Africa: states, empires, and connections

Abstract

The city of Constantinople, among the most distinctive and consequential European creations of late antiquity, presents itself as a witness to the various transformations that take place between the fourth and the ninth centuries CE. Late antiquity, especially as it relates to Europe, may accordingly be characterized as a period of disruption, transition, and transformation away from a Mediterranean-centered, late Roman imperial political and socioeconomic order. The expansion of the late Roman state apparatus and its increasing claim upon the economy has traditionally been seen as causes of economic crisis and decline. Attempts in the sixth century to regain lost Roman territories in the western Mediterranean achieved limited success. Like the Romans, the Umayyads relied upon local elites for the collection of taxes. In the Roman period, trade in amber led from the southern shores of the Baltic to central Europe and the Black Sea.