values constantly tend to threaten the more inward ideals which the Church is called to serve, but whose independence is a fundamental religious theme of the Christian community itself. Ancient paganism was deeply woven into the fabric and customs of society. But the pre-Christian world had no language or terminology for discussing what we mean when we speak of 'Church and State' as a nexus of problems in western political theory. In Cicero' s Republic, Scipio' s dream expresses an ideal for the Rome he loved, which is shot through with deep religious aspiration. But there is no sense of having two independent competing societies, the civitas terrena and the civitas dei, as Augustine was to put it early in the fifth century. When Horace wrote a carmen saeculare, he did not mean a 'secular song'.

5

The dualistic theory of Church and State is more western than eastern, more Roman than By zantine, more Latin than Greek. It was largely shaped by Christian writers of the century before the conversion of Constantine the Great, an event which recent work has come increasingly to see as one of those many revolutions that in retrospect come to seem like mild ripples on the water making relatively little difference to what was already happening. That is another way of saying that the basic political theory of the Christian empire was largely formed before ever Constantine put the Chi-Rho monogram as symbol of Christ' s protection on the shields and standards of his army, long before he decided that the God of the Christians had a destiny for him to perform, long before the Christians themselves woke up to realise that they were in process of capturing society. The early Christians are a society within society, possessed of a strong coherence which was strengthened yet further by the hostility of Graeco-Roman society and the imperial government. They were not the only world-wide voluntary association in the empire. The repertory actors, for instance, had formed a professional association or trades union to protect their interests and had even succeeded in putting enough pressure on the government to obtain tax relief. A few papyrus texts survive containing certificates of tax exemption for fully paid up members of the association of actors, and from these we learn that this worldwide association in the third century was calling itself an oikoumenike synodos. So when in May 325 Constantine the Great called a worldwide council of bishops, mainly Greek but with four or five representatives from the West including legates of the bishop of Rome, there already lay ready to hand a convenient term for describing the large assembly, ecumenical council. It may be no accident that the Council of Nicaea was granted its petition for tax relief for the churches (Chadwick 1972). Though not the only world-wide association, the Church was a growing body determined to spread to every known race and, especially in the East, increasing in numbers to an extent that embarrassed thoughtful observers. Origen once comments on the misgivings with which he contemplates the huge church a ttendances (Horn. in Matt. 17, 24). The churches seem to him to be carrying too many passengers, too many who are Christians in hardly more than name. Instead of coming to church to pay heed to the word of God, some sit in corners of the building reading secular literature during Origen' s sermons (Horn. in Exod. 12, 2). In the cities bishops have become persons of social consequence, cultivated by ladies of refinement and wealth to whom they preach ear- tickling sermons, and easygoing with the discipline of the laity for fear of provoking unpopularity (H. Ezech. 3, 3; c. Cels. 3, 9; H. Jos. 7, 6). People complain of the quality of their clergy, Origen remarks; but they get the clergy they deserve (H. Jud. 4, 3). As the bishop emerged to be leader of the earliest Christian communities based upon the towns, he was felt to be the symbolic figure who represented his church. This was literally the case when he went to the consecration of a bishop at a nearby town in the same province. The local plebs chose their candidate, but the ordination was carried out by the bishops from the other towns in the civil province; and by the time of the council of Nicaea in 325 the bishop of the provincial metropolis was not only the normal presiding con6

Henry Chadwick secrator, but also entrusted with a power of veto if an unsuitable candidate were to be proposed. The plebs was vulnerable to faction, and episcopal elections were frequently a source of unrest. One western council of the fourth century (Serdica, 343, can. 2) records its outrage at the practice of bribing a claque to shout for a particular candidate as if it were a secular election. It became common practice for bishops to try to avert trouble by nominating their successor. In a surprisingly large number of cases the problem of the succession was solved by the dominance of a particular family, often that round which the church in a town had first been formed and which then expected to supply a suitable ·candidate. A late second century bishop of Ephesus was proud to claim that seven of his close relatives had been bishops (Eus., H. E. V, 24, 6). In Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Spain it was normally the case that the see remained in one family, however widely extended the concept of the family might be. But from the third century this practice came to be regarded by strict Christians as disreputable and worldly. In Spain bishoprics came to be treated by their possessors as a piece of hereditary property that they could dispose of by their last will and testament (Pope Hilarus ~· 15, p. 162 Thiel). Origen bitterly complains of hereditary bishoprics (H. Num. 22, 4), and in the Greek East this view became more general. The hereditary concept continued long to operate in Armenia (C. Trull. can . 33) and Mesopotamia and also in the Nile valley. For Spain we have explicit evidence (Prudentius, Perist. iv, 7980) that at Saragossa the family of Valerii supplied a long line of bishops in a way that was a source of local pride. Under the hereditary system one might not get the best man for the job, but at least his election was not likely to lead to street fights. Eusebius of Caesarea (H. E. VI, 29, 3) tells the well known story how at Rome in the middle of the third century a divided plebs took it as a sign of celestial choice when a dove settled on the head of an otherwise inoffensive presbyter Fabius who immediately found himself unanimously seated in the chair of teaching authority. Not long passed before his episcopate was crowned with martyrdom on 20 January 250, the first victim of the persecution of the emperor Decius. The conversion of individuals from the educated and upper classes became commoner as the third century proceeded. Within a few years of one another we have the startling juxtaposition of an emancipated slave becoming bishop of Rome, Callistus in the 220s, and, a quarter of a century later in Cyprian of Carthage, the first bishop of probably senatorial rank. The bishops had at all stages of the Church's history to preach to congregations of mixed ability. The Church was from the start a comprehensive school in which the intelligent, as we learn from remarks of Origen, did not always feel themselves to be well looked after. (In Matt. 10, 1; c. Cels. 3, 21; in Matt. series 61.) By the third century Christianity is seriously penetrating the ruling class, e.g. wives of provincial governors, members of the Emperor's household, even engaging the sympathy of the Emperor Commodus' concubine Marcia. Tertullian (Scap. 3) tells of a governor of Cappadocia so outraged by his wife's conversion that he initiated a local persecution of the churches. Hippolytus soon afterwards (in Dan. iv, 18) tells of the Christian wife of the governor of Syria, able to enlist her husband's sympathy in protection of the Church.

7

Origen tells us that, in the opinion of some Christians, pagan governors who protected the Church against persecution would surely be rewarded hereafter (in Matt. serie s 120). An early fourth century papyrus mentions a pagan soldier, who, despite his paganism, was so apologetic for having maltreated some dissident Christians that he financed an ~or love feast at which it was customary for the beneficiaries to join in prayer for their benefactor (P.Lond. 1914, line 28, in Bell 1924, 59). How far the penetrating of the upper levels of the administration had gone by the middle of the third century receives a lapidary demonstration in the letters of Cyprian of Carthage. Before his conversion Cyprian had been a public figure, pleading cases in the Carthaginian lawcourts; possessed of a country villa and estates, certainly a man of substance. He became bishop of Carthage about 248 not long after his baptism, and it would be idle to pretend that his social standing had nothing to do with the choice of the people. But this election of a neophyte naturally upset local clergy of long service who felt, as it is only human to feel, that the church should offer a career structure in which those who bear the burden and heat of the day eventually find their their way to the top. From the start of his tenure of the see Cyprian was faced with an unco-operative group out to discover anything to his disadvantage and resentful of his superiority of class. There is no doubt that Cyprian' s class counted for something. In his letters he never addresses other bishops as dominus; but they so address him. The 80th letter shows what good connections he had at the court. From a highly placed anonymous correspondent at the court Cyprian is able to learn of an impending edict ordering fresh harassment of the church, news which reaches the bishop of Carthage long before it reaches the proconsul of Africa. One can safely deduce that there is a dedicated Christian very near the top in the Imperial chancery, admitted to the very counsels of the Imperial consistory. Yet the Christian penetration of the ruling class created a series of ethical problems. Power may be delightful to those who exercise it, but the process is visibly corrupting to observers. Third century Christians regard power as such with candid reserve and hostility. In Tertullian and in Hippolytus we have lists of occupations forbidden to baptised Christians, from which we learn that a number of Christians were stretching things quite far. Tertullian (Idol. 7) mentions clergy who continued with their trade as makers of idols or 'moonlighting' with their lucrative practice in astrology and fortune-telling, appealing to the Magi of St Matthew ii (Idol. 9). Tertullian classifies such occupations with training gladiators or living on immoral earnings (Idol. 11). But could a Christian serve as a magistrate ? Was there not biblical precedent for exercising authority in society in the service of God, for example in Joseph in Egypt or King David? Tertullian will not accept the argument. There are three unnegotiable hurdles in idolatrous pollution; in punitive duties including the inflicting of torture and capital punishment which are highly offensive to the Christian conscience; and in the incompatibility of the exercise of authori ty with the practice of humility (Idol. 17) . Indeed a Christian may undertake public office (he continues, dripping with irony) provided he can avoid sacrificing or being a party to a sacrifice; if he can having nothing to do with assigning the care of temples to others; if he gives no

8

Henry Chadwick public spectacles at his own charges, takes no oaths, and never judges anyone (though he is allowed to arbitrate in disputes about property-one must deduce that within the Christian community bishops were already being asked to undertake this role of arbitration, and from Syria a generation after Tertullian' s time we have in the Didascalia Apostolontm our earliest account of the operations of the episcopalis audientia or bishop' s court for settling disagreements in his flock). No Christian may sentence anyone to bonds, imprisonment, or torture. Torture and capital punishment were profoundly offensive to the early Christians, and long after Constantine' s time discussions continued concerning the withholding of communion from Christians who in the role as magistrates had imposed the death penalty . It should be added that we also hear of pagan provincial governors who used to boast after retirement that during their tenure of office they had never had to execute anyone (Ambrose, ~· 25; Libanius, orat. 45, 27). The identical moral issue was raised by the question of military service. To object to capital punishment and to offer no objection to military service, or vice versa, is not obviously consistent. Tertullian voices the same objections to both (Idol. 19; Cor. 11-12). He allows a soldier converted to Christianity to continue as a catechumen, but wishes him to leave the colours when 1:1e is baptised 'as many, though not all, do' (Cor. 11). Justice and public office were in general well known to be for sale in the third century empire. Cyprian sees the issue clearly . Where a man has spent his fortune in getting himself appointed to a desirable post, it is hardly surprising when he then administers the office in such a manner as to recoup his outlay and leave himself in profit (ad Donatum 10-12). Cyprian makes his own the tradition of social criticism already found in Seneca. How wrong it is that the immense estates of the rich grow so as to exclude the poor from the land altogether, and all they gain is continual anxiety of mind that some of their gold will be taken from them (ad Donatum 12). At the end of the third century Lactantius adopts the same tone in an attack on the vast inequalities between rich and poor (Inst. V, 14, 19-20; 22, 5f. ), and also on the pursuit of self-interest by governments in the insatiable lust of imperialist domination. It was always easy for a moralist to see the Roman empire as a Satanic

organisation prefigured by one of the beast kingdoms of Daniel's apocalyptic vision (Dan. vii). This passage is expressly interpreted of Rome by Hippolytus' commentary on the prophet (in Dan. iv, 5, lf. ). The Christians liked reading prophecies of the Empire's impending doom (Or. Sib. viii, 145-50), and thought the coming of Antichrist imminent, the only question in doubt being whether Antichrist should be identified with an external enemy such as a persecuting Emperor or with an internal foe in the shape of a heretical teacher. Yet Tertullian declares that the Christians faithfully pray for the continuing stability of the Empire. In obedience to the apostolic instruction in the New Testament, Christians pray for Emperors and rulers and hold them in due honour. So even Tertullian ascribes to the Empire a positive role in the providential purposes of God. This positive assessment stands beside 9

other passages where he declares that the order of this world being merely transitory is no concern of whose who have to look to the kingdom of God. Christians who pray for the preservation of civilised values seem to Tertullian to have become altogether too worldly and secular (Orat. 5). Let others, not the Christians at their prayers, worry about the falling birthrate, the corruption of justice, the decline in the level of trade, the poor attendance at the temples (Exh . Cast. 12). It is instructive to notice here Tertullian' s explicit evidence of an economic decline long anticipating the difficulties of central government in the middle of the third century. The persecutions enforced within the churches the feeling of being a very separate society unidentified and unassimilated within this world. In consequence several Chri stian writers of the third century develop a theoretical justification of a limited degree of civil disobedience based on the appeal from the laws of an admittedly corrupt state to natural justice and on the contrast between the relative validity of local laws with the absolute validity of the universal ethic for all nations which Christ came to bring. In July 180 a Christian at Scilli in North Africa, Speratus, told the proconsul 'I do not steal, I pay my taxes, but not because I recognise the imperium of this saeculum, rather because I serve God ... ' His form of expressing himself can hardly have commended him to the proconsul, but he is expressing the classic principle, already voiced in Socrates, that one must obey God rather than man. One of his fellow Christians at Scilli, Donatus, explains himself in less sharp and uncompromising language when he say s his principles are 'Honour for Caesar, fear for God. ' Despite the independence the Christians in principle held aloof from direct political action. Tertullian remarks that no Christian could be a party to a treasonable conspiracy, such as had been true of pagans, including many philosophers (Apol. 46). The Christians had written in their New Testament the apostle' s doctrine that the powers of the state had a role in the purposes of God. By restraining crime they do not bear the sword in vain. Government is necessary because of sin. And, following St Paul, many Christian writers allow that the Emperors hold their office by divine appointment (esp. Irenaeus IV, 22, 2; 24, 3;

36, 6).

In his commentary on the epistle to the Romans (IX, 26) Origen explains that God has not wished crimes to be punished by the leaders of the churches, but by the secular judge who is therefore called by Paul the servant of God. The passage, written in the forties of the third century, and preserved th rough a Latin paraphrase made at the· end of the fourth century by Rufinus of Aquileia, is the first text to mark out the distinction between the clergy as exercising a discipline within the church strictly as vessels of mercy , and the magistrates as vessels of divine wrath. It is astonishing to see at this early date the marking out of a distinction which was capable of being developed into the notion that the Church expected certain delinquencies to be dealt with by the secular arm. The classical defenders of providence allowed that evil men often intended wicked things that could bring very unintended benefits. Human foresight is 10

Henry Chadwick often so severely limited that we are able to see few of the consequences of our best considered plans. Third century Christians could readily allow even the most wicked and hostile Emperors to be there by divine permission. The Old Testament prophet had seen the invading, pillaging, murdering Assyrians as the rod of divine anger (Isaiah x, 5). God, says Origen, can put bad Emperors to hs good purposes just as cities set criminals to clean out the lavatories (c. Cels. IV, 70). In the seventh decade of the second century the anti-Christian writer Celsus (8, 71) speaks of the imbecility of the Christians who dream that one day the EmpE::ror himself will be converted. Although Origen' s reply answers that no Christian speaks so foolishly, Celsus' evidence is to be taken seriously. Before his time, Justin, writing at Rome about 150, sees the destinies of Church and Empire to be so intimately bound up in the secret designs of God' s providence that there is symbolic appropriateness in the cruciform shape of the the standards of the Roman army (Apol. i, 55, 6). Justin likewise protests passionately against the unjustice of the Empire persecuting some of its most honest citizens, but would be happy if these unpleasant attentions we re to be directed at some of the heretical sects (Apol. i, 16, 14). Probably by Celsus' time the number of Christians in the emperor' s household was known to be far from negligible. In the time of Severus Alexander this Christian presence in the Emperor's personal entourage was well known, and led to reaction under his successor Maximin the Thracian who harassed the Christians at court, especially after earthquakes in Asia Minor were taken as signs of celestial disfavour to the empire (Firmilian in Cyp. ep. 75, 10). But with Philip the Arabian, 244-49, Christianity was back again, now as the private and personal belief of the Emperor himself, which did not prevent him from taking a prominent part in the very pagan celebrations of the millennium of the city of Rome in 248, and his coins continue to carry the old pagan emblems. The Emperor's private religion had no consequences for his public policy. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria in the fifties and sixties of the third century, reckons Severus Alexander and Philip as so benevolent to Christianity as to be reckoned with the Christians (Eus., H. E. VII, 10, 2-3). Philip' s favour to the Christians provoked another counter-reaction. In 248 he was faced by three virtually simultaneous rebellions, two in the East and one in Pannonia, and l1is troubles were expressly attributed by many to Christianity, which angered the old gods by encouraging the neglect of the sacrifices which kept them propitious and made Rome last a thousand years. Writing in the contra Celsum Origen (iii, 15) attests a contemporary rise in anti-Christian feeling. In 249 there was a horrid pogrom against the Christians in Alexandria. The new Emperor Decius, faced by a major military crisis, demanded loyal sacrifices of all citizens attested by formal legal certificates or libelli, and the Christians at once found themselves under direct attack. Although Origen can be seen to be aware of the coming storm, the Church as a whole was astonished by the persecution, and its shock waves can be seen in the writings of Cyprian. By the middle years of the third century the number of Christians in the army and the civil service had been steadily growing to be substantial. In the second century the pagan Celsus had called the Christians 11

to a greater show of public spirit in accepting public office and military service. Third century evidence shows that in increasing numbers they do just that, and t~e more they do so, the more they come to arouse pagan apprehensions. The great persecution under Diocletian was initiated, according to Lactantius, after Christian army officers present at a sacrifice made the sign of the cross to avert the presence of evil spirits, with the consequence that the pagan priests found themselves unable to read the proper signs to give omens of the future. Moreover the Chri.s tians themselves are already moving towards the acceptanca of two e thical standards. Origen' s 26th homily on Numbers (26, 10) distinguishes within the militia of Christ the front-line troops who fight Satan hand to hand and the camp-followers who give support to the combat forces but do little or no fighting themselves. Eusebius of Caesarea (Demonstratio Evengelica I, 8, p. 29-30) likewise marks a distinction between those who keep the commands of Christ while pursuing trade, farming, soldiering, political life, marriage, who attend church services on special occasions, and those who go beyond what is commanded to keep themselves free of marriage ties, practice poverty, renounce the world, and devote their whole life to the service of God. We can see here the basic theological assumptions of the coming monastic movement of the fourth century before St Anthony went out to be a hermit in the desert, and a generation before Pachomius founded the first monasteries organised for a common life under obedience to an abbot. The degree of Christian adaptation to the secular world in the second half of the third century is illustrated by the canons of the council of Illiberis or Elvira by Granada in southern Spain. The council was held at an uncertain date near the beginning of the fourth century, probably before the outbreak of the great persecution. We discover that the process of assimilation has gone far. Christians are holding the office of flamen in the cult of the divine Emperor; and the Council thinks they can be allowed to continue holding this office and still keep free of personal compromise with idolatry; but the Council put a stop to Christians giving gladiatorial combats or acting as delatores in the lawcourts. It is easy to misread the canons of church councils. One can be sure of course that the abuses they forbid have been going on, or the prohibition would be needless. But one is often ignorant whether the cause of scandal is widespread or whether a particular canon is included at the request of a single bishop present at the s ynod who wants the backing of his colleagues to deal with one individual in his congregation. In Spain a substantial number of bishops and inferior clergy were what today we would call worker priests; that is, they continued with their ordinary avocations. Admittedly such persons were criticised for their secularity. Cyprian (Laps. 6) complains of 'very many bishops' who had neglected their flocks by pursuing worldly careers at the same time (procuratores rerum saecularium; variant regum). From fourth century Spain we hear of bishops practising at the bar; or leaving their diocese for unacceptably long periods to attend to the revenues of their private estates. One of the canons of the council of Elvira deplores lay Christians who fail to attend church services per infinita tempora. Late in the fourth

12

Henry Chadwick century one Iberian bishop went so far as to appear in the role of prosecutor in a capital charge against a brother bishop (Priscillian). The Imperial sentence was to impose torture and execution. All bishops who were then willing to hold communion with the prosecuting bishop found themselves excommunicated by Rome and Milan (Ambrose), and many years of local schism ensued. During the century before Constantine most Christians held to the illegitimacy of violence for believers. But they also wanted to allow a constructive place for the authority of the magistrate in the restraining of vice and crime, and the reconciliatiqn of these conflicting principles led to uncomfortable compromises. Lactantius (!nst. VI, 20, 10), who expressly detests capital punishm ent, once goes so far as to say that a magistrate is allowed to judge a cri m i nal deserving of death as long as he finds the spectacle of the execution morally hateful. Otherwise his inner conscience is defiled. The moral dilemma, at which it is easy to allow oneself the luxury of a smile, is not one unique within a Christian ethic. In one form or other it afflicts serious reflective moralists of any religious allegiance or none. Violence is abhorrent. Yet such is the inherent disorder of human nature that, unless the authority of the law and of the state is reinforced by sanctions entailing an ultimate resort to violence, the consequent deprivation of human freedom becomes intolerable. To conclude: the Christians of the third century provided a blueprint for the two antithetical features of the post-Constantinian Christian Empire, that is for the world-renouncing ascetics and for the world-affirming ethic which could identify the res Romana with the providence of God at work through the church. In either case they operated with the contrast between the Church and the World; the earthly city under the dark god of this world, the heavenly city of God and his saints, both overlapping under this present order of time and space and conflict, like a field in which are sown both wheat and tares, to be sorted out at the final divine harvest. Thereby the Christians created the vocabulary and the concept of the world as a secular entity apart from, even hostile to the true calling of God, or at least going on its way in independence of the divine purpose so far as its own self-consciousness is concerned.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bell, H. I., 1924. Jews and Christians in Egypt (Greek Papyri in the British Museum 6), London. Chadwick, H., 1972. 'The origin of the title "Oecumenical Council" ' , J . Theol. Stud. new series, 22, 132-5. Harnack, A. von, 1924. Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, Leipzig.

13

2.

CREMATION AND INHUMATION-CHANGE IN THE THIRD CENTURY R. F. J. Jones

Beginning in Italy in the second century, but spreading throughout the Roman West in the third century, the normal burial rite changed from being predominantly cremation to being predominantly inhumation, and has remained so until modern times. It is remarkable to realise that such an apparently substantial and significant shift in practice should not have been discussed at length in English for nearly half a century. The paper published by A. D. Nock in 1932 firmly set the adoption of inhumation in its place. He demonstrated very clearly that there was no probable link between the early popularity of inhumation and either the Oriental mystery religions or Christianity: "It seems clear therefore that the change at Rome in the second century cannot be explained as due to the Eastern mystery religions, nor again to the older Dionysiac rites, nor to Pythagoreanism, and it is almost certain that it was not due to any general alteration in ideas on the afterlife; there is no indication of any such alteration" (p. 357).

The literary evidence he cites firmly suggests that Christians did not object to cremation on the grounds of belief in a resurrection of the flesh, but that, being part of the Jewish tradition, they followed Jewish custom, and the example of Jesus, since inhumation had long been normal in Judaea. Furthermore, the earliest known examples of inhumation at Rome were clearly not the burials of Christians, and the spread of inhumation through the provinces happened significantly earlier and on a greater scale than can be paralleled by any other evidence for Christianity. Since the earliest inhumations known at Rome seem to be of members of the richer classes, the suggestion that the cost of fuel for cremation was a significant factor can probably be discounted. In seeking for an explanation for the change, Nock was therefore left with the rather vague idea that it was caused by fashion among the richer classes. In particular he saw people being tempted by the opportunities for ostentation provided by sarcophagi. He suggested that the idea of sarcophagi may have come from Asia Minor or from Etruscan Italian traditions, or both. Nock concluded that the change to inhumation provided "no fingerpost to the end of one period of religious thought and the beginning of another" (p. 350). It is worth restating these views, since no serious evidence has since

been advanced to dispute them, although the temptation to seek more profound explanations has still lingered in more recent writings. There is a reluctance to accept the rather prosaic explanation offered by Nock. People still see in the change "the result of greater respect for the body which was about to have a new life" (Macdonald 1977, 37). Turcan (1958) developed some of Nock' s points by suggesting that the new fashions in burial at Rome in the early second 15

century arose from the rise to prominence in the Imperial system firstly of Italian townsmen in the late first century and then of men of eastern origins, particularly from Asia Minor, both from inhuming traditions. The arrival of such men in leading positions of society, through administration and wealth, clearly gave them the opportunities to set the styles of burial customs too. An important gap in our knowledge was pointed out by Turcan: we know of no actual example of a person who decided to be inhumed, when his parents' and family tradition had been for cremation. &lch individual decisions obviously were made on many occasions, but the explicit reasons for them remain unknown. In discussing the meaning of inhumation, Turcan mentioned several ideas which favoured inhumation: that fire was sacred in some Oriental beliefs and would have been contaminated by burning the bodies, that according to Tertullian , there was a Christian attitude that burning was a cruelty even to the corpse, that there were those who saw the s oul surviving in the body until the flesh rotted completely. However strong these ideas may have been, there is little suggestion that there were sufficient followers of them to account for the generality of the adoption of inhumation. They may all have tended in the same direction, but they may have been explaining a practice that was already established, rather than putting forward reasons for changing to a new one. As Nock noted, there is very little evidence to suggest that the various new relig iou s and philosophical ideas that became current in Rome in the early second century had any direct and specific relationship with burial practices, despite the general arguments advanced, for example by Macdonald (1977). There are occasional examples, such as the tomb-cum-temple of Atys in the cemetery at Carmona in southern Spain (Bend ala Gal an 1976 ). These are, however, very much the exceptions. There is little indication in all this about why the Roman provincial of the third century took the decision that he would prefer to be inhumed rather than cremated . Nevertheless, since Nock was writing, we have now gained much more evidence from excavation; if not yet about why the change took place, at least how it did . There are, first, some general points that must be made. The evidence is still very patchy, especially when it is realised that burial customs can sometimes be distinctive for very small areas-for example for just a part of a large urban cemetery. There were normal changes in the patterns of use of burial areas; people stopped burying in one place and started elsewhere for reasons we can never now know. Sometimes the cemetery was strictly confined to a tight area, sometimes it was free to expand as it needed space. All these complications may affect our conclusions, but probably most important is tha t of dating. Cremations tended to contain at least some artefact susceptible to our dating , even if only a pot to hold the ashes, whereas inhumations generally have few if any grave goods. In fact this may be as important a change in burial customs as the decline in cremation. It certainly makes difficult the dating of inhumations, which often, faute de mieux, get lumped into the fourth century. Nevertheless, it seems that a common pattern can be discerned over much of the Roman West. In the Mediterranean, in Gaul and in Britain, the urban cemeteries saw a gradual change from one rite to the other, often with both co-existing in the same cemetery area. This is the case in Algeria at Tipasa (Bouchenarki 1974) and at Setif (Fevrier and Gaspary 1966- 7; 16

R. F. J. Jones

Fevrier and Guery 1980; Fevrier and Guery, pers. comm. ). At setif, the Punic inhuming tradition gave way to Roman style cremations in the second century, but by the end of that century and in the early third standard late Roman inhumations were taking over. The process did however take some time, so that sequences of graves were excavated which consisted of cremations overlying late-style inhumations. In Gaul , an inhuming tradition has been identified in the South, at least

at Arles on the basis of first century sarcophagi (Hatt 1951 ). However , at otO.er sites with recent excavations, such as Apt or La Calade, Cabasse, cremations remained common until the third century, when inhumations began to appear in cremation cemeteries (Barruol 1968; Berard 1961 ; 1963). Further North at Lyon, sarcophagi are found from the second quarter of the second century (Audin and Burnand 1959). At Courroux in Switzerland , the excavation of a cemetery apparently serving a villa has shown both rites practised in the earlier period, dated 70 to 230/ 40, with only inhumations later in the fourth century (Martin-Kilcher 1976). It is argued that the villa was abandoned after the barbarian invasions of the mid third century and, when occupation was resumed and therefore the cemetery re-used, only inhumation was then practised. Without the corroboration of this idea from the excavation of the villa itself, there remains the possibility that the rites changed without any hiatus in occupation, which could rather be explained by problems in dating the graves. A similar problem arises with another recently published excavation from Czechoslovakia, at Gerulata Rusovce (Kraskovska 1976), where there is an apparent chronological gap in the mid third century between the earlier cremations and the later inhumations . There the gap is less wide and can probably more easily be bridged (.£!. Clarke 1978 ). In northern Gaul, the extended discussion by van Doorselaer provides very clear evidence that here too by the end of the third century most people were inhumed when at the start most had been cremated (1967). There were variations, however. At Tournai, despite the occasional fourth century cremation, inhumation seems to have become the norm by the last quarter of the third (Brulet and Coulon 1977). At Tongres, both rites were used throughout the Roman period, at least until the middle of the fourth century (van Crombuggen 1962). It has been suggested that cremation remained popular in the countryside, for example at Furfooz (Nenquin 1953), well into the fourth century. At the roadside settlement at Blicquy, cremation came to an end in the early third century in the area excavated, but no rite of inhumation took over from it (de Laet et al. 1972). Perhaps the later cemetery remains to be found. In Britain at York, from the late second century for about a century both cremation and inhumation were being used in the Trentholme Drive cemetery (Wenham 1968). There were seven cases of cremations overlying inhumations. Also at York, in the Railway Station cemetery, which generally was u sed for both rites, there was one distinct area of cremation only (RCHM 1962). Unfortunately we cannot tell whether this area was formally defined, or simply was never re-used for later burials. At both Winchester (Clarke 1979) and Chichester (Down and Rule 1971), the later cemeteries occupied new areas. It seems that in Britain the rural communities took to inhumation at much the same rate as the urban, with third century inhumations for example a t Lynch Farm, Peterborough (Jones 1976), although there are examples of fourth century cremations (Clarke 1979, 350-1). 17

Whatever the reasons may have been , there can be little doubt that in m ost of the western provinces of the Empire, inhumation replaced cremation during the third century, often co-existing for a period in the same cemeteries. The anomalies that have been found, such a s the lack of later burials at all at Blicquy, may best be explained by a change of burial site. This may also be the reason behind the apparent lack of third century burials at Saze in southern Gaul (Gagni'ere and Granier 1972), but the dating may also be questioned, as at Gerulata Rusovce and Courroux. Nevertheless, the general impression is that in most urban cemeteries there was no segregation between the two rites . Even a,pparent separations may often be explained simply by the spread of the cemetery through time. These observations would seem to support Nock' s contention that the choice between cremation and inhumation was not between symbols of over-riding religious belief. That the change was a gradual one, originating in the upper classes of the Imperial capital in the early second century, would seem to deny any suggestion that it was caused by the apparent crises of the third century. Its popularity seems to have spread from the top down, reaching an important provincial capital like Lyon quite early, but taking longer to get to most provincial towns and then the countryside. What is most striking is how thoroughly the fashion penetrated society. It is a measure of the cultural system of the Roman Empire that a change in practice adopted by the Roman rich could eventually be followed by the urban poor of Gaul and Britain, and even by the peasants.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Audin, A. and Y. Burnand , 1959 . 'Chronologie des epitaphes romaines de Lyon' , Rev. Etudes Anc. 61, 320-52. Barruol, G., 1968. 'Essai sur la topographie d'Apta Julia', Narbonnaise 1, 101-58. Bendala Galan, M. , 1976. Se villa.

Rev. Archeol.

La Necropolis Romana de Cannona (Sevilla),

Berard, G., 1961. 'La necropole gallo-romaine de La Calade (Var)', Ga llia 19, 105-58.

a Cabasse

Berard, G., 1963 . 'La necropole gallo-romaine de La Calade a Cabasse (Var). Deuxieme campagne de fouilles (1962)'. Gallia 21, 295-306. Bouchenarki, M., 1974. Fouilles de la Necropole Occidentale de Tipasa (Matares), 1968-72 (These de Doctorat du Troisieme Cycle, Universite d 'Aix-en-Provence). Brulet, R. , and G. Coulon. , 1977. Perdue a Tournai, Louvain.

La Necropole Gallo-Romaine de la Rue

Clarke, G., 1978. Review of Martin-Kilcher 1976 and Kraskovska 1976, Britannia 9, 510-12. Clarke, G., 1979 . The Roman Cemetery at Lankhills (Winchester Studies 3, ii, ed. M. Biddle), Oxford.

18

R. F. J. Jones

de Laet, S. J., A. van Doorselaer, P. ~itaels and H. Thoen, 1972. La Necropole Gallo-Romaine de Blicguy (Dissertationes Archaeologicae Gandenses 14), Ghent. Down, A. , and M. Rule, 1971.

Chichester Excavations 1, Chichester.

FEwrier, P.-A., and A. Gaspary. 1966-7. 'La necropole orientate de setif'. Bull. d'Archeol. Algerienne 2, 11-93. Fevrier, P.-A. , and R. Guery, 1980. 'Les rites funeraires de la necropole orientate de Setif'. Antiguites Africaines 15, 91-124. Gagniere, S., and ·J. Granier, 1972. 'La necropole gallo-romaine et barbare de la Font-du-Buis a Saze (Gard)', Rev. Archeol. Narbonnaise 5, 117-44. Hatt, J. -J., 1951.

La Tombe Gallo-Romaine.

Paris.

Jones, R. , 1975. 'The Romano-British farmstead and cemetery at Lynch Farm, near Peterborough'. Northamptonshire Archaeol. 10, 94-137. Kraskovska, L . , 1976 . The Roman Cemetery at Gerulata Rusovce, Czechoslovakia (B.A. R. S1 0), Oxford. Macdonald, J. , 1977. 'Pagan religions and burial practices in Roman Britain', pp. 35-8 in R. Reece (ed. ), Burial in the Roman World (C. B. A. Res. Rpt. 22), London. Martin-Kilcher, S., 1976. Das r~mische Graberfeld von Courroux im Berner Jura (Basler Beitrage zur Ur- and FrUhgeschichte, 2), Basel. Nenquin, J., 1953. La Necropole de Furfooz (Dissertationes Archaeologicae Gandenses 1), Ghent. Nock, A. D., 1932. 'Cremation and burial in the Roman Empire', Harvard Theol. Rev. 25, 321-67 . RCHM 1962. Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Eburacum:Roman York, London. Turcan, R., 1958. 'Origines et sens de l'inhumation a l'epoque imperiale', Rev. Etudes Anc. 60, 323- 47. van Crombuggen, H., 1962. Helinium 2, 36-51.

'Les necropoles gallo-romaines de Tongres',

van Doorselaer, A., 1967. Les Necropoles d'Epogue Romaine en Gaule Septentrionale (Disserationes Archaeologicae Gandenses 10), Ghent. Wenham, L. P . , 1968. The Romano-British Cemetery at Trentholme Drive, York, London .

19

3.

ROMANO-CELTIC TEMPLES IN THE THIRD CENTURY Peter Horne

The third century is generally accepted as a period that 1 saw a vast and anxious activity in religion' (Brown 1971, 50). Some of the few written sources we have for this period show members of the educated classes (mainly in Italy a nd the E ast) involved in controversy between the various forms of Christianity and the va rious forms of paganism. The spiritual state of these people has been s tudied by a number of scholars including Brown (1971), and Dodds (1965} who concludes (p. 100), 'From a world so impoverished intellectually, so insecure materially, so filled with fear and hatred as the world of the third century, any path that promised esc ape must have attracted serious minds' • However, the literary sources do not cover the religion of the RomanoCe lts and so I am forced back on a nalysing archaeological evidence and showing some of the basic trends in the distribution of the most popular religious architectural form in the north western Empire, the Romano-Celtic Temple. The figures and statistics are based on the information in Lewis (1966} and Horne and King (1980} and full bibliographies may be found there. Lewis (1966, 52), has already shown that the number of British RomanoCeltic te mples (from hereon abbreviated to temples) built in the third century is approximately the same as in the two previous centuries, but that in the third century there is a change over to the building of country temples as opposed to town t emples. The number of temples in use at any one time (fig. 3. 1, A) hows that the trend in the third century is part of a general increase, that r eaches a peak in the mid fourth century. It is possible to see that towards the end of the third century the popularity of the urban temples is starting to wane, whilst that of rural temples is still on the increase (Fig. 3. 1 , B and C). Of those continental Romano-Celtic temples whose date of construction is fairly certain it is apparent from the available evidence (Fig. 3. 2, A) that the number of new ones being built is already diminishing by the third century and that the trend continues until the fourth century when no new temples are known to have been built. Fig. 3. 2, B shows the number of continental temples in use and indicates a decline from the l ate second c e ntury onwards. Clearly the Gaulish pattern is different from that of Britain. If the temples are grouped according to their various positions (whether in town, country, or rural sanctuary, as in Fig. 3. 3)a certain degree of variation i s apparent. The number of temples in towns and in the 'monumental' rural sanctuarie s is already in decline by the third century but those in the country and those connected with the smaller nucleated settlements appear to be still very popular until the beginning of the third century, but are beginning to decline in number by the end.

21

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22

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Peter Horne In this volume Blagg and Reece have considered the change in preference from town to country building, and indicate that this may be partly due to the rejection of urban life. Similarly, therefore, the evidence from British temples perhaps shows the native Celtic religion, which has a tradition of being close to nature, with its sacred groves and pools, asserting itself and causing temples to be built in places of traditional sanctity rather than in the towns of the Romans. However, the continental evidence does not show such a clear change. We have seen that, in Gaul, the largest group of temples, those in the country, do not start to decline in number until the end of the third century, whilst those in the towns are decreasing already in the second century. P erhaps we have here a similar trend to that of British temples but partially masked by the earlier overall decline of the type on the continent. In considering continental European temples as one group I have taken in

a very large geographical area and it seems likely that certain regions within this area will show slightly differing trends (although a division into East and West reveals no major differences between the two), but it is apparent that there is a substantial difference between the general history of Romano-Celtic temples in Britian and on the Continent. In third century Britain there is possibly the start of a tendency to reject towns as places for Romano-Celtic worship, combined with a general increase in the number of places for worship. At the same time in mainland Europe there is a decline in the number of buildings to serve the native religion, and perhaps this can be seen as the effect of a growing Christian community as well as part of the general decline in public building in the third century (Blagg, in this volume, p. 174 ). One of the aspects of the third century that has to be taken into account when considering the declining numbers of Romano-Celtic temples is the effect of the barbarian incursions, the bagaudae, and the prospective Emperors with their armies; temples with their rich votive offerings would be obvious targets for looting, as long as the despoilers did not worship the same gods. Gregory of Tours (1, 32) tells of King Chrocus of the Alamanni, destroying the Gallic temple of Vasso Galatae at the time of Gallienus. This is the only temple that definitely can be said to have suffered under the barbarian invasions (provided one accepts the reliability of the source), yet this site cannot, with any certainty be identified archaeologically (although the temple of Mercury on the Puy de Dome is a strong contender). Of the other sites destroyed in the third century the material from some was used in the construction of town walls, as at Perigueux and Mainz, the temple at St. Aubin-sur-Mer was demolished and replaced by a villa, and some sites may possibly show the iconoclastic action of Christians, as at Cotes and Hochscheid where the temples were destroyed but the surrounding buildings left intact. (For further discussion of the barbarian incursions and their possible effect on temples see Blagg, p. 182, Fig. 12 , 5.) However, the barbarian invasions may well have been the reason for the known destruction of a number of sites, and although some were rebuilt, as at Regensberg, others became part of the general downward trend in the number of Romano-Celtic temples in use. On the archaeological evidence alone one might suggest that the religion practised at Romano-Celtic temples was in major decline on the continent in the third century. However, this assumes that the temple was the focus of 25

religious practice. In the fourth century, St Martin of Tours, during his campaign against local pagans, destroyed one temple with little or no opposition, but caused an uproar when he tried to cut down the associated tree. Clearly, in the Celtic world, the state of r eligious faith cannot be measured purely by the archaeologically evident structures. The third century was a period of change, which is reflected in a nume rical s tudy of Romano-Celtic te mples. In Britain there was an increase in the number of temples and a preference for rural sites became evident, whilst on the Continent there. is a decline, possibly indicating a change in religious practice.

BIBLIOGRAPHY For individual sites the relevant bibliography may be found in either Lewis 1966 or Horne and King 1980. Brown, P., 1971.

The World of Late Antiquity, London.

Dodds, E. R., 1965. Donaldson, C., 1980.

Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, Cambridge. Martin of Tours, London.

Horne, P. D. and A. c. King, 1980. 1 Romano-Celtic temples in Continental Europe: a gazetteer of those with known plans', pp. 369-555, in w. Rodwell (ed. }, Temples, Churches and Religion: Recent Research in Roman Britain (B. A. R. 77), Oxford. Lewis, M. J. T. , 1966.

Temples in Roman Britain, Cambridge.

26

4.

THE THIRD CENTURY;

CRISIS OR CHANGE?

Richard Reece

It is very important to start with a direct expansion of the title.

It is

not chosen simply to head an article already written, nor is it a summary of the following thoughts; it is a very simple question which highlights two very different ways of looking at the nature of the third century A. D. , and hence, at the whole of the events of the Roman Empire. A crisis is not simply a mechanism of change, it is not essentially anything to do with change as such, though some changes result from some crises. A crisis, for me, is best understood in the medical sense by which a disease reaches a peak from which the patient either does, or does not, recover. If the patient recovers after going through the crisis of the disease then he or she is materially the same person who usually carries on the same life as before; in the one way of talking about the crisis of the third century it is the Empire which is the patient, the disease is so far unspecified, but many diagnoses have been made, and it is the Empire as patient which passes through the crisis to continue into the fourth century and beyond. The alternative posed in the title is to abandon this metaphor of illness and talk frankly about change, thereby admitting that the entity known as the Roman Empire has a different nature in the fourth century from its nature in the early second century. This way of writing about the political entities of the first few centuries A. D. in the Mediterranean and North West Europe means that the Early Roman Empire is basically different from the Later Roman Empire and must be treated as such. I shall not decide, at this point, if ever, between the two ways of looking at the subject; it is enough for the present to try to dissect out some strands from the archaeological and historical muddle of the third century in an effort to make clear some of the changes, and some parts of the crisis. The antipathy to numbers and objective, quantitative, statement among historians and commentators on the ancient world means that the discussion must be conducted in more vague (to me, subjective) generalizations than I should like. This, however, does have the great merit in conforming to the present state of the evidence. To be acceptable it must also be phrased in language which seems to me imitative of Victorian English, rather than language used freely with the aim of communicating freshly. If the third century is seen as a fabric then the strands which I wish to examine are , almost by definition, closely interwoven. But I have referred to 'the muddle of the third century' and I retain that meaning, for the nature and 'weave' of the fab ric are by no means clear. I would go further to suggest that there is very much more work to be done before we can allow ourselves the illusion of seeing the original pattern, for it is at present grossly distorted by commentators who have given in to the temptation to explain the nature of

27

the difficulties of the third century by the fashionable nostrums for the problems of their own times . One strand deserving of attention is that of trade over long distances, another is the Roman villa as a thriving unit of product~ ....1, a third is town life, a fourth the nature of Roman Imperialism. If the third century is a crisis then it is like a large hole in our fabric which has been darned; by isolating the immediate area for inspection we can start following the course of each thread at a safe distance from the hole, to see it, if we do our job well, emerge beyond the area of disturbance. If we are dealing with a change then the third century· is an area in a fabric which starts off as a cashmere shawl and, through our area of change, turns into a tartan plaid. In this second case there is therefore no limit to the area which ought to be examined, for it may be the way in which a single thread starts off that explains its behaviour during the area, or period, of transition. I make no apology therefore for starting with the pre-Roman town. Towns and town-life in North West Europe Most of our concepts on towns and town life depend on Greek and Roman models, the polis and the urbs. This goes some way to explaining the extreme difficulty and fierce controversy which arises when the subject of pre-Roman towns is mentioned. Because an Iron Age settlement is, by definition, preRoman it cannot, by definition, be urban in the sense of the word as used by a classicist. And yet a wider view of nuclear settlement embracing all or any examples from pre-Industrial periods and civilizations shows that the polis and the urbs are simply ex amples of a type; as such they cannot claim to define a whole range of urbanism if this term is used in the sense of the social geographer rather than the classicist. The work of John Collis (1975) makes it quite clear to a reasonably wide ranging observer that there were in temperate Europe settlements which the student of urban geography would have little difficulty in accepting as preIndustrial towns. The proceedings of a conference on Oppida (Cunliffe and Rowley 1976 ) makes much the same point but unfortunately adds one more Latin word to the argument with a very restricted and modern specialist use. My reason for this diversion is to point out that although the urbs may be a Roman introduction to north west Europe, the concept of nucleated settlement with trading functions is most certainly not. The problem which has direct bearing on the third century A. D. is to try to sort out the extent to which the 'Roman Town ' of the north west provinces is an urbs rather than an indigenous nucleated settlement with functions as a local market and centre for long distance trade. This distinction has a direct bearing on the problems of the third century because, so far as I can see, the urbes in their homeland of the Mediterranean littoral survived the third century whereas the 'Roman Towns' of the North West did not. So that my strands remain distinct for the present, explanation must wait until the other strands have been isolated. For the moment I will stop at an attempt to document my assertion. The Civitas Capital in Roman Britain was, typically, founded in the second half of the first century A. D. Major buildings were often erected in the last quarter of the century, but stone town houses were rare until the second half

28

Richard Reece of the second century. New building was rare after the tirst quarter of the third century, and by the fourth century the continued success of town life may fairly be questioned (Reece 1980 with references). In Italy we have very little ex cavation inside towns which continued an unbroken sequence of urban life from the foundation of the Empire to the present. This, in itself, is some form of evidence, for until the explosions in population in the later nineteenth century, towns such as Piacenza, Verona, Assisi and Orbetello existed almost entirely in dense occupation within their Roman wall circuits. So far as we know at present the urbs in Italy gave rise to the Medieval town which seems to have performed similar functions at similar population densities in similar places. · In France and Belgium an intermediate state seems to exist; the towns shrank. The Augustan town was a spacious well-planned area of several hundreds of acres-Autun or early Vienne are good examples. Early in the fourth century few defended circuits in Gaul exceeded lOO acres (40 hectares). There are suggestions in one or two cases, such as Paris and Senlis, that the circuit defended solely a citadel in the middle of a thriving, open town (Roblin 1965), but simple formal archaeological evidence is still lacking. In two other cases, at Tours and T.ournai, there is firm evidence that the area defended is all that existed of the fourth century town. At Tours, M. Galinie has been directing large scale excavations both within and without the late walls; his results so far show no late occupation outside the walls (Galinie 1979 ). At Tournai MM. Brulet and Coulon have enough evidence of detailed topography to show that the river, the cemeteries and the roads make extra-mural occupation in the fourth century practically impossible (Brulet and Coulon 1977).

One further point on towns may briefly be added by reference to an excellent summary of the archaeology and history of European towns (Barley 1977) which demonstrates quite clearly through the detailed reports of many commentators that the town in North West Europe was an institution which, during the Roman Empire, was confined to the limits of the Empire, and which, at the cessation of Roman influence, died away only to be revived in the ninth or tenth centuries. The Roman villa as a unit of production The word villa raises almost as many difficulties in any discussion as the word town. Although it is a perfectly good Latin word it is used in the literary and legal sources rather sparsely, and when it is used it often seems to refer to a house rather than to a farming unit or type of agricultural production. In archaeological circles it is often used as a term suitable for a Romani zed farm and, although such is almost always defined by the main building, the name is automatically extended to the farming unit of which the house is the centre. I shall use the word here in a rather popular sense of a substantial country house of the Roman period, well appointed and decorated, well above the level of a subsistence farmstead, and I shall make the common assumption that in the majority of cases the affluence comes either from agricultural production in surrounding countryside or some other nearby commercial enterprise.

29

In Britain villas of this rich type were unusual at all periods during the Empire; they existed, but they were never common features of the countryside. In Italy evidence of both survey and ex cavation places the floruit of the large villa in the period of the later Republic and the early Empire. Large and well appointed villas do 3xist.later in the Empire, in the fourth century for example, but as yet the evidence is mainly from surveys of surface scatters of material rather than from well controlled excavations. The surveys come from South Etruria (Potter 1979), from the coastal area of Tuscany (Carandini and Settis 1979) , and further South and East on the Adriatic coast in Molise (Barker, Ll~yd and Webley 1978). In each case the results show that large and relatively well appointed houses dominated the landscape up to the end of the second century A. D., but that thereafter such houses were either non-existent or their numbers were greatly reduced . The assumption made in all three reports is that the number of early houses accounts for both the ownership of the land involved and the direction of working it, but that in the later period a different system of land-holding and exploitation was in use.

A similar survey of the remains of villa houses has been published by Agache (1978) from intensive aerial survey of the area of the Somme valley near Amiens. His evidence is obviously lacking the chronological precision given by the field surveys with their collections of surface sherds, but the superb photographs give a clear indication of the type of house that existed on the good corn-lands of the Somme, its extent and plan, and the density of its occurrence. In some cases Agache has walked some of the sites and the material that he has collected shows no signs of occupation extending into the fourth century. For him the large villas on the Somme were products of the early first century A. D. which were derelict by the later third century. Finally, as fact for the investigation of the villa thread, we must turn to the immaculate excavations of one of these villas in Tuscany, Sette Finestre (Carandini and Settis 1979). For the present we must take this excavation to be a likely model for the other villas which at present are well known, but only fr om the collection of surface material from field - walking. This is obviously an alogical step; but at least the material resulting from this excavation compares well with all the other material obtained only from ploughed fields. Prof. Andrea Carandini's excavations have shown a villa built in luxurious fashion in the first century B. C. which was virtually derelict by the end of the second century A. D. , and had probably changed from its origina l m agnificence by the middle of the first century A. D. This excavation not only allows precision in dating the periods of construction, alteration and decline, but also provides an insight into the villa's affluence , for part of the buildings was given over to the production of oil and wine. All the surveys quoted give possible reasons for the affluence of their villas and estates. In Italy the main source of income is reckoned to be oil and wine for export and wheat for more local consumption. M. Agache feels that the villas of the Somme were there to exploit the corngrowing capacity of the land. All commentators express the view that such large, wellappointed villas must depend on considerable production, and hence considerable trade, and it is an automatic corollary that decline in the villas means decline in production, and hence decline in trade. 30

Richard Reece Trade over long distances At present there is not enough detailed evidence published to construct a balance sheet of trade between provinces throughout the course of the Empire; it may be that such a balance sheet will never be constructed and that we shall always have to rely on pointers to general trade movements which may, or may not, be correct. Since literary sources mention trade only in passing, and then seldom in quantitative language, the majority of evidence has to be material, and as the major part of finds from any excavation consists of pottery that must be a major, if unbalanced, source for ancient trade. For the first two centuries of the Empire red sl(pped pottery , or samian pottery, was made in large production centres and traded widely throughout the En:l,pire. In the third century both production and distribution seem to be adversely affected, and by the fourth century most areas of the Empire thrived on local production often of variable standard (e. g. Stanfield and Simpson 1958 , Pucci 1977). This example could be multiplied in the cases of amphorae and their contents, glass vessels , and carved marble. A general point may be seen in the incidence of ship-wrecks in the Mediterranean which are rare in the third century A. D. and probably never regain their second century frequency (Parker, forthcoming). In Britain imports are much rarer in the fourth century than the first or second centuries (Fulford 1977 ). The general point which seems to emerge is that the volume of trade which moved over long distances decreased substantially between the second century and the fourth century, so that by A. D. 350 there was a much greater uniformity of production over the Empire, and much less widespread distribution. A secondary source here may be seen in the fortunes of those settlements which depended on profits from trade rather than provision of services to a dependent area around them. Two examples that could be cited here are London (Sheldon 1975) and Ostia (Carandini and others 1977). In the beginning of Roman Britain, withClaudius'triumphal march on Colchester and the establishment of a capital there, the crossing point of the Thames was of little importance. It was however a good port and quayside, and a mercantile settlement soon grew up. We do not know the exact sequence of the likely transition of power from Colchester to London in post-Boudican times, but it may be fair to see second century London as an administrative centre with a thriving international port. It is reasonable at this date to see these two raisons d'etre as accompanied by a metropolitan town life even if that was only a British shadow of its Mediterranean counterpart. What now seems quite clear is the failure of town life in London after the middle of the second century leaving a thriving quayside for local trade with an administrative village set in a ring of productive farms. The picture drawn may be too rural, but the absence of third and fourth century occupation (not, be it noted, building) over much of the City cannot be denied. If there is evidence that international trade declined in the third century, then the decline of London's urbanism may be explained.

Much clearer is the decline at Ostia. The contraction of the settlement, and the dereliction of many buildings including storehouses, is amply documented. It is reinforced by the study of the material imported into the shrinking city, and Prof. Carandini has no doubts about the fall of commercial

31

Ostia throug h the decline in general trade (1977 and this volume). The site was not dese rted however , but reduced. On my present interpretation it lost its affluence and surplus population which had both been the result of trade, and it r eturned to its original function as the central place of an area of the s urrounding country-side which depended on it for a market and for administration. Second century Ostia was a thriving city; fourth century Osita was a modest town. T he aim and nature of Roman Imperialism This rather grandiloquent title to one of the threads which I wish to is olate and de s cr ib e m us t s tand for a very brief and sketchy attempt to put forward m y interpretation of the motive power of the original e},:pansion of the Empire, the cessation of expansion, the supply of men and metals, and the stresses of being an Empire under constraint. Rome pursued a policy of expansion well before the Empire was inaugurated. Roman power spread through Gaul in the last century B. C. and the German frontier was a problem for Augustus. Britain remained technically unconquered until the reign of Claudius while the conquest of Dacia was reserved to T r ajan. \\ ith Hadrian came a policy of consolidation, so that by the middle of the second century the realization had set in that the Roman Empire was not to be world wide but was to be limited. The stages of the realization have been brilliantly summarized by John Mann (1974). With the establis hment of Imperial limits there came a change from gen eralized warfa re against almost any unfriendly barbarians to a very sp ecific p olicy of policing the frontiers, so that nearly all military engagement s took place on a very restricted corridor around the Empire. Once the frontiers had b een fixed the inevitable frontier effect, well known to geograp hers , began to change the ways of life of both 'civilized' and 'barbarian' peoples in the area (Kirk 1979). Without at present attempting to assess these points it must be conceded that permanent frontiers meant an end to new supplies of man-power and bullion from newly conquered territory. The absence of new conquests also meant the absence of new markets to be investig ated, stimulated, supplied and exploited. The period from A. D. 150 to 250 wa s therefore one in which the Roman Empire had to learn to live within its own resources , a difficult process even further aggravated by external pre ssur e s f r om other peoples who were not to be incorporated in the Empire, but wished to share its benefits. Most comment on the spread of Roman power so far published has concentrated , just as the Roman commentators did, on the might of the sta te that wa s expanding and the brilliance of its- generals. Now there is a lone, but highly persuasive voice to begin to redress the balance. In a beautifully simple paper Dr. Groenmann-van Waateringe has suggested that the success of conquest and occupation depends as much on the developed ability of the conquered people to support the conqueror as on the prowess of the conquerors (198 0). This raises the whole problem of theRomanization of the new provinces, a subject which has given rise to many empty generalizations but few detailed s tudies. One s eries of papers which perhaps shows the way forward suggests that the process of Romanization was probably not complete after some two centuries in Britain, so that we must at least bear in mind the possibility that any crisis in the third century affected structures depending just as much on Iron Age tenets a s Roman customs (Burnham and Johnson 1979). 32

Richard Reece The limits of the Empire may therefore be not limits of military power, or purposeful frontiers of a well functioning unit, but the point beyond which 'civilization' as defined by the Romans stopped, or the point beyond which the native organization was not well enough developed to support an occupying army and administration. This does not mean that there was uniformity inside the Empire, neither does it mean that there was a great culture gap across the boundaries of the Empire; either suggestion would need to be argued on its merits rather than assumed. It may well be that groupings of material culture , that is, house plans , pottery types, the use of coinage, or crops g rown may bear no· relation to the political groupings within the Empire or the divisions of Empire and 'Barbaricum'. This possibility will obviously be a severe complicating factor in any detailed examination of the third century invasions and the problems that they caused to central authority. At present I shall take it to be no more than an aspect of one of my strands. Synthesis and discussion In the foregoing sections I have tried to keep separate a series of rather different aspects of the Roman Empire which I now want to combine; I have also tried to describe these strands objectively, but inevitably there has been some interpretation in the description. My aim in this last section is to see if the strands which I have isolated can be recombined in such a way as to provide a pattern which forms a convincing transition from the fabric of the Empire of the Julio-Claudian Emperors to the very different fabric of the later Empire. Firstly I would like to pursue the thread of trade and villas together with the changing idea of Imperialism. Italy was, to start with, the centre of motive power for conquest, the focus of the ripples which spread outwards to take Romanitas out to the barbarians and bring back the financial and commercial rewards of successful conquest. As Roman ideas and fashions moved outwards from the centre into the Empire, so the staples of those fashions, for example oil and wine, followed. Production in Italy was obviously geared to an expanding market and the competent producer could make a lot of money simply by increasing his traditional estate production, formerly for his own use and for local sale, into a manufacture on a large scale, the distant outlets of which he probably knew little about and cared even less. Under Augustus the wine (as judged by amphorae) and the wine-cup (as judged by Italian Arretine beakers) were sent abroad where they were eagerly accepted as the new fashion. The farm that produced the wine prospered, as did the factory producing the cups, and the owners and workers made money and spent it, in part on their houses and p.roduction units. The monetary affluence that this sort of trade engendered in Italy led inevitably to a monetary inflation so that, judging by coin fir Js, the traditional pattern of higher prices in the metropolitan part of the Empire, and lower prices in colonies (in the English sense) set in (Reece 1979). To an entrepreneur with markets to satisfy in, say, Britain, an obvious answer to rising prices was to get his goods made in areas of lower wages which were, at the same time, nearer the markets. Branch factories from Arezzo making red gloss cups in Lyon could be set up, but olive groves around Trier were obviously impossible. Where we can trace the trade, and where it could move out of Italy, this seems to have happened. Not surprisingly inflation, as judged by

the typ e of coins used , spread with the move of ent~rprise, so that the use of high value coins seems to have spread from North Italy, up to the Rhine, and finally to Britain by the beginning of the third century (Hodder and Reece 1980). Italy by the middle of the second century had been more or less by-passed so far as production, and exploitation of developing areas was concerned and a system which was nothing more than over- developed estate production simply had to shrink back down to estates producing goods for their owners and the immediate neighbourhood . Not surprisingly the majority of estates simply collapsed suddenly, rather than contracted gently. This collapse in Italy is perhaps visible in the archaeological record as early as the end of the first century A. D. Just as expansion and trade had moved outwards into the expanding Empire from Italy, so collapse presumably followed outwards, with a substantial time-lag. Until the time of Hadrian there was an expanding Empire so that although Italy was perhaps too far from the new sources of wealth and markets to benefit much from new conquests a fter the Flavian Emper ors, the newly developed provinces such as Gaul no doubt began the cycle of affluence and decline just in the same manner as Italy. This is where the Somme villas may fit in, for they seem in general to be developments of the time of Augustus or the early first century A. D. , and those which have yet yielded dating evidence seem to fail towards the end of the second century. Agache has already suggested that their exploitation of corn-land happened at a time when newly conquered provinces to the North and East, Gennany and Britain, had started on the road to integration, but, as yet had not grown to meet their own needs. His idea is, therefore, that the Somme villas grow in size and status by producing corn for Gennany and Britain, but the inevitable development of corn-land in both provinces gradually makes the high production of the Somme redundant. The Somme villas may have fallen into decline in much the same way, and for much the same reasons, as the villas of Italy, but with a time lag of perhaps nearly a century. The absence of further expansion meant that Britain never went through such a cycle. When villas became the major feature of the Romano-British landscape, in certain areas, in the fourth century, or perhaps the late third, they were very different institutions from the more metropolitan villas of Italy and Gaul. They were always, with a very small number of exceptions, more modest buildings presumably controlling smaller acreages, with the idea from the start of being self-sufficient and catering for local and perhaps provincial needs. The prospects of making money out of newly developing provinces never tempted them into over-ambitious expansion because no new provinces were to be found. The pattern of land-holding and inter- dependence with villages was one which grew out of the landscape and confonned to the natural demands of the countryside, so that it is unsurprisingly still with us in the manor and village of England. The s econd point of synthesis should be the town. I have a lready suggested that there might well be two rather different functions and tiers of organization inside each Roman town. In the Mediterranean area each original city has the function of urbs, or origin of the social and economic network on which the surrounding territory survives. This does not apply to the colonia newly founded for political and social reasons in the first centuries B. C. and A. D. ; 34

Richard Reece they are inessential growths in the landscape and in times of economic depression I would expect them to wither unless they had quickly reformed the area into which they were inserted to produce an .ll.l:h.s.-dependent civitas. To return to Thscany, this is my explanation for the survival of the original town of Orbetello and the collapse of the Republican colonia of Cosa in the area of the villa economy described by Carandini (Carandini and Settis 1979). But, in general, the city in Italy was an urbs, therefore it had a basic function as origin of the surrounding area, and in that right survived. In Britain and Caul there is no agreement as yet as to the extent of fundamental Romanization in the towns. There is absolutely no doubt about the outward forms, for street-grids, defences, fora and basilicas are identified for almost every civitas capital. The classically minded archaeologist tends to equate the establishment of Roman forms with the establishment of Romanitas, but this is certainly a mistake. The race of the British to adopt Roman forms of planning and building says absolutely nothing about change, or lack of change in their social and economic systems. It remains my firm impression that whereas the Mediterranean urbs is the centre from which the surrounding territory depends, the British civitas capital is never more than a tolerated blot on the landscape of a civitas which functions in its own British, Iron Age, way.

Perhaps the basic question here is one of finance. The late Iron Age of Britain survived, almost up to the moment of Roman conquest without densely populated nucleated centres (pedantically to avoid the use of the word town or the adjective urban). There is therefore little likelihood that the British would fund the building of towns for their own basic purposes of organization. Towns were constructed and furnished with at least some honorific buildings anc' since the Roman ideas of self-sufficiency almost certainly dictated that they should not subsidise such building from state funds, it must have been carried throug h initially on a British wave of pro-Romanitas. The recent fascinating demonstration that the army and officialdom had little, if anything to do with this building campaign confirms these initial suspicions (Blagg , 1980). Once established these towns would presumably run on their own profits as trade centres with taxes and dues meeting the expenses of new building and upkeep. Thus London was able to show a built up area comparable with many other Roman cities even though it had no basic roots in sel"Ving a local population as origin and centre. It lived, as I have already suggested, on the trade that passed through it, and the money which this passing generated. As first and foremost a port between the continent and Britain it depended heavily on trade from abroad, and when this trade declined in the ear ly years of the third century, the fortUnes of London must have declined in tandem. London, through recent research, provides a fascinating contradiction with several areas such as Watling Court and Milk Street still mantled in the destruction levels of an Antonine fire, early in the third century, while in some area near the river a new monumental arch had recently been erected and temples had been repaired (Hill, Millett and Blagg 1980). My interpretation is one of official inability to comprehend what was happening. With hindsight the towns of Roman Britain were not just going through a depression in the third century; they were marginal institutions, not securely enough founded in the social and economic structure of the province to survive the sifting process which the third century recession applied. 35

Two other problems were set to those who would try to help town life over the difficult patch caused by the d rop in long-distance trade. The changing scheme of taxation meant that through the third century towns as markets were being systematically by-passed, and especially in frontier and military areas; as an almost automatic reaction, the decrease in influence of the Roman town allowed a rise in the local, alternative and non-urban organization which had apparently prevented the town from becoming an urbs in the first place. London depended on trade over long distances, presumably in goods which were not commonly ayailable in Britain. The civitas capitals presumably derived much of their income from trade inside and between civitates, and the major item of trade must have been corn, the greatest part of food. As the taxation system in the third century was streamlined in order to take supplies direct from the producer to authority, so both the buying and selling of corn, two different processes perhaps, and each one contributing to the upkeep of the town, were in great part eliminated. The towns at once lost one of their major functions, and a substantial portion of their revenues. They were left as local markets, and that, as administrative villages, is how we find them in the fourth century. In the final synthesis there is one more strand which I want to introduce

which forms at once the cause and the effect of the third century problems, and so encapsulates them; this is regionalism. A highly authoritarian, and outmoded, view of the Roman Empire would be of an administrative unit founded by Augustus on the basis of the Republic, which fell with the death of the last Emperor in the West in 480. A more flexible view would be one that sees a constantly changing political unit of which descriptions may be made at different times. In the first century A. D. it may be seen as a centralized Empire, in the fourth century a federation of differing provinces and in the sixth century as an unknit body of successor states. The problem of the third century then becomes the problem of a period of rapid transition virtually unilluminated by historical sources. It might be helpful, although it appears at first sight the opposite, to point out that the major problem is not a lack of sources, but the inability of any commentators in the middle of rapid change to comment usefully on what is happening to them. It would therefore be wrong to call the third century a Dark Age, in the sense of lack of historical information, for a plethora of sources would do no more than document even more fully than is documented at present, the fact that the people of the time were interested in very different matters from those that concern us (Chadwick, in this volume, pp. lff. ; MacMullen 1976). To revert to my original metaphor which compared the Empire to a piece of fabric, I have examined and dissected out my chosen strands, and have attempted to form them into some sort of order. The final theme of regionalization comes in, not now as a separate strand but as the change of pattern in the fabric. I have tried to keep ever-present the point of indigenous characteristics within the Empire and beneath its veneer. When I summarize things by saying that I see the importance of the third century as a time of economic trouble and external constraint which cracked the Imperial veneer and encouraged regionalization this needs qualification so drastic as to amount

36

Richard Reece almost to contradiction. The outward forms remained Roman; but the social structure of each culture-area came to the surface as an acceptable variation on the Roman theme. The most British of all known Romans, Carausius , declared himself a Roman Emperor. He celebrated his quinguennalia, his consulships and all his proper Roman attributes. He never made a cult of Britannia on his coins to the extent that Hadrian or Antoninus Pius had done, and he never threatened to make Britain independent. Yet by the time of his rule Britain was very different in structure from the other provinces of the Empire. The Rhine- Thames axis which was to direct much policy in Medieval Europe was already forged by the third century; that time was simply the period of swift change in which the new regional groupings found faith in themselves and their own ideas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Agache, R. , 1978.

La Somme preromaine et romaine, Amiens.

Barker, G., J. Lloyd, and D. Webley, 1978. 'A classical landscape in Molise', Papers of the British School at Rome, XLVI, 35-51. Barley, M. W., 1977. London.

(ed.) European towns:

their archaeology and history,

Blagg, T ., 1980. 'Roman civil and military architecture in the province of Britain ', World Archaeology, 12:1 , 27-42. Brulet, R., and G. Coulon, 1977. Perdue a Tournai, Louvain.

La necropole gallo-romaine de la rue

Burnham, B., and H. JObnson, 1979. (ed.) Invasion and Response: of Roman Britain (B. A. R. 73), Oxford. Carandini, A., and others, 1977.

'Ostia IV', Stud . Miscellanei 23, Rome.

Carandini, A., and S. Settis, 1979. Rome. Collis, J., 1975.

the case

Schiavi e Padroni nell'Etruria Romana,

Defended sites of the late La Teme, (B. A. R.

Cunliffe, B., and T. Rowley, 1976. (B. A. R. S 11), Oxford.

S 2), Oxford.

(ed.) Oppida in Barbarian Europe,

Fulford , M., 1977 . 'Pottery and Britain's trade in the Later Roman Period', pp. 35-65, in D. P. S. Peacock (ed.) Pottery and Early Commerce , London. Galinie , H. , 1979. in Bull. Soc. Archeol. Touraine 39, 2 03- 49. Groenmann-van Waateringe, W. , 1980. 'Urbanization and the NW frontier of the Roman Empire', pp. 1037-44 in W. Hanson and L. Keppie (ed.) Roman Frontier studies 1979 (B. A. R. S 71), Oxford. Hill . , C., M. Millett, and T. Blagg, 1980. The Roman Riverside Wall and Monumental Arch in London (London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Special Paper 3), London.

37

Hodder, I. , and R. Reece, 1980. 'An analysis of the distribution of coins in theW Roman Empire', Archaeo-Physika 7, 179-92, Bonn. Kirk, W. , 1979. 'The making and impact of the British Imperial NW frontier in India', pp. 342-56 in Burnham and Johnson 1979. MacMullen, R., 1976. 337, Yale.

Roman Government's Response to Crisis AD 235-

Mann, J., 1974. 'The frontiers of the principate', in H. Temporini (ed.) Aufstieg und Niedergang der Rnmischen Welt, II. 2, Berlin. Parker, A. J., forthcoming. Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces, Oxford (in press). Potter, T . , 1979. The Changing Landscape of South Etruria, London. Pucci, G., 1977.

'Terra sigillata', in Carandini and others 1977.

Reece, R. , 1979. 'Romano-British Interaction', pp. 229-40 in B. Burnham and J. Kingsbury (ed.) Space, Hierarchy and Society, (B. A. R. S 59), Oxford. Reece, R., 1980. 'Town and Country: Archaeology 12:1, 77-92. Roblin, D., 1965. 368-91.

the end of Roman Britain', World

'Cites ou citadelles ?', Rev. Etudes Anciennes 67, 3-4,

Sheldon, H. , 1975. 'A decline in the London Settlement AD 150-250', London Archaeologist Vol. 2 No. 11, 278-84. Stanfield, J. A., and G. Simpson, 1958.

38

Central Gaulish Potters, Oxford.

5.

THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF ROMAN FRONTIER POLICY A. R. Birley

It is generally agreed that army pay and bounties for veterans, together

with other military expenditure, constituted by far the largest item on the debit side of the Emperors' accounts. The whole purpose of taxation is pithily expressed by Tacitus in a sentence put in the mouth of Petillius Cerialis, addressing an assembly of rebellious Gauls: 'no peace without arms, no arms without pay, no pay without taxes' (Histories 4, 74). The Severan lawyer Ulpian defined tributum, tribute or'direct' taxes, in ter:ws of army pay: 'and indeed it is called tributum because it is contributed to the soldiers' (Digest 50, 16, 27). The etymology may be false, but that is immaterial. The relationship between army and taxes was often noted in antiquity, generally in an unfriendly spirit. To omit a lengthy recital of passages, I content myself with the remark of Ursulus, Count of the Sacred Largesses, after the loss of Amida to the Persians in A. D. 360: 1 See how bravely the cities are defended by the soldiers-to provide whom with abundant pay the wealth of the Empire is being ruined' (Ammianus Marcellinus 20, 11, 5). One might add, too, the claim by the anonymous author of de rebus bellicis, summing up his proposal to shorten length of army service as an economy measure, that 'the result will be soldiers turned into tax-payers' (' erunt ex milite collatores' , 5, 4). The very size of the army (discussed below) meant that even in peacetime costs were high. When major wars occurred expenditure increased sharply, as Roman writers often affirm. To be sure, M. H. Crawford (1975, 591f.) finds this puzzling: if there was a standing army, why should war cost more than peace? Although there is a little evidence, which he cites, for units ·being undermanned during peace sometimes, I cannot accept that this was the sole explanation. As I have previously pointed out, 'it ought to be obvious that vast sums would be required during campaigns for equipment (arms, armour, materiel of all kinds), road and bridge building, repair of enemy damage, remounts, etc. cf. e. g. Tacitus, Annals 1, 71, 2; 2, 5, 3' (Birley 1976, 260 n. 1}. Besides, as J. M. Carrie (1978, 304) has noted (criticising M. Corbier [1978, 283], who has expressed a view similar to that of Crawford), if units were under strength in peacetime, and brought up to full complement when war broke out, they would remain larger in size for some time, unless it be supposed that casualties cancelled out the difference • . What was the size of the army? It has often been stated (e. g. by Jones 1964, 56ff., 679ff.; Develin 1971, 688ff.; Mazza 1973, 404; Hopkins 1978, 47) that the Roman armed forces under the principate were about 300,000 strong-and that the Diocletianic figure of 600, 000 represented a doubling in size. But it is clear that this first figure is far too low. If we take the round figure of 30 legions, reached early in the reign of Trajan, and again, after some losses, in the 160s, this gives a figure of 150 to 180, 000, de39

Table 5.1 The Size of the Roman Army £• A. D. 150 CM = cohors mill. pe d. = 800 CQE = coh. guing. eg. = 600 ·cQ = coh. quing. ped = 480

AM = ala milliaria = 800 AQ =ala quingen aria = 500 CME = cohors mill. equit. = 1040 1.

THE AUXILIA AM

AQ

CME

CM

CQE

CQ

T otal

Area Tot al

Tarraconensis

-

1

-

-

3

-

2300

Spain 2300 (1. O%)

Britannia Germania inf. Germania sup.

1

11 4 4

5

2

-

-

20 5 10

21 6 11

35180 7 880 14320

N. W. 57 380 (25. 7 %)

5 1 2 6 3 8 6 4 2 2 1

6 2 3 6 7 6 3 4 2 1

-

1

10020 4960 7280 10320 6960 10180 7640 7120 11260 1680 600 480

Dan-Balk. 77700 (34. 7%)

1 3 6

480 11260 15620

Province

~

0

Raetia Noricum Pannonia sup. Pannonia inf. Moesia sup. Moesia inf. Dacia sup. Dacia inf. Dacia Por. Dalmatia Thracia Macedonia Bithynia Cappadocia Syria

-

1 1 1 1

-

1

-

3 2 4 4 2 5 2 4 3

1 1

1 1

5

1 2 1

1 1 3

-

-

-

-

3 1

-

1

5 5

-

-

-

-

7 14

-

Table 5.1 (cont.) Are a Total

AM

AQ

CME

CM

CQE

CQ

Total

Palaestina Arabia

-

3 2

-

2

2 4

6

71 80 3400

East 37940 (16. 9%)

Aegyptus Cyrenaica. Africa Mauret. Caes. Mauret. Ting

4

7 1 7 2 4

4 2 10 5

8120 600 6160 9100 9190

South 33170 (19. 8%)

Sardinia

1 -

Unassigne d

-

Province

-

-

-

-

-

-

2 3 5

-

1

1 1

-

-

-

-

2

960

4

3

3

4

9

14240 223690

~

..... 2.

Sardinia 960 (0. 4%) unassigne d 14240 (6.4 %) 223690 (lOO. O%)

THE LEGIONS

Tarracone nsis Britannia Germania inf. Germania sup. (Raetia (Noricum Pannonia sup. Pannonia inf. Moesia sup.

1 3 2 2 1 from 170s) 1 from 170s) 3 1 2

3(2 from 160s) 1 (2 from 160s} 2 3 2 1 1 1 28 (30 from 160s) = 140-16800 0 (150-18000 0)

Moesia inf. Dacia Cappadoci a Syria Palaestina Arabia Aegyptus Africa

3.

THE ROME GARRISON

Praetoria ns Urbanae cohh. Vigiles Eg. sing. Aug.

5000 2000 3500 1000 11500

.> . ~

tJ:j

..,...... ~·

(!)

'
mischen Welt, II. 2, Berlin and New York. Daniels, c. M. , 1979. 'Fact and theory on Hadrian's Wall', Britannia 10, 357-64 . De Laet, S. J., 1949. Portorium. Etude sur 1' organisation douaniere chez les Romains, surtout a1' ~poque du Haut-Empire, Bruges.

a

Rome. Epoque republicaine et Les "Devaluations". = Les "Devaluations" (Collection de 1' ecole fran~aise 1975 imperiale. Rome, 13-15 novembre de Rome, 37), Rome. Develin, R., 1971. 'The a rmy pay rises under Severus and Caracalla and the question of the annona militaris' , Latomus 30, 687-93. FIRA

=

Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani,, Firenze, 1940-43.

Frere, S. S., 1974. don.

Britannia.

A history of Roman Britain (2nd ed. ), Lon-

Gilliam, J. F., 1952. 'The minimum subject to the vicesima hereditatium', Am. J. Philol. 73, 397-405. Gren, E., 1941. Kleinasien und der Ostbalkan in der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung der rl!>mischen Kaiserzeit, Uppsala. Grier, E., 1929. 'Lucius Julius Serenus: an Egyptian landowner of the second century after Christ' , Classical Philol. 24, 42-7. Higham, N. J., and G. D. B. Jones, 1975. 'Frontier, forts and farmers. Cumbria aerial survey 1974-5', Archaeol. J. 132, 16-53. Holder, P. A., 1980. Studies in the auxilia of the Roman imperial army from Augustus to Trajan (B. A. R. S 70), Oxford. Hopkins, K., 1978. 'Economic growth and towns in classical antiquity', pp. 35-77 in P. Abrams and E. A. Wrigley (ed. ), Towns in Societies. Essays in economic history and historical sociology, Cambridge. ILS

= Inscriptiones

Latinae Selectae (ed. H. Dessau), Berlin, 1892-1916.

Jones, A. H. M., 1964.

The Later Roman Empire, Oxford.

\. H. M., 1974. The Roman Economy. Studies in Ancient Economic and Administrative History (ed. P. A. Brunt), Oxford.

·L :K:~.

Jones, G. D. B., 197 8. 'Concept and development in Roman frontiers', Bull. John Rylands University Library Manchester 61, 115-44.

52

A. R. Birley Jones, G. D. B., 1979. 'Invasion and response in Roman Britain', pp. 5771 in B. C. Burnham and H. B. Johnson (ed. ), Invasion and Response. ' The Case of Roman Britain (B. A. R. 73), Oxford. Lesquier, J., 1918. Cairo.

L' armee romaine d' Egypte d' Auguste

a Diocletien,

Macmullen, R., 1963. Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire, Cambridge, Mass. Mazza, M., 1973. Lotte sociali e restaurazione autoritaria nel Ill secolo d. C., Catania·. Middleton, P., 1979. 1 Army supply in Roman Gaul: an hypothesis for Roman Britain' , pp. 81-97 in B. c. Burnham and H. B. Johnson (ed. ), Invasion and Response. The Case of Roman Britain (B. A. R. 73), Oxford. Mocsy, A., 1962.

'Pannonia', RE Supp. 9, 516-776.

Mocsy, A., 1963. 'Die Expansionsfrage im I. und II. Jh. und die Ertragsf!thigkeit der Grenzprovinzen', Annales Universitatis scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando EMv~s nominatae, sect. hist. 4, 3-13." Mocsy, A., 1974.

Pannonia and Upper Moesia, London.

Mocsy, A., 1978. Zur Entstehung und Eigenart der Nordgrenze Roms (Rheinisch-Westfn.lische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vortr!tge G 229, 1978), Opladen. Neumann, A., 1962.

'veterani', RE Supp. 9, 1597-1609.

Oates, J. F. , 1966. 'Philadelphia in the Fayum during the Roman empire' , pp. 451-74 in Atti dell' XI Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia, Milano 2-8 settembre 1965, Milano. Oates, J. F., 1970. 'Landholding in Philadelphia in the Fayum (AD 216)', pp. 385-7 in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of pap,yrology, Toronto. RE

= Realencyclopadie

der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart.

Reece, R., 1973. 'Roman coinage in Britain and the western empire' , Britannia 4, 227-51. RIU

= L.

Barkoczi & A. Mocsy (ed. }, Die rl'>mischen Inschriften Ungarns I (1972), II (1976), Budapest.

starr, C. G., 1941.

The Roman Imperial Navy, New York.

Trousset, p., 1980. 'Signification d' une frontiere: nomades et sedentaires dans la zone du limes d' Afrique', pp. 931-43 in W. s. Hanson and L. J. F. Keppie (ed.), Roman Frontier Studies 1979 (B.A.R. S71), Oxford. - ·

Van Berchem, D., 1977. 'L' annone militaire est elle un mythe ?' , pp. 33140 in Armees et fiscalite. Vittinghoff, F., 1953. \Vhittaker,

c.

'Portorium', RE 22.1, 346-99.

R., 1978.

'Land and labour in North Africa' , Klio 60, 331-62. 53

6. THE DECLINE OF SAMIAN WARE MANUFACTURE IN THE NORTH WEST PROVINCES: PROBLEMS OF CHROIDWGY AND INTERPRETATION Anthony King ·

In this paper I propose to examine the assumptions which have formed the basis of chronologies proposed in the past for late samian ware in the northern provinces , give some indication of the evidence now available for forming a revised chronology, and discuss the interiJretation of the present state of knowledge of the subject. I

The approach to chronology with which it is most pertinent to start is best exemplified by Oswald and Pryce' s Introduction to the study of Terra Sigillata, published in 1920. This was the first synthesis of all earlier work, and as a result, was the first to attempt an integrated chronological framework. The basic method was to use a series of dated sites for assembling details of potters' lives, and the period of use of different forms and styles. For example, they were able to say that certain potters, such as Alpinius of Trier and Comitialis of Rheinzabern, were active in the Antonine period and the beginning of the third century, due to the presence of stamps of these potters, and decorated bowls in their styles, at the fort of Niederbieber (Oswald and Pryce 1920, 64). This site was occupied between.£· 190 and.£· 260 according to Oelmann (1914, 2) who published the pottery, and Ritterling, the excavator (1901; 1936). The concept of a dated site is the matter of interest here, as it has continued to form the basis of much later chronological work, and needs some clarification. In essence, some event, either known directly from literary sources, or created from epigraphic and other evidence, is applied to a site or a well defined horizon within a site, and its associated material. Obviously, events at some sites are indisputable, the most famous being the destruction of Pompeii and the surrounding countryside in A. D. 79, where the deposition of the layer fou:p.d by archaeologists is described by the Younger Pliny, and the identification of the site with that referred to in the literary evidence is secure. However, if we return to the example of Niederbieber, the more we examine its status as a dated site, the more imprecise its chronological limits appear to be. The foundation date for the fort of.£· 190 is based on the finding of tiles from the bath-house with stamps of the eighth legion Augusta using the epithet pia fidelis constans commoda (SchOnberger 1969, 173). This bath-house is within the fort and could have been erected at a different time from the living accommodation. Also, the date provided by these tiles is not secure evidence for the beginning of rubbish disposal on the site, and so it can not be said with a great deal of certainty that the pottery 55

sequence starts at this time. In fact, there are no coins of Commodus from the site at a ll, a lthough there are 5 earlier, and 26 of Severan date or later (Ritterling 19 01 ). The coin evidence could thus be used quite happily to suggest a Severan date for the first extensive use of the site. As to the end date of the fort, this is provided by the presence of three coin hoards terminating in the late 250s , which has always been the basis for interpreting the abandonment as a result of Germanic incursions. This seems reasonable as far as the history of the fort is concerned, but we do not know how significant this date is for the end of samian ware usage on the site. It could be, as an example drawn from several possibilities, that supplies of the pottery had ceased earlier in the century and that there was very little in use by the 250s. In sum, because no details of the stratigraphy are recorded, it is not at all easy to use Niede rbieber as a chronological fixed point: we do not know whether the pottery assemblage is representative of the entire date range for the fort, or concentrated in one or more periods of activity on the site, or even entirely from the rubbish left behind when the fort was finally abandoned. Niederbieber was chosen as an example for two reasons. Firstly, it is fairly typical of the problems encountered by using a generalised historical approach to dating archaeological material, and it points out the need for a careful examination of each case where this approach is applied. Secondly, and of more relevance to the theme of this article, Niederbieber has always been regarded as a key site for the dating of late Trier and Rheinzabern samian products. The historical end date of this fort has provided, until recently, an equivalent date for the end of these two major East Gaulish industries. If we bear this in mind, I shall now turn to Britain, where the 'dated sites' approach has also been applied until very recently. The most important deposit for the decline of samian ware in this context is the so- called '197' destruction horizon at Corbridge, excavated before the first World War and again subsequently. This deposit has been dated to various times between the 180s and the 210s, on the basis of historical events, but is usually assigned to the presumed withdrawal of troops and subsequent barbarian destruction of the northern frontier area in 197. 1 Although Brian Hartley has now put forward arguments that the pottery is in some way residual, or a selective group, it remains the case that due to the absence of samian ware from overlying strata associated with the large stores building, it is usually held that Lezoux products, which form the bulk of the samian pottery, were not being supplied after this date, and thus were not being made (according to Stanfield and Simpson 1958). This has resulted in a state of affairs in which samian from Lezoux and other Central Gaulish workshops was though to have gone out of production E: 200, and, from the evidence of Niederbieber, that the larger East Gaulish Workshops declined£· 260.

As far as Corbridge is concerned , the relevant points to note are; that the possibility of redeposition weakens the value of this group as a chronological fixed point; that two denarii of 198 were found in the same general level, which as we shall see below, could easily push the date of deposition forward by 2 0-3 0 years; and that the argument ex silentio for the end of Central Gaulish production based on the lack of evidence from the overlying

56

Anthony King levels at Corbridge is not a strong one-it is likely that this part of the site was little used in the third century, after the deposition of the '197' layer, thus making it possible that samian ware was being used elsewhere at a later date. Enough has now been given to outline the usual criteria for dating late samian ware, and I shall leave the subject of 'dated sites' by concluding that historically dated deposits can only be used for accurate dating where it is possible to assign the archaeological layers in question to the historical events and be certain of the correlation by checking the link independently. It is all too easy to focus on a burning level, for instance, and make it correspond to a literary description of destruction, when it is quite likely that the burning occurred for other reasons at a different time, or that the destruction left no archaeological trace. The temptation to create historical horizon s in archaeological chronologies is especially perilous for a period of scanty literary and epigraphic evidence, such as the early third century. The result, as far as the dating of pottery is concerned, is often to crowd the adoption or abandonment of forms and decorative types around the known historical events, due to the lack of other fixed points. In this way, we have the great apparent disparity between the declines of Central and East Gaulish wares, as outlined above. The most obvious method of dating that can conveniently supplant the 'dated sites' system in the Roman period, is to use specific archaeological deposits that have samian ware and coins associated together. 2 These have the potential advantage of avoiding the 'bunching' that historical datings can lead to, and they also provide a direct physical link between the dating medium and the objects to be dated, via the archaeological context of the finds. Additionally, they are a source that can continuously produce new material to refine the existing dating, can come from all types of site and from anywhere in the distribution area of the pottery, thus opening the way for detailed chronologies of regional or socially-stratified patterns of distribution and marketing. This contrasts with the source material available from the 'dated sites' approach, which tends to be restricted, for the most part, to military and frontier sites, as a result of the pre-eminence of these types of site in the literary and epigraphic record. It is rare for useful historical events affecting, for instance, individual towns, to be mentioned by ancient writers, with notable exceptions; e. g. the destruction of Lyon in 197 (Dio 75, 4-7; _ Wuillemier 1953, 22-3), or the siege of Autun in 268 or just after (Pan. Lat. (ed. Baehrens) V, 2-4; IX, 4; Le Gentilhomme 1943). Villas and other rural buildings are scarcely even referred to in such sources. Consequently, it is a military pattern of use and disposal of samian ware that dominates the present ,:- ronology. The only viable means of assessing the pattern of samian ware use outside the military zones is by means of data compiled from coin-dated deposits in towns and other types of site. The parameters that provide the limits within which the 'coin-dated deposit' method can be used fall into two main groups ; the nature of deposition of the assemblage, and the probable life of the coins and the samian ware before inclusion in the deposit. The former problem has recently been discussed by Crummy and Terry (1979), and I do not propose to say anything

57

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.

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Fig. 6. 1 The distribution of Antonine denarii in hoards terminating between.£· 140 and.£· 270. For key to the hoard groups, see Fig. 6. 2. Each dot represents the percentage of his coins in one hoard. The larger dots connected by lines are the mean percentage values for each period of termination. The standard deviation and mean for all the means taken together is represented by the divided horizontal line, the arrows giving the limits of one standard deviation. The data for this and Figs. 6. 2 and 6. 3 are compiled from published reports of hoards, and are to be the subject of further discussion elsewhere.

58

Anthony King

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Fig. 6. 2 Silver coinage in hoards terminating between.£· 140 and c. 280. The letters along the bottom of each diagram represent the Emperor or group of Emperors in whose reign the hoard terminated. Key: A, Antoninus; B, Aurelius; C, Commodus; D, Severus; E, Caracalla to Elagabalus; F, Severus Alexander to Maximinus; G, Gordian to Philip; H, Decius to Valerian; I, Gallienus to Quintillus (Postumus to Victorinus); J, Aurelian to Probus (Tetricus); K, Carus to 294. The intervals between each group do not represent the real time-span of the groups concerned, but are simply equidistant (unlike Fig. 6.1). The vertical scale is the percentage value for each group. The thin vertical lines represent the standard deviation of percentages for individual hoards in each group. The means are connected by the thicker lines. See Fig. 6. 1.

59

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Fig. 6. 3 Bron ze coina ge in hoar ds term inati ng betw een.£ · 140 and.£ · 270. Expl anati on as for Fig. 6. 2.

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Anthony King further on the subject here. The main point of relevance is that account has to be taken of the length of time that the deposit may have taken to build up. This can vary considerably according to the archaeological context-ditches, for instance , may have silted up over a number of years, while some pits may have been filled in gne operation. Allowance also has to be made for redeposited earth containing earlier material. As to the second factor affecting the interpr etation of coin-dated deposits, it is worth outlining some of the problems that are relevant to a third century context, before going on t o the results themselves. At first sight, a coin-dated deposit would appear to conceal no great problems. The coin or coins provide the terminus post quem for the deposit, and there are no insurmountable difficulties in dating the vast majority of Roman coins. However, the crucial factor is how long after the terminus it is m o st likely that the coins were lost, and the only way of being able to approach the answer in a quantitative manner is to examine the evidence of coin life avallable from hoards, using the broadly tenable assumption that their composition roughly reflects the pattern of circulation, and thus of loss, of unhoa rded coins. It is possible to use the percentage of coins of a certain Emperor or time-span, in hoards of different terminal dates, to calculate the percentage of coins of that reign or period in circulation at specific times after the issue of the coins. Fig. 6. 1 shows the graph that can be obtained from this procedure for Antonine denarii. The greatest percentage of these coins, in hoards from Germany, northern France and Britain, occurs in the reigns of Commodus and Severus, and there is good evidence from both ancient and modern data, to suggest that this is an approximate equivalent of the quantity of coins of Antoninus in circulation at that time (e. g . Collis 197 4; Reece 197 4) . If so, a site find of such a coin would be more likely to have been lost some thirty years after it was minted than earlier or later, and the standard deviation of the Antonine histogram prompts the further suggestion that a likely range of the date of loss can be estimated. If this method is extended to the coins of other Emperors in the period 140-260, an overall pattern for silver can be built up (Fig. 6. 2). The general trend is for coins to be hoarded earlier in their lives later on in this period, possibly as a result of increasingly rapid monetary circulation. After 26 0 very few hoards have significant numbers of earlier coins in them, and it can be assumed for our purposes that the pre-260 silver coinage ceases to circulate after that time. Thus, for archaeological deposits with coins of the late second or early third centuries in them, it is possible to say that it is likely that they were lost before 260 , and using the graphs in Fig. 6. 2, to pin down the period in which it is reasonable to assume that they were lost. So much for the silver coinage, for which hoarding behaviour seems to

offer a viable method of estimating actual dates of coin loss or termini ad quos, rather than the vague termini post quos which, if rigorously applied, lead to datings which are systematically too early. However, this method is much more difficult to apply to the more commonly found bronze coinage, for no obvious peaks occur in the percentages (Fig. 6. 3). In fact, bronze coins in hoards display a remarkably stable trend in their relative percentages, mostly remaining constant or decreasing slightly, but for Marcus Aurelius, actually increasing towards the 260s. If we hold to the assumption of hoards 61

reflecting circulation patterns, there is no escaping from the rather disturbing conclusion that bronze was remaining in circulation for decades, without replacement by new issues. This is particularly the case after Severus, who apparently issued little bronze in the northern provinces, until the 260s, when bronze hoards and presumably bronze circulation, came to an end (Carson 1971; Buttrey 1972; Reece 1973). The implication for site finds is that the apparent terminus post quem may easily be up to a hundred years too early. This conclusion raises serious problems for the close dating of samian and other artefacts in. this period. The only way of circumventing them is to assume that the number of coins in a deposit in some way determines the temporal proximity of the terminus ad quem to the terminus post quem of the latest coin. Thus, if there is only one coin, the full potential date range has to be taken into account when assessing the date of the deposit. This is not very useful information to have if a tight chronology is sought. However, the larger the number of coins in the deposit, tne narrower the date range should become, and the more useful the deposit for dating purposes. If an arbitrary number of coins is chosen, for instance twenty-five, to represent a point where the latest coin is contemporary with the date of deposition, it is possible to construct a sliding scale for the estimated date range for any number of coins up to twenty-five, and to use the resulting calculations as a basis for assessing the probable date of a samian ware assemblage. In practice, matters are not so clear cut as this. Account has to be taken of the possibility of mixed silver and bronze coin finds, and of the separate date range system that the silver coin hoards have provided. It is also necessary to make some allowance for the temporal spacing of the coins in the deposit, and of the period of issue, and of the possibility that Gresham' s Law (which proposes that bad money drives better quality coins out of circulation) was operating in favour of the loss of more debased coins than undervalued issues. However, this is not the place to discuss such detailed problems of using coins for dating, and it will have to be accepted, until a fuller publication is available, that due consideration has been given to all these factors when examining late samian assemblages. So much for numismatic problems.

The other major aspect to consider is that even if a large number of coins is present, giving a relatively secure date to the associated samian ware, there are potential difficulties in transferring this information to other finds of the pottery that are not independently dated. The date given to the breakage and disposal of a bowl in one deposit may be very different from that of an identical bowl used elsewhere. Like coins, samian ware vessels may have had lives of anything up to fifty years (Orton and Orton 1975), but are more likely to have been broken after a few years than earlier or later. Only by assembling statistics from large numbers of coin-dated deposits can any attempt be made to quantify average vessel life. Another point is that in the case of a sherd being used to date another that is in the same style but not identical, it may be that one sherd is from the beginning of a potter's working life and the other from the end of his production. Compounded with the disparity possible in vessel lives, it could be that two sherds of similar style were in fact broken and lost several decades apart. Such a gap is, in practice, unlikely, although a few of the sherds dismissed as being out of context or residual in late third and fourth century deposits 62

Anthony King may in fact be the result of such a disparity. However, the vast majority of samian discards will be consequent upon breakages occurring within a fairly short time after production, and it is more likely in reality that potters changed their styles over the years, so that early and late pieces can be differentiated. In a similar fashion to analysing vessel life by compiling the information available from coin-dated deposits, it should also be possible to assess in a statistical manner the date ranges of disposal for particular styles of individual potters, and thence by inference, the duration of their working lives .

rr Despite the complexities of using associated coins and samian sherds for dating purposes, it is possible to surmount the difficulties outlined above and assemble, with reasonable confidence, the data from coin-dated deposits. In this section of the paper, the results are used for a tentative chronological synthesis. The first point that has to be made is that the ideal of a group of dated deposits large enough to rely upon for the elucidation of all aspects of the chronology of the pottery in its last years, has not yet been achieved. It is worth emphasising, however, that an apparently meagre basis can be enlarged in the future from the results of new excavations. There are at present about a hundred coin-dated deposits available from the northern provinces, for the last quarter of the second and the third centuries. This number is sufficient for an outline of the decline of the potteries, but is not really viable for a detailed analysis of the development and decay of individual styles, with the exception of those of the more prolific potters, such as Paternus or Cinnamus. Research into the more detailed aspects of the chronology and into the limitations of the evidence is still continuing, and I do not want to anticipate the results here. In order to understand the decline of manufacture, it is useful to present some background information on the industry in the late second century. Four main centres were in operation; Lezoux, Lavoye (the Argonne area), Trier and Rheinzabern, along with a couple of smaller, but equally significant, centres at Mittlebronn and Westerndorf/ Pfaffenhofen. The market area for the pottery at this time extended throughout the northern provinces, with the southern limits marked by mountain ranges or the boundary of the Mediterranean area (Fig. 6. 4). Of the large production centres Lezoux and Rheinza~ern between them accounted for more than three quarters of total output, and the widespread distribution of their products resulted in the two workshops operating what was, in effect, a monopoly of samian manufacture and marketing. As a consequence, the chronology of these two centres is the most important for understanding the decline of the industry. Furthermore, the number of their sherds in coin-dated deposits also makes them the easiest to study.

Sherds of both large workshops are found in some quantity in deposits dating to the second quarter of the third century or earlier (Fig. 6. 5). They are rare in levels after the 260s-270s, and in many of the cases dated later than this, can be established as redeposited rubbish. There is no good evidence that the latest Lezoux products were being discarded appreciably earlier than those of Rheinzabern, and it is difficult to maintain the position

63

t 0

---a

-b - ·- · c ······· d -··-e 2oo

Fig. 6. 4 Map showing generalised distribution areas of the principal samian ware kiln centres of the late second and early third centuries. Key: a, Lezoux; b, Rheinzabern; c, the Argonne; d, Trier; e, Westerndorf/ Pfaffenhofen. Mr. G. Marsh very kindly provided information on Lezoux distribution in South and West France for the compilation of this figure. Scale in kilometres.

64

Anthony King

Lezoux

Rheinzabern

Argon ne

] Trier

Westerndorf

I

200

I

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260

230

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11-15

6-10 1-5

290

Fig. 6. 5 Dated sherds from different kiln centres, displayed in the form of a histogram showing the numbers of sherds assignable to ten year periods from their associated coins. The dates of loss given to the coins are calculated from the data summarised in Figs. 6.1 to 6. 3, and also according to the other factors outlined in the text. It should be noted that the source material for this histogram was still being compiled at the time of writing of this paper; thus, it should be regarded as provisional in nature.

65

to which the historical dating has given rise, unless the unlikely argument is put forward that Central Gaulish sherds had a longer life than those from eastern Gaul. If we assume, or, to be more honest, guess, as there is a lack of independent evidence, that samian sherds have an average life of ten to twenty years before being incorporated into an archaeological deposit, the inference may be drawn that both Lezoux and Rheinzabern potters were making their last products in the 220s-230s, with the latest potters at Rheinzabern continuing for a little into the 240s. This conclusion is in accord with current thinking about the end of production at the latter site (Nuber 1969). The excavations at the kilns there go some way towards confirming this dating; the latest coin from occupation levels is of Severus Alexander, and a burning layer over part of the site yielded a coin of Postumus (Rau 1977). For Lezoux, however, the information provided by the coin-dated deposits apparently pushes the chronology much later than has hitherto been thought. The extension of activity at the kilns by twenty to thirty years brings with it the problem of an extended life for many of the later potters. For instance, Cinnamus appears to have started production in the 130s (Rogers 1977), yet his pottery is still relatively common in the latest known deposits, a hundred years or more later. The best explanation is that he probably took over the proprietorship of a workshop, hence Cinnami officina on some of his products, which continued to use the same title after his death, either as family business name, or because the large Cinnamus advertisement stamp sold pots well. It is probable that the different ovolos and decoration schemes associated with his name are attributable to separate potters within the workshop rather than being the output of one master potter (Simpson and Rogers 1969; Hartley 1972, App. ID). If so, an extension of the chronology does not force us to contemplate centenarians actively making pottery in the early third century. All the evidence for dating the decline of Lezoux production rests on sitefinds; excavations at the kilns themselves not being conclusive for this period. There is some indication, however, that there was a revival of production in the early fourth century, using copies of earlier styles and forms, and in a fabric more like that of terra sigillata chiara or fourth century Argonne ware than of a true samian paste and finish (Vertet, Rigoir and Raignoux 1970; Picon 1973, 131-2). The lack of coins or other signs of occupation in the second half of the third century seems to indicate cessation of potting activity during that time. The smaller production centres present much the same picture. Vessels from Lavoye and the Argonne kilns are found in a similar range of dated deposits to those of Lezoux, although it must be pointed out that not very many have so far been found. It is most probable that the same chronology can be used for the final products of this area. Lavoye also revived in the late third or early fourth centuries, in a similar manner to Lezoux, but much more successfully. Roaletted and stamped copies of the common samian bowl, form Dragendorff 37, are found in many areas of northern Europe in fourth century contexts, indicating a revival of long-distance trade in fine pottery by that period (Chenet 1941; Chenet ·and Gaudron 1955; Unversagt 1919). 66

Anthony King Trier ware continues to be found in deposits up to the 260s and 270s, but from Trier itself, and from Froitzheim and the Titelberg in the same general area, there a re deposits with coins of the Tetrici associated with pottery in a style not found in earlier assemblages (Loeschcke 1921; Hussong and CUppers 1972, 5, n . 17; Barfield et al. 1968; Thill et al. 1971 ; HuldZetsche 1971; 1972; 1978). This appears to be evidence for production rather later than the other kilns, possibly into the 260s. However, the distribution area is restricted compared with earlier Trier products, and it seems to be the last attempts of the potters there to m a intain viable manufacture. Westerndorf and nearby Pfaffenhofen also have continued late production, and it would appear from excavations at the Pfaffenhofen kilns that Westerndorf ceased in the 230s, but that Pfaffenhofen itself, although disrupted at thi s time, continued into the 260s and 27 Os. This is indicated by finds of pottery in a late style associated with coins of Aurelian and Probus. Similar pottery , sometime s associated with rouletted Argonne ware, is also found in the late Roman hill-top enclosures in the area, which were probably founded in the l ast quarter of the third century (Kellner 1964 ; 1973 ; Christlein et al. 1976 , 76-80). As with the latest Trier products, distribution is limited to the local region. If we take all this information for the chronology of the main kilns as a whole, it is possible to review the g eneral changes in the distribution of samian ware during the third century. The main trend is one of a shrinking market for the pottery, both in terms of the amount distributed in any one area, and in the si.ze of the distribution areas themselves. In the late second century, and even up to the turn of the third, samian ware must have been a common and widely available product. However, by the 230s or 240s, the pottery is becoming rather less common in site finds, and many of the known late styles are represented by very few pieces. This is followed by a contraction of the distribution areas for the ultimate decorated products of the industry, culminating in the mid third century with localised marketing in the vicinity of the one or two surviving kilns. III The brief aper9!!. given above of the data available for the last years of the industry, provides a background for the final section of this paper, on the significance of the end of large scale samian ware production for the wider issues of the third century. To start with economics. Marketing of the pottery was probably carried out in conditions that allowed for more or less free competition of price s . There is no good evidence that maximal prices were decreed at this period , as they were later, and although social constraints will almost certainly have played a part in regulating the sale of the pottery, they do not appear to have forced any severe limitations on competition between workshops (Hodder 1979 ; Polanyi 1977). This seems to be supported by the fact that most of the new workshops in Central and East Gaul were set up at a time of expansion of demand , to judge from the circumstances of finds in the late first to mid second centuries. In economic terms, this would be compatible with a

67

raising of price to take advantage of the demand, and the attraction of capital investment in new kilns, labour and stock to take advantage of those higher prices. In the mid second century, when political and economic conditions were relatively stable in the northern Roman provinces, little expansion of markets was taking place , and the pottery would tend to have been sold at a fairly constant price, probably still in the upper part of the feasible range of prices. Eventually, production would be geared to the optimum for the pricing current at the time. In other words, at a time of high prices and buoyant demand, which I am suggesting for the second century, production processes need not h·a ve been very efficient. If price levels had to be lowered due to a fall off in demand, any slack in the production system could initially have been taken up. Only when this had been done, would there have been pressure on the workshops to adapt in a more fundamental way, or close down. My contention is that this is the underlying trend affecting samian production from the late second century onward, and that the decline that we can see in the archaeological record is, to a great extent, the result of these processes. Possible changes to adapt to this trend are varied, and many different responses can be seen in the history of the individual workshops. For example, potters could consolidate into larger groups within a workshop, to ensure the continuance of cheap volume production. This may be reflected in the evolution of the Cinnamus and Comitialis groups at Lezoux and Rheinzabern respectively. The poor finish of many of the late vessels may result from the potters devoting less time to each, in order to reduce manufacturing costs. The reduction in variety and originality of new moulds may reflect an economy being made in the modelling of new designs. Similarly, the reduction in the variety of forms may be a result of concentration on successful 'lines', and a reluctance to experiment or invest in new types. Increasing price competition may be seen in the failure of some of the smaller centres in the late second century, such as Mittelbronn (Lutz 197 0). Another response may have been the setting up of the Westerndorf kilns, which almost appear to have been run by a colony of potters from Rheinzabern. Perhaps we can see here an attempt to reduce transport costs by moving production into the relatively buoyant market that existed in the Upper Danube region . Additionally, this area was a traditional market for Lezoux products, and the establishment of Westerndorf there in the late second century may have been an attempt to force the former out, opening the way for an expansion of Westerndorf and possibly, Rheinzabern production at a time of overall contraction. So far, reference has been made to contraction and decline as if they were clearly established as taking place during this period. Obviously, in general terms, they were, in both the northern provinces and elsewhere. However, others in this volume have outlined the extent of the deterioration of economic and social prospects in the third century, and it is not my intention to duplicate the general background to the processes affecting samian production. It is pertinent, nevertheless, to examine the possible changes that particular aspects of society and the economy underwent, in order to elucidate the way that they affected samian manufacture. At the same time, the significance of changes in the industry for the wider context

68

Anthony King can al so be examined. The three aspects of interest are distribution networks and supply, historical events, and consumer preferences. As a long-distance traded item, the role of distribution for the success of the samian industry is crucial, more so in fact than the availability of the natural resources for production, which never appears to have been a real problem. The over-riding concern for the positioning of the workshops, therefore, s hould have been the availability or the potential of easy distribution of the finished product. Middleton's hypothesis (1979) for South Gaulish ware was that the success of the workshops there was due to a military supply route running from near the kilns to the Rhineland garrisons, but military determinism at this detailed level is difficult to substantiate for many of the other centres, including Lezoux. It is more likely that the network of rivers and roads in Gaul and Germany played the key part in the success or failure of different kilns. Given that transport was usually by water, if the evidence from Diocletian 's Price Edict and of barges found on very minor rivers, such as at Pommeroeul, Hainault, is to be believed (Duncan-Jones 1974, 366; De Boe 1978), it is plausible toargue that samian ware was transported by barge down rivers wherever possible, and thence transhipped to larger vessels as part of a mixed cargo. 3 It is also plausible to argue that the cost of moving samian ware would vary as a proportion of the costs of the general rate of flow of goods along particular routes. Thus, a large volume of trade would also have reduced the unit-cost of transporting samian ware along those routes. In other words, when the volume of trade declined for any reason, the unit fee for samian shipment would have had a tendency to rise, if the barcarii and negotiatores were to cover their fixed costs and continue to make the same profit as before. However , a conflicting and stronger tendency in a declining market is for shippers to compete more sharply with each other for the remaining trade. If decline continues for a long period, it is a lmost inevitable that a time will come when shippers can not both cover their costs and win a contract, and consequently, they are forced out of business. This would have led to a cessation of distribution of the pottery outside the local region, and ultimately to the running down of production, if alternative suppliers could not have been found. The hypothesis given here would account quite well for the evidence available for late samian ware, provided that the initial decline in the volume of trade affects other goods being transported first. In particular, it can account for the decline of the Lezoux kilns, since the transport element for their products was probably · higher than for those of the other workshops (Fig. 6. 6). Their main markets were widespread and extensive, and the kilns themselves were on the periphery of the main distribution. Thus, adverse fluctuations in transport costs may have had a worse effect on negotiatores in Lezoux samian than elsewhere, with the result that their reserves may have been reduced at an earlier stage , and for longer. Of course, a different explanation is needed if it is the samian market itself that is in decline. This I will return to when consumer preferences are discussed. It is possible that adverse political events were among the causes of the end of profitable trading in samian ware. Simpson and Birley' s hypothesis (in Stanfield and Simpson 1958, xl- xli; Frere 1967, 291) that Severus destroyed the kilns at Lezoux after the battle at Lyon, because their pro-

69

T R

A

L 0

1

2

3

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

' OOOs

Fig . 6. 6 Relative cost s for transporting samian ware to Britain. T = T r i er, R = Rheinzabern, A = Argonne , L = Lezoux. Rh= the Rhine route, Se = the Seine route, So = the Somme route, Lo = the Loire route. The costs, from the kiln site to Dover, are computed by using a modified form of the relative land-seariver costs given in Diocletian' s Price Edict (Duncan-Jones 1974, 366 ). One unit i s equivalent to a Mediterranean sea kilometre. Atlantic sea kilometres are 2 units. Downstream river kilometres are 4 units; upstream , 8 units . Land kilometres are 30 to 40 units , depending on the t errain.

70

15

Anthony King prietors supported Clodius Albinus, does not accord with the revised chronology, nor with t he la ck of evidence of destruction at the kilns themselves , 4 but the general idea, that politica l manifestations of this sort were detriment al to manufacture and trading, is quite plausible in the context of the internal upheavals of the third century. Events like the visit of Caracalla to South Gaul in£_. 212 (Hist. Aug. , Caracalla 5) and the consequent slaughter of Gaulish notables may have been such a case. At all times when there was a heightened r i sk of loss of goods or capital , prices may have risen to account for it, as an ancient form of insurance. This may have driven long-distance traded goods off the market at the expense of their cheaper, local, low-risk rival s. In thi s way, it may be possible to account in part for the rise on a commercial s cale of regional colour-coated industries such as those of Colche ste r , the Nene Valley, or later, of Oxford and the New Forest. The other major threat to trading in the early to mid third century wa s dis ruption as a re sult of barbarian raids. The offensive of the Alemanni in 234- 5 that resulted in the dea th of Severus Alexander at the hand of his own troops near Mainz, can hardly have left the mercantile world of the Rhineland unruffied, and the chronology apparent in the East Gaulish workshops w culd certainly be amenable to disruption at this time (Herodian 6, 8-9; Ensslin 1939, 71). In particular , the apparent cessa tion of manufacture at Westerndorf and Rheinzabern may be due to the potters cutting their losses in the difficult circumstances that prevailed. Some may have moved to safer areas, for m oulds of Rheinzabern potters have been found in late deposits at Trier (Gard 1937 , 121). Further to the North, it may be that the increase of piracy, reflected in the building of forts such as Brancaster and Reculver in the early decades of the third century, led to difficulties for cross-Channel shipping (Hassall 1977 ; Edwards and Green 1977 ; Philp 1970). Changes in the garrisoning of the fleet at this time, which resulted in the disappearance of the Classi s Britannica (Cleere 1977), and the general success of incursions elsewhere, from the 230s onwards, probably mark the period after which the odds were heavily against the normal continuance of sea-borne trade in the North. Actual des truction may be attested by the burning layer dated to Postumus or later at Rheinzabern, which would fit into the historical context of the presumed incursions into the area from 257 onwards, and Postumus' counterm ea su res (Rau 1977; AW:xli 1939, 155, 158). However, this apparent dea thblow was inflicted on a virtually lifeless body, if the coin-dated chronology is adopted. The wider difficulties of production and distribution were more to blame for the demise of the .industry. Lastly, we come on to the superficially unrelated problem of a possible change in consumer preferences, as a factor in the decline of samian manufacture . The most significant pointer to this being an element worthy of further consideration is that production of the pottery did not revive after the restoration of relatively stable conditions towards the end of the century. If tastes had remained cons tant throughout the interval, it seems odd that none of the potteries that continued into the late third century catered for the demand. An obvious explanation is that there was a new pottery fashion, as far as fine table vessels were concerned, centred around the colour-coated wares. The 71

main changes were the loss of figurative decoration schemes, the disappearance of the samian slip technique, and the virtual demise of certain forms, particularly cups and plates. The inheritors of the samian tradition in the North, the Argonne and the Oxfordshire potteries, continued to produce the familiar forms, albeit in a restricted range, but the gloss was no longer put on the vessels, and decoration, where it existed, consisted of stamped geometric designs. In general, although all the larger colour-coated industries at one time or another produced samian imitations, a careful examination of the evidence seems to indicate that these did not really outlast the production of samian itself in any quantity. Even the Oxford potteries, after a period of fairly close imitation in the mid to late third century, turned increasingly to other styles (Young 1977). Argonne alone persisted strongly under the influence of samian during the fourth century, but it is really only the shapes that can properly be said to continue (Chenet 1941; Hofmann 1979). As to figured decoration, it is difficult to find convincing evidence of any pottery continuing to use it after the mid to late third century. Even the colour-coated ware en barbotine that probably continued the figured tradition slightly later than samian ware, tended increasingly towards simple animal and vegetable scenes. What can we make of all t his? Was the change perhaps simply a result of lack of purchasing power, given that moulded or slip-trailed vessels were difficult and expensive to produce? This hypothesis has some attraction, in the light of the almost certain inflation from the 220s and 230s, possibly as a result of Caracalla's pay rise to the troops and subsequent very extensive and continued debasements (Crawford 1975; Walker 1978, 140-3). In support of this, it would be possible to make a case, from the available ceramic information, for a diminution of the quantity of samian on archaeological sites of this period, prior to the final breakdown. However, the problem of why there was never a restoration of the pottery style after the m id third century is, in effect, avoided, not explained by this proposition. We are forced to return to an explanation that gives the decline of samian in tenns of changes in preferences as well as those of simple economics. Therefore, if those buying the pottery were actually changing their tastes, was this due to an alteration jn the composition of society, or to a more fundamental shift of values across society generally? The fonner hypothesis is only tenable if both change for particular sectors of society and the widespread use of samian by those sectors can be established. The group that stands out in this respect is the anny, for it is documented as having undergone extensive change at this time, in which the general tendency during the second century of increasing provincial and local recruitment may have intensified after the refonns of Severus and Severus Alexander (Mann 1963; Forni 1953; 197 4). It would seem that men, and more particularly, officers, were much more likely than hitherto to have been of local origin, or from neighbouring provinces. Also, the anny fulfils the second criterion of the hypothesis in being one of the major consumers of samian ware. However, because of the size of the civilian side of the market, it is not possible to maintain this explanation of decline seriously unless we 72

Anthony King invoke the concept of a threshold. In other words, only by suggesting that the cumulative effect of changes within the army and consequently, its purchasing preferences , was enough to weight the balance of samian trade against continued viability, is it possible to consider the army as a major factor in the decline of the pottery. Even if this was the case, however, we are still left with the difficulty of explaining away the change in fashion, and it may be that the tendency towards local recruitment in the army in fact holds a clue. The eventual result of this tendency is an army that is likely to reflect, more or le ss, the culture of the region in which it was stationed, and thus, it would follow that the regional cultures themselves are in the process of changing during the third century, as this is the only hypothesis left to us that accounts for all the changes that accompanied and followed the decline of the samian ware industry. This is, of course" an explanation that raises more questions than it answers, putting it beyond effective discussion in the space available for this paper. However, I would like to make two general and possibly contentious observations as a contribution towards discussion of these questions. Firstly, it has been shown in modern studies that periods of cultura l change are sometimes set in motion by widespread psychological or physical insecurity, which I suggest may have been the case from the Marcomannic Wars onwards in the frontier zone, and elsewhere in the northern provinces (Wallace 1970, chap. 5). Secondly, it has also been demonstrated that levels of, for instance, anxiety or motivation for achievement can be measured in the subconscious structures and content of both literary and artistic works, and that cross-cultural and temporal changes in these levels can be detected (McClelland et al. 1953; Aronson 1958; discussion of these in Brown 1965, Chap. 9: Berkowitz 1972, 114-30 and Weiner 1974, 58ff. ). Sequences of literary or artistic change can often have concomitant changes in their underlying structures at the same time, 5 and, although this needs more testing on the data available, I think that it is permissible to suggest that we can see, in the change of fashion that third century pottery underwent, a reflection of changes in the general attitudes and beliefs of provincial society, perhaps as a reaction to the alteration in the overall circumstances of the northern provinces from the late second century.

73

NJTES 1.

Recent advocates of '197' are Frere (1978, 217, n. 3) and Hartley (1972, App. Il). Breeze and Dobson, however, date it to.£· 180 (1976, 118), a date which is also supported by Daniels (Bruce 1978, 90ff. ), and represents destruction prior to the arrival of Ulpius Marcellus in Britain. Despite these attempts to fit the burning level into the dating provided by these two historical events, it should be noted that there are two burning leveis, of which the lower is dated by two denarii of Severus (Craster 1911, 165; Hartley 1972 , 45; Simpson 1974, 338). Clearly, it is forcing the evidence to put the date of ·t he burning earlier than 198 , when the coins were mir.ted, unless the material was redeposited. The stratigraphy of the stores building and adjacent areas is also discussed by Brassington (1975) and Simp son and Brassington (1980), with earlier references therein.

2.

Paul Karnitsch was the first to make such use of coins in deposits, for establishing the chronology of late Rheinzabern products (1959). It was not until the 1970s, however, that this method achieved any popularity.

3.

The Loire route for shipments from Lezoux is discussed by Pinel (1977), drawing on evidence of wharves at Vichy (Corrocher 1977) and of samian ware dredged from the Loire mouth (Plicque 1887). The direct evidence of sea-borne trade in the pottery comes from the well-known site at Pudding Pan Rock (Smith 1907; 1909). Mixed cargoes of fine pottery and other goods are attested from several wrecks in the Mediterranean, the most famou s being that of the Grand Congloue (Benoit 1961).

4.

The suggestion put forward by Simpson and Birley was based on a chronology that relied on the Corbridge '197' deposit for an end-date for Central Gaulish products. The circularity of this argument should be noted:- Clodius Albinus is argued to have removed the troops from North Britain to fight Severus in 196, thus leaving the Hadrian's Wall area to be devastated by marauding barbarians. The burning level at Corbridge was dated to this time, as the best suited, yet hypothetical , historical event. There is no samian ware in any quantity from levels above this, because, according to the argument, Severus must have destroyed the kilns or proscribed their proprietors after he had defeated Albinus at the battle of Lyon in 197. Consequently the supply ceased. Thi s self contained explanation is, of course, plausible, but lacks independent corroboration, and seems to be belied by the available data.

5.

This applies to content rather than style in literature, and subject-matter rather than technique in art. With reference to the latter it seems clear that motor performance (i.e. technical competence and individual style) is a stable characteristic for most people, and is only altered irreversibly after long-term stress or trauma (Hill 1977, 99-105, especially 104). This is not what is argued for here: rather it is the alteration of what constitutes acceptable style in the minds of the makers and users of pottery during this period.

74

Anthony King BIBLIOGRAPHY AlfOdi, A. , 1939. 'The invasions of peoples from the Rhine to the Black Sea' , chap. 5 in S. Cook et al. (ed. ), Cambridge Ancient History XII, Cambridge. Aronson, E., 1958. 'The need for achievement as measured by graphic expression', pp. 249-65 in J. Atkinson (ed. ), Motives in Fantasy, Action and Society, Princeton. Barfield, L. H., et al., 1968. 'Ein Burgus in Froitzheim , Kr. DUren', .Rheinische Ausgrabungen 3, 9-120. Benoit, F., 1961. 14.

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Bruce, J. C., 1978. Handbook to the Roman Wall, Newcastle (13th edition, C. M. Daniels ed. ). Buttrey, T. V., 1972. 'A hoard of sestertii from Bordeaux and the problem of bronze circulation in the third century A. D. ', Am. Numis. Soc. Museum Notes 18, 33-58. Carson, R. A., 1971. 'Gare (Cornwall) find of Roman silver and bronze coins', Numis. Chron. 7th series, 11, 181-8. Chenet, G. , 1941. La Ceramique gallo-romaine d 'Argonne du IVe siecle et la terre sigillee decoree la molette, Macon.

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Chenet, G. , and G. Gaudron, 1955. 'La ceramique sigillee d'Argonne des He et Hie siecles', Gallia Supp. 6. Christlein, R., et al., 1976. 'Die Ausgrabungen 1969-74 in Pons Aeni', Bayerische Vorgeschichtsbl. 41, 1-106. Cleere, H., 1977. 'The Classis Britannica', pp. 16-19 in D. Johnston (ed. ), The Saxon Shore, London. , Collis, J., 1974. 'Data for dating', pp. 173-83 in J. Casey and R. Reece (ed. ), Coins and the Archaeologist, (B. A. R. 4), Oxford. Corrocher, R. , 1977. 'Chargement de sigillee ledosienne coule dans 1'Allier a Vichy', Bull. Comite archeol. Lezoux 10, 9-12. Craster, H. H., 1911. p. 165 in R. H. Forster and W. H. Knowles, 'Corstopitum: report on the excavations in 1910', Archaeol. Aeliana, 3rd series, 7, 143-267. Crawford, M., 1975. 'Finance, coinage and money from the Severans to Constantine', pp. 560-93 in H. Temporini (ed. ), Aufsteig und Niedergang der rOmischen Welt II, 2, Berlin. 75

Crummy, P. , and R. Terry, 1979. 'Seriation problems in urban archaeology', pp. 49-60 in M. Millett (ed. ), Pottery and the Archaeologist, London. De Boe , G. , 1978 . 'Roman boats from a small river harbour at Pommeroeul, Belgium ' , pp. 22-30 in J. du Plat Taylor and H. Cleere (ed. ), Roman Shipping and Trade: Britain and the Northern Provinces, London. Duncan-Jones, R. , 1974. The Economy of the Roman Empire. Quantitative Studies, Cambridge. Edwards, D. , and C. Green, 1977. 'The Saxon Shore fort and settlement at Brancaster, Norfolk', pp. 21-9 in D. Johnston (ed. ), The Saxon Shore, London. Ensslin, W. , 1939. 'The Senate and the army', chap. 2 in S. Cook et al. (ed. ), Cambridge Ancient History XII, Cambridge. Forni, G. , 1953. Milano.

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Gard, L. , 1937. 'Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Reliefsigillata des III und IV Jahrhunderts aus Trier', Diss. TUbingen (unpublished). Hartley, B. R., 1972. 'The Roman occupation of Scotland: samian ware', Britannia 3, 1-55.

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Hassall, M. , 1977. 'The historical background and military units of the Saxon Shore', pp. 7-10 in D. Johnston (ed. ), The Saxon Shore, London. Hill, J. N., 1977. 'Individual variability in ceramics and prehistoric social organisation', pp. 55-108 in J. N. Hill and J. Gunn (ed. ), The Individual in Prehistory, New York, San Francisco and London. Hodder, I., 1979. 'Pre-Roman and Romano-British tribal economies', pp. 189-96 in B. Burnham and H. Johnson (ed. ), Invasion and Response. The Case of Roman Britain (B. A. R. 73), Oxford. Hofmann, B. , 1979. 'L'Argonne, temoin de !'evolution des techniques ceramiques au cours du IIIe sfecle', Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautorum Acta 19/ 20, 214-35. Huld-Zetsche, I., 1971. 'Zum Forschungsstand Uber Trierer Reliefsigillaten', Trierer Zeits. 34, 233-45. Huld-Zetsche, I., 1972. Trierer Reliefsigillata Werkstatt I , Bonn. Huld-Zetsche, I. , 1978. 'Sp~t ausgeformte rOmische BilderschUsseln', Bonner Jahrb. 178, 315-34. Hussong, L., and H. CUppers, 1972. Die Sp~trOmische und FrUhmittelalterliche Keramik des Trierer Kaiserthermen, Mainz. Karnitsch, P. , 1959. Die Reliefsigillata von Ovilava, Linz . 76

Anthony King Kellner, H. -J., 1964. 'Die Sigillata-T~pferei in Pfaffenhofen am Formenschatz' , Germania 42, 80-91. Kellner, H. -J., 1973. Die hofen, Stuttgart. Le Gentilhomme, P., 1943. Anciennes 45, 233-40.

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Loeschcke, S. , 1921. 'T~pfereiabfall den Jahren 259/ 60 in Trier aus einer r~mischer Grube in der Louis-Linzstrasse', Jahresbericht 1921 des Provinzialmuseums Trier, Beilage II, 103-7. Lutz, M., 1970. 'L'Atelier de Saturninus et de Satto a Mittelbronn (Moselle)', Gallia &lpp. 22. Mann, J . C., 1963. 'The r ole of the frontier zones in army recruitment', Acta et Diss. Archaeol. 3, 145-50 (Vth International Congress of Frontier Studies). McClelland, D., et al., 1953. The Achievement Motive, New York. Middleton, P., 1979. 'Army supply in Roman Gaul: an hypothesis for Roman Britain', pp. 81-97 in B. Burnham and H. Johnson (ed. ), Invasion and Response. The Case of Roman Britain (B. A. R. 73), Oxford. Nuber, H. U. , 1969. 'Zum Ende der reliefverzierten Terra-sigillata-herstellung in Rheinzabern', Mitt. Hist. Ver. P£alz 67, 136-47. Oelmann, F. , 1914. Die Keramik des Kastells Ni.ederbieber (Materialen zur ~misch-germanischen Keramik 1), Frankfurt. Orton , C., and J. Orton, 1975. 'It's later than you think: a statistical look at an archaeological problem', London Archaeologist 2, 285-7. Oswald, F., and T. D. Pryce, 1920. An Introduction to the Study of Terra Sigillata, London. Philp, B., 1970. The Roman Fort at Reculver, Dover. P icon, M. ' 1973. Introduction a 1I Etude technique des Ceramigues sigillees de Lezoux, Dijon. Pinel, R. , 1977. 'La commercialisation de la vaisselle fine gallo-romaine', Bull. Comite Archeol. Lezoux 10, 5-8. Plicque, A. , 1887. Expedition des poteries romaines par l'Allier et la Loire et marques ceramiques du Musee de Nantes, Nantes. Polanyi, K. , 1977. The Livelihood of Man, New York. Rau , H. G., 1977. 'Die Pfalz 75 , 47-73.

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Ritterling , E. , 1901. 107' 95-131.

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Ritterling , E., 1936. 'Das Kastell Nieder-Bieber', nr. la in E. Fabriciu s et al. (ed . ), Der Obergennanisch-Ra.etische Limes des R~merreiches, Abt. B, I, Berlin and Leipzig . Rogers, G. B., 1977. 'A group of wasters from Central Gaul', pp. 245-50 in J. Dore and K. Greene (ed. ), Roman Pottery studies in Britain and Beyond (B. A. R. S 30), Oxford. Sch~nbP-rger,

H., 1969. 'The Roman frontier in Gennany: survey', J . Roman Stud. 59, 144-97 .

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Simpson, G., 1974. 'Haltwhistle Burn, Corbridge and the Antonine Wall: a reconsideration' , Britannia 5, 317-39. Simpson, G., and M. Brassington, 1980. 'Concordia and Discipulina on the North British frontier', pp. 141-50 in W. S. Hanson and L . J. Keppie (ed. ), Roman Frontier Studies 1979 (B. A. R. S 71), Oxford. Simpson, G. , and G. Rogers, 1969. 'Cinnamu s de Lezoux et quelques potiers contemporains', Gallia 27, 3-1 4. Smith, R. A., 1907. 'On the wreck on Pudding Pan Rock, Herne Bay, Kent', Proc. Soc. Antiquaries Lond . 2nd series, 21, 268-92. Smith , R. A. , 1909. 'Diving operations on Pudding-pan Rock, Herne Bay, Kent and on the Gallo-Roman red ware recently recovered from the Rock', Proc. Soc. Antiquaries Lond . 2nd series, 22, 396-414. Stanfield, J. A., and G. S. Simpson, 1958. Thill, G. , et al. , 1971. 23' 79-91.

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78

A.. R.

43) , Oxford .

7.

COINAGE AND CURRENCY IN THE THIRD CENTURY Richard Reece

In any discussion of the third century one of the main sources of evidence is the coinage. It has been used in many ways, with varying success and with varying legitimacy; the approaches to the information given by the coinage in this volume show something of the range, without the excesses. It seems worth while to provide a short summary of recent thoughts on the subject in an effort to provoke further work and agreement on the study of the materials and the way that such information is used.

The metallic study of coins Little is known in detail about the gold standard during the third century. It is always assumed that gold coins remained at a high degree of fineness and that changes made necessary during the century were effected by manipulation of the weight rather than the gold content of pieces (Callu 1969). Fewer gold coins survive from the third century than perhaps any other time in the Empire, and this poor survival rate makes any agreement about weight standards very difficult. As the weight standards varied (and there is a perhaps unjustified assumption here that some sort of standard was adhered to) so coinage in other metals might well have varied concurrently, but at present there is not enough detailed information to plot these variations year by year. An alternative hypothesis would assume that by the middle of the third century gold coins had lost a denominational face value so that they circulated solely as bullion of assured standard, and were valued by their weight. The change in the use of silver in the coinage is well known in outline, but has only recently been filled in in detail (Walker 1978; Cope 1967; 1972 ). Septimius Severus reduced the silver content of denarii to about 48% in 194. He was following a pattern already proved to be effective by his predecessors, and his successors followed in the same path. Caracalla added the manipulation of weights to the manipulation of silver contents, so that a final crisis was reached in about 270 when what had been the double denarius was a poorly struck copper coin with perhaps one per cent of silver in it. The copper/ silver coinage was reformed by Aurelian in 273- 4 and again by Diocletian in 294-5 (Reece 1977). This last reform brought good silver back temporarily into circulation, but also continued issues of silvered bronze which seem to have ensured a basic instability in the coinage until the two metals were finally separated in a reform of 354-6 (Kent, forthcoming). The steps by which the silver coinage fell, and was restored, are still not known in detail. For much of the Empire silver coins minted in the East had a lower silver content than those of Rome (Walker 1978); this may have continued during the third century, and seems to be true between the Central 79

and the Gallic issues during the Gallic Empire of 259 to 274. During these years it does seem generally proved that for a given year the issues of the Gallic Empire had a higher silver content than coins struck in Italy or the Balkans. Following on this train of thought, it is certainly the British emperor Carausius who brings back good silver coinage, around 290, before Diocletian effects his reform in the Central Empire in 294. A warning must be given here that before any great study is based on such information two basic conditions must be met: the coins analysed must be of securely dated types, if possible confined to single years; they must be analysed by the same methods, or at least include s~ilar standards; and it is absolutely essential that enough analyses have been done for each year or issue to be able to write about differing standards in different years and places. The last point is vital, for any issue of coins may have a range of silver contents spanning perhaps 10% (coins having from 15 to 25% of silver); what has to be compared are two ranges of values, not two values. The great changes which the silver/copper coins underwent during the third century automatically caused changes in the coins which made up the lower denominations, formerly of yellow bronze (oricalchum or brass) and copper. As the silver coins declined, so the lower denominations fell in weight and in metal value so that they were last produced in the middle of the century in a rather uniform, but very mixed metal containing at least copper, zinc, tin, lead, and sometimes a little silver, probably by accident. The value of coins The full set of denominations which were issued in the early Empire were related one to another by set relationships. Although it is quite certain that these relationships cannot have persisted through into the later third century, there is still considerable disagreement about what changes in values took place, and when they did so. As silver coins were debased, so they must have come away from their previous ratio to gold. The matter is further complicated by the concurrent movement not only of silver contents, but also of the weight of gold coins already referred to. While some progress has been made in sorting out the problems of the earlier part of the century (Walker J 978; Callu 1969) the third quarter is at present an almost impassable morass. This means that grave problems attend any effort at dealing with the coinage throughout the century as a continuous whole, which, in turn imposes a discontinuity on the evidence. It is probably necessary to insist that continuity was in fact what happened, and any suggestion of breaks and faults concern the evidence and our understanding, rather than the even"ts of the time. There was no moment during the Empire when all coin was demonetized and replaced with new issues, and this needs to be remembered in the third century. Each succeeding issue therefore bears some relation to what went before it, and even if we cannot describe these ratios exactly and with confidence it is worth attempting an approximation from time to time. As an example we can note that the radiate coin which Caracalla introduced as a double denarius was firmly tariffed against all coin existing at the time. The edicts of Diocletian on both Maximal Prices and Coins were written in terms of denarii. The radiate of Caracalla was presumably the same coin as the radiate of Claudius II in 270, and this was the coin that was reformed and 80

Richard Reece and presumably re-tariffed by Aurelian. And finally the radiate survived the reforms of Diocletian and entered the fourth century. Despite the vicissitudes of the denominations there is continuity, and this ought to be built in to any economic or numismatic studies. Mints At the death of Commodus in 192 the great bulk of the coinage which circulated in the western part of the Empire, struck with Latin legends, was m ade in Rome. By the abdication of Diocletian in 305 the whole system of coin production had been changed with mints in most dioceses of the Empire, all striking the sanie types, and all striking in Latin. In the East the great number of city, Colonial, and provincial mints, most numerous perhaps during the reign of Septimius Severus, and mostly striking in Greek, were reduced to those in a small number of chosen cities firmly tied into the new Imperial system. In the West the monopoly of Rome ended, and, presumably, the supply of coin became easier to manage. Mints in the East closed down progressively through the third century until just before Diocletian' s reform Antioch and Alexandria were almost the only ones left-and they were to continue. Mints opened progressively in the West during the third century until something approaching Diocletian's system was to be seen (Carson 1978). The main movement in the West was towards the principal concentrations of troops, and hence towards the Danube frontier. Pavia and Milan were better placed to supply the frontier than Rome, and Siscia (modern Sisak in Jugoslavia) and Lyon were even nearer. The Gallic Empire expanded Lyon and added Trier; the British Empire added London so that only Carthage and Aquileia remained to be added (Bruun 1967 ). Coin circulation;

casual losses and hoarding

The circulation, and so, at one step removed, the use of coinage is studied mainly from site finds, that is, casual losses, and hoards. Hoards have also been used to a considerable degree in the third century for other purposes, namely the detection of invasions, which I shall deal with separately in a final section. Coin loss, as distinct from the peculiar, but apparently genuine, habit of coin disposal, must depend on the value of the coin. If the cause of a coin being in the ground is genuine loss, then it is fairly certain that more effort will have been made to recover a coin of high face value compared with one of lower face value. The high value coin once misplaced will be less likely to remain lost, the lower value coin may scarcely be worth the search. Casual losses are the refore heavily biased in favour of coins of low value. When coins go out of use, for whatever reason, then 'loss' is perhaps too a ccidental a term to use. Foreign coins brought back by grandfather from the war may still be current coin somewhere; old pennies and halfpennies are of no immediate value here and now; both types of coin may turn up in some numbers in the garden , but not because of proper casual loss so much as the disposal process of giving them to children to play with. They have become expendable and are disposed of. This seems to have happened during the Roman period, and disposed-of coins are heavily biased towards rubbish. Coins which are hoarded are usually of value to the hoarder, and hoards in general are biased towards value. They are also a remarkably biased sample in that we have 81

for inspection only unsuccessful hoards. There might unfortunately be a category of 'dispo sal hoard'. In modern terms this would be represented by the box of pre-decimalization silver coins which we cannot bear to throw away, but keep in the hopes that one day they will be of some use to someone. From these very brief points it will be seen that the considerable changes in face value of coins during the third century should have resulted in several different patterns of hoarding and loss. The radiate of Caracalla was a double denarius worth 8 sestertii, 16 dupondii, or 32 asses; the radiate of Claudius II of 270 contained perhaps one hundredth part of the silver in the former coin, and therefore had an intrinsic value of something less than a third of a Caracallan as. We have no direct information on face-values and purchasing powers, but the remarkable rise in coin loss between 214 and 270 , especially in Britain, suggests that the coin which had so much less intrinsic value was very much less worth looking for when lost. But there are many points which complicate this picture. Firstly, this only properly applies to coins lost while they were relatively current; thus they need to be found in contexts of the mid to late third century. If they are not found in good dated contexts , or are found in contexts dated later than the third century , as is all too often the case, then they say nothing about coin loss, but perhaps more about coin deposition. Secondly there is the problem of coin production, and coin supply. It is as yet only supposition that more mints struck more coins in total than less mints had done, and that more debased silver coins were struck than previous good silver coins. Of course the supposition is reasonable, but it must be noted as supposition; I will deal briefly with possible ways of checking it later. But a coin is lost , and hence found, on a Roman site, not because it was minted there, but because it was transported there from the mint. If no coins were sent to a region, a province or a town, those coins could not be lost. Their scarcity denotes neither high face-value, nor failure to mint, only failure to supply. Thus, the gradually debased coins of 235 to 259 are probably less common on British sites than the much better denarii of Septimius Severus; this must denote the vagaries of supply rather than value or production. There has been the temptation to equate a proliferation of mints with a corresponding increase in coin production; another idea that recurs again and again is the equation between the number of different types and designs that an Emperor struck, and the number of actual coins issued. It is impossible to prove or disprove either of these commonly made suggestions at present; all we can do is insist that there just is not enough evidence for either case, to justify building any construction on it whatsoever. This does not mean that the subject is leading to a dead end, and that progress can never be made. Although the proliferation of mints means, presumably, a greater number of trained staff, and therefore a greater capacity to coin, the subject must be taken deeper to stand any change of validity. The unit of production is not the mint, but the workshop, and progress has been made in the past twenty years in distinguishing workshops within the mints of the early Empire (MacDowall 1978; Carson 1962). It may be that just before the increase in the number of mints, Rome comprised six officinae or workshops; this means 82

Richard Reece that it would have been theoretically possible to keep Rome going with two workshops, and to send out the other four to form branch mints in four different places which might eventually grow into separate mints. Such a process would at first involve no greater production, simply one that was more dispersed. If, then, Rome recruited more men and returned stage by stage to a six workshop level, and the branches also increased their staff, then it would be unreasonable to doubt an increased coin production. But to establish this process would be a considerable labour perhaps equivalent to three or four intensive Ph. D. theses. Firstly, the operation of the mint of Rome would have to be known in detail. Th_e work of Robert Carson and his helpers and colleagues is providing just this and the publication of the volumes of the British Museum Catalogue of Roman coins for the years after 238 will make this progressive ly available. Then the other mints have to identified, and this point is not yet fully clear for the second and third quarters of the third century, their styles and workshop organization have to be unravelled, and, if possible, their sources of workmen and engravers have to be traced. Only then can we see the gradual rise in the number of workshops throughout the Empire, and the relative rate of increase in different places would be very interesting to know. This would give us an idea of the capacity of the state to produce coin. But a second factor will come into our calculations here, for there is no guarantee that the capacity will be used to its limits at all times and in all places. The second essential piece of information concerning capacity to strike, is the bullion supply, and at present we know very little about this though the work of Jones (1980) perhaps shows the way here. If we can estimate the capacity to strike, but not the actual volume of striking precious metals from the bullion supply, then what is the hope of estimating supply from the coins actually produced and surviving? I have already removed from consideratio n the estimation of production of actual coins by counting the various types and legends produced by each Emperor. Thus, because Augustus produced less than about 400 different coin types, and Vespasian produced about 800 types , it is completely invalid to deduce that Vespasian produced twice as much coin in his ten year reign as Augustus did in forty years. I choose this example because no one has yet succeeded in estimating the extent of Augustus' great issues of utterly humdrum and uninspiring asses which formed the basis of bronze coinage for some years after. These were great issues of substantive types while many of Vespasian's issues were small issues, so far as we know, of special typ~s with a particular significance at a particular time. For most reigns there are recognizable substantive issues which provided the bulk of the coinag e, and it is the understandin g of these which has enabled Carson , for instance, to disentangle the workshop ·s tructure for the earlier third century. Counting substantive issues is not a particularly profitable pursuit, for there is no guarantee that substantive issues run on any particular lines, or produce the same number of coins. Finally we reach the dies from which the surviving coins were struck. Here at last is that point at which progress can be made. By very careful comparison it is possible in most issues of Roman coin to determine which surviving coins are struck from the same dies, and hence to count up the number of dies which survive (by proxy in the coins they produced) for each 83

issue. Provided the sample of coins which we have today is a relatively random sample, and enough coins from the issue survive, then it is possible to compare the number of dies cut for each issue of coins. This has to assume that in the production of silver or bronze or bill on coins most dies were used to their limits, but this seems a highly reasonable assumption in issues where perhaps two hundred dies were cut. It is unlikely that many of the two hundred dies received only token use. Given all these provisos it is a reasonable statement to say that a prince who caused three thousand dies for silver coins to be cut in one year produced more silver coinage than a prince who only caused 1500 dies per year to be cut. In the same way, a steadily increasing number of dies per year, or perhaps less surely, per substantive issue, is a reasonably reliable index of increasing coin production. We do not have such data at present, but, with the expenditure of considerable energy, and, more importantly, the application of reliable and sensible sampling techniques controlled by numerate numismatists , those data could be assembled. It would then be possible, no longer a fantasy, to compare the crude weights of bullion minted into coin per year in for example 200, 250, 275, 300 and 325. I must stress here the enormous expenditure of energy that this would involve, though perhaps the word enormous is applicable only in terms of the resources available to numismatics, ancient history, and archaeology. I leave on one side the numerical problems of the estimation of the true number of dies used in an issue from the number which survive (Hackens, forthcoming), and the estimation of the number of coins struck from a series of dies all of which probably produced different numbers of coins before being retired or broken (Mora Mas 1979). These are currently the major source of strife between numerical numismatists, but the disagreement concerns accuracy of the order of ten, twenty, or thirty per cent, whereas the information required by students of the Roman world will be quite satisfying if it can be quaranteed to an order of magnitude (± lOO%).

Political and social implications of hoards The use of coin hoards in studies on the third century has to date been totally undisciplined, and therefore practically useless. I reserve from such strictures the work that has been done in collecting together details of such hoards and mean to castigate only the majority of interpretative work which has lacked all methodology and conviction. Until the work of Kent (1974) no one had even bothered to look at a historically calibrated example to see what was the effect of a known disturbance on the pattern of hoarding in a given area. His study of England before, during and after the civil war of 1641-9 now gives guidelines which all future studies must follow or be dismissed as useless. He has shown that, compared with the previous century and the following century, coin hoarding in Britain, as judged, we must always remember, by the hoards which were never recovered, rose by a readily appreciable amount. Two points are important here. The work does not show, perhaps no work can ever show, that hoarding of coins~ se increased during the English civil war; it shows simply that, whatever happened to the general and un-

84

Richard Reece knowable pattern of hoarding, more hoards than usual were buried and not recovered during the time of the civil war. The second point is that such information was only valid because Kent compared the pattern of hoarding with other periods of supposed tranquillity and found that a short period of known unrest resulted in considerable increase in unrecovered hoards. Without the comparison with two other periods of supposed non-violence at which the coinage in use remained relatively stable and reasonably comparable, a statement such as 'The period of the Civil War in England lead to the nonrecovery of coin hoards' has no more interest or validity than the statement '!think the English