Changes in Town and Country in Late Antiquity and into the Early Medieval Period in Greece and the Aegean Islands

Abstract

The Greek Aegean in the Late Roman era (5th-mid-7th centuries AD) offers a degree of uniformity, developing further the novel urban and rural patterns that mark the previous Imperial centuries. Characteristically, small towns with fortifications and lavish Christian monuments are surrounded by commercial villa estates, while populations shrink drastically from the mid-6th century. In the 7th-8th centuries fundamental regional divergences appear. Most of mainland Greece is lost to the Eastern Roman (aka Early Byzantine) Empire based at Constantinople, the largest towns and coastal ports excepted, following waves of Slavic settlement. A second model is found on the Aegean Islands, where reduced populations largely survive Arab raids and alien settlement through settlement displacement and negotiation. A third model is represented by the large island of Crete, free from invasion until Arab conquest in the 9th century, ironically when a revived Eastern Roman (Middle Byzantine) Empire regains control of the mainland and remaining Aegean Islands. This paper will present the evidence from archaeology for these scenarios, varying in time and space.