Studien zu den Beziehungen zwischen den Sasanidenreich und der Mittelmeerwelt by J. Wiesehöfer, P. Huyse

Abstract

208 PHOENIX we see the landowners' activities from their victims' perspective. Through increased and efficient production and commodification they contributed to economic growth, but also to massive inequality (81-86, 179). In fact, the currency reforms of their man in the palace, Anastasios, depressed the standard of living of the majority of the population (200-201). With that we are touching upon Sarris's broader argument for the role of the estates in later Roman history. His close reading of the papyri is persuasive, detailed, and lucid, and especially valuable for the non-expert. The overarching argument is rather more sketchy and bold. This book offers an ambitious thesis in Chapters Ten and Eleven. In brief, the increased needs of later Roman government (beginning with Diocletian) created a class of men more powerful than had been seen before, who used and abused their authority to amass estates and evade, by influence and corruption, paying taxes. They squeezed the lower orders, taking on more and more of them as clients, and starved the state of money. Only Justinian attempted seriously to curb their growth, in part because he needed money for war?and he failed (the snake strangled the eagle after all, despite the blood on the cover). The estates had so taken over the empire by 600 that the population was content to see the old regime fall (the Conclusion, where the influence of de Ste Croix shows through, has an apocalyptic tone). There is no space to showcase or query the many points that are made throughout this stimulating book. I will end with some questions that would have to be answered more fully before I accept the broader argument: Were Egyptian estates typical of the empire at large? Was Oxyrhynchustypical ofEgypt? Were the Oxyrhynchiteestatesof the Apiones typical of their holdings elsewhere? Were the Apiones typical of landowners elsewhere? Were there no longor short-term processes tending to estate-dissolution, thus checking, if only partially, their unrestrained growth? How is it that Anastasios, the landowners' emperor, amassed record surpluses? How would he have coped with protracted warfare? If Justinian cracked down on the estates because he was so worried about paying forwar, why did he spend less on his wars than on other projects? Why does Prokopios give the impression that he basically abandoned the East when Sarris's argument makes the fiscal demands of "superpower warfare" (229) the motive for internal reform? Sarris is tempted to view Justinian's foreign wars as "prestige-garnering exercises ... meant further to appeal to conservative opinion at home to sweeten the pill of internal reform" (216), but was reform not imposed because of war? Sarris provides allusive or partial answers to these questions (compared to his meticulous investigation of the management of the Apiones' Oxyrhynchite estates). Perhaps some of them cannot be answered definitively based on surviving evidence, which, of course, does not invalidate the broader argument. At this stagethe latterremainsa tantalizing possibilitythatstill has tobe fleshedoutbefore itcan become a narrative of decline and fall. By contrast, the inner and outer workings of the Apiones' estates emerge with impressive (and disquieting) clarity. The Ohio State University Anthony Kaldellis Studien zu den Beziehungen zwischen den Sasanidenreich und derMittelmeer welt. Edited by J. Wiesehofer and P. Huyse. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag (Oriens etOccidens 13). 2006. Pp. 285. This volume brings together twelve papers from a conference held at Eutin in 2000, four years after an earlier conference that gave rise to another valuable collection, BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 209 J. Wiesehofer (ed.), Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse (Stuttgart 1998), reviewed by the present reviewer in CR 51 (2001) 133-135. The present volume, although more restricted in scope, nevertheless represents an important contribution to the study of the Sasanian empire, and in particular its relations with the west. The bias of the work is towards the third and fourth centuries: the articles of Drijvers, Hartmann, Luther, andWeber all deal with this period, although others are more general, and one (Panaino) deals with the early seventh century. It is a shame that, despite the delay in publication, the contributors were unable to take into account more recent works, in particular the large number of papers presented...