From the Editor

Labor omnia vincit, improbus. This special issue represents the distillation of a series of very fine papers delivered at the conference “Property and Power in Late Antiquity” held at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World from June 11–14, 2014. Out of the thirty-nine papers delivered there, these emerged as outstanding studies focused narrowly around the theme of “Land-holding and Power.” Few could argue that this is a subject of tremendous importance in all periods of antiquity and that it has gained particular attention in the wake of careful and provocative work published in the last two decades by Bagnall, Banaji, Deckers, Gascou, Sarris, Wickham, and Zuckerman—to name just a few. This special issue has involved considerable labor on my part because of the complexity of the questions it addresses and the need for careful editing of manuscripts composed largely by non-native speakers of English. I accept full responsibility for any infelicities that might remain.

The issue opens with what will surely be a groundbreaking study by Gilles Bransbourg of the grands domaines of Egypt—the large estates attested to in the Oxyrhynchite archives of the Apiones and the archives of Dioscourous of Aphrodito. Bransbourg enters well-trodden territory but does so with a unique understanding of the economic relationships at stake. As such, he is able to reconstruct the micro-economics and fiscal landscape of sixth-century estates with results that draw into question long-held assumptions. He argues, the large estate holders did not derive massive profits from their estates, and their landholdings did not grow exponentially as a result of advantages they held in the fiscal hierarchy nor because of the weakening of the peasantry or mid-sized landholders. Instead, they too struggled to meet demanding fiscal pressures which were exacerbated by demographic and military crises, and as such they had to work in consort with smaller players and their own tenants to maintain profitability in a slow growth / high tax economy.

The second study in the volume, by Thibaut Boulay, approaches the question of property-holding and agricultural production from a very different angle. Turning to epigraphic and literary texts rather than account books, Boulay is able to demonstrate that the pressures to own and manage a vineyard were as much cultural as economic. Eastern aristocrats are shown competing vigorously to impress their friends and amuse their palates with private estate grand cru.

The two articles that follow cover similar ground but in differing ways. Muriel Moser combs through legal and literary sources for evidence on land-ownership by fourth century Constantinopolitan senators. Her study is able to show how these aristocrats used their offices and connections with the emperor to obtain favorable terms for their landholdings and limitations on their tax obligations. Christopher Begass explores the question of landholding in Asia Minor and Syria in the fifth century as a sort of riposte to the heavy emphasis on the Apiones as our paradigm for large-scale landholding in the period. He demonstrates the degree to which aristocrats sought to create landed portfolios and the way that their choices in doing so were governed by connections to their home city or to locales where pre-established patronage networks drew them.

Meaghan McEvoy investigates the office-holding, property-accumulation, and patronage of the Ardaburii. This powerful clan is shown to have used land-holding as a means to smooth their entry into the circles of imperial power despite their “barbarian” origins. The success of this effort is nowhere better attested than in their ability to hang onto the family property even after the assassination of their patriarch, Fl. Ardaburius Aspar, in 471.

Finally, Damián Fernández looks at church building in Visigothic Iberia. After demonstrating that the wave of rural church building attested in the Iberian archaeological record derived from investment by private donors, he explores the social origins of this phenomenon, which are to be found in the Visigothic aristocracy’s desire to establish power at a local level over against king and clergy. Far from presenting a monolithic picture, Fernández reveals that this building activity offers evidence of a...