The Economic History of Byzantium From

1c. Thebes, map of the modern city with indications of archaeological finds based on bibliography to 1994 (copyright: the author)

Thebes 635

that it is impossible to reconstruct it. Yet there clearly must have been such a network, whose purpose was to distribute the water from the main raised aqueduct in the Kadmeia and around its outside. The underground network also probably bore some relation to the huge storage diggings, lined with water-resistant plaster, that served to store the water needed by the houses of the medieval city. The fact that broken pieces of pottery have been found in these pits seems to have been the result of a change of use. After a certain date, some of the diggings ceased to be used as water tanks, perhaps because they leaked, because there was less need for water, or for other reasons of which we know nothing. At this time, they became stores. A study of the pottery found in them could date the change in use and might help us formulate some hypotheses.

In his seminal paper on the urban fabric of Byzantine cities, C. Bouras used the data published in the Archaiologikon Deltion to 1971 in order to demonstrate that Byzantine Thebes spread outside the Kadmeia to the Kastelli heights, to the hills of the Ampheion and the Ismenion, to Kolonaki hill (where burials have been found), and to neighboring settlements such as Pyri and Tachi.28 Despite this expansion, however, the fortified nucleus of the city continued to be the Kadmeia. A review of the finds made to date will lead us to accept that the walls that Justinian repaired must have been those of the Kadmeia, which continued to be the circumvallation of Thebes during Byzantine times29 and in the period of Latin occupation.30 The locations of the Byzantine water supply network and of the architectural finds demonstrate that the Byzantine city had spread outside the Kadmeia, most notably to the east, between the Chrysoroas and Ismenos streams. There was less expansion to the south, while to the west, in the direction of the Dirke stream, very few finds have come to light (and very little excavation has been done). To the northwest, toward Pyri, the finds become more frequent again (Fig. 1).

Unfortunately, it is now impossible to attribute specific identities to the buildings that have been excavated, whether on the Kadmeia or elsewhere. A very few of them, such as those at positions 1 and 2, have, with many reservations, been described as the houses of aristocrats.31 On Mikro Kastelli hill, at position 139 (outside the Kadmeia), it has been speculated that there was a Byzantine country house.32 A more secure description of the finds might result from a correlation of adjacent and successive exca-

217; position 294: AD (1980): 220; position 299: AD (1981): 192; position 302: AD (1982): 165; position 309: AD (1986): 27, and AD (1987): 117–18.

28Bouras, “City and Village,” 622–25.

29At position 282 (the Koropoulis site), a retaining wall stretching for 18.5 m along the southeast part of the Kadmeia has come to light (AD [1977]: 98 and AD [1978]: 108–12). The manner of construction of this wall seems to support a dating to the 11th century. It may be a repair or buttressing of the Justinianic wall.

30Of the Frankish wall at position 52, a tower has survived in the museum garden, and its systematic excavation and development seem to promise much for research. Sections of walls that must have belonged to other towers in the same wall have survived in positions 19 and 46. See Symeonoglou, Thebes, 245–46, 255.

31Arcj. Efj. (1930): 31; AD (1966): 177–81; AD (1964): 195, 212; Symeonoglou, Thebes, 213–24.

32AD (1968): 214, fig. 8.

636 ASPASIA LOUVI-KIZI

vated sites, wherever this is possible, for example, along Oedipos Street.33 At position 112, nine pits “including water pipes” were found laid out in an extremely complex manner with division into smaller areas.34 The number of storage diggings caused this building to be described as the house of a wealthy family. Perhaps it should be borne in mind that position 270 (where the Town Hall now stands), directly adjacent to 112, yielded an early Christian mosaic. This was the continuation of a mosaic floor found later on the Loukos site (position 266) and the Koropoules site (position 27), on Pindaros Street to the west and south of the Town Hall.35 It was observed on the latter site that in Byzantine times the lower early Christian walls had been lined with waterresistant plaster, thus converting the structure into a water tank36 equipped with runoffs. Right next to this, at position 283 on Oedipos Street, earthenware pipes and pits of the same period were discovered.37 Similar finds came to light at the adjacent positions 274, 275, and 4,38 with numerous deep diggings. Unfortunately, during this sequence of excavations no record was made of the depth of the pits or even of their exact numbers. However, they were numerous and linked by pipes, enabling them to store many cubic meters of water, from which it follows that they should in no circumstances be ascribed to domestic use, even that of a mansion house. The number of such pits, in conjunction with the floor plan of the building at position 112, makes it more reasonable to suppose that this must have been a workshop. Processing of the cocoons, for example (reeling and suffocation),39 requires large quantities of water, as does the tanning of leather.40 In fact, it seems that the water of Thebes contributed to the outstandingly high quality of the silk produced there.41 Similar observations can be made in connection with the finds at positions 284–271, 194, and 49, at the east end of Vourdoumbas Street, in the Kadmeia above the Chrysoroas stream, and with those of the city block enclosed by Vourdoumbas, Pindaros, Kevitos, and Pelopida Streets (positions 14, 249, 118, 114, and 280).

The other finds of pits and pipes inside and outside the Kadmeia are isolated. It would be difficult to describe them as belonging to workshops, and they probably ought to be ascribed to the network of domestic water supply pipes42 leading to the plaster-lined diggings. At position 285, however, three rock-hewn chambers—one circular and two square—may well have belonged to a workshop outside the Kadmeia.43

33At positions 266, 270, 283, 112, 274, 245, and 4.

34AD (1968): 208, fig. 3.

35The Loukos site: position 266, AD (1972): 321 and AD (1973): 285–86. The Koropoulis site is also shown on the map, as part of the major excavation at position 270; AD (1974): 455–59.

36AD (1974): 455.

37AD (1978): 115.

38AD (1976): 121; Arcaiologikaj` Anaj´ lekta ejx Aqhnw'nj(1975), 192–99, and AD (1968): 183, pl. 194b.

39P. Gangoulia et al., HJ shrotrofi´a sto` Soufli´ (Athens, 1992), 86–91.

40Although the Hexabiblos makes no reference to restrictions on the operation of tanneries in towns, the fact that an important church (position 270) was located nearby makes it unlikely that the buildings were used for that purpose.

41Jacoby, “Silk in Byzantium,” 145.

42AD (1982): 165 and AD (1980): 220.

43AD (1978): 115.

Thebes 637

Furthermore, the large water tank at position 286 (Pyri) must certainly have been constructed for manufacturing purposes.44 It is not easy to point to evidence as to the type of product manufactured on these premises, as, indeed, is the case with most of the workshops that have been noted. The only workshop site that has been documented after systematic excavation and published—in summary form, but with extremely useful conclusions—is that of position 306, opposite the Dirke fountain.45

Dye shops have been located on the basis of the interpretation, by the archaeologist C. Kilakou, of archaeological data that are far from easy to read: “wells, circular tanks lined with mortar, shallow depressions hewn in the rock to be used as basins and fireplaces,” “short channels . . . that enabled a liquid of some sort to be moved from one basin to another,” and recesses above the tanks “into which some moving part could be fitted.” The hearths with ash and sections of tools found among the rubble masonry walls of the workshop supplement the picture of manufacturing premises that, according to the archaeological evidence (dating of pottery and coins) must have operated from the late eleventh century until being abandoned early in the fourteenth century.46 The hypothesis that these buildings were used for dyeing—a process that requires large quantities of water—is supported by the presence of an underground water pipe at a higher level (hewn from the limestone and running southeast-northwest), which led water straight into the workshop, and of a runoff drain in the direction of the stream at the northern extremity of the excavation site. It seems reasonable to connect this workshop with the nearby Jewish quarter (to the northwest of the Kadmeia, Fig. 1). As for its position at some distance from the city and close to the Dirke stream, an explanation should perhaps be sought in the constraints placed on dye shops in the Hexabiblos.47

In Thebes today, it is very difficult to find even the few features that remain to testify to the great prosperity of the Byzantine city, whose medieval identity has disappeared forever in more than a century of digging. The archaeological picture to be pieced together from the brief descriptions emerging from the excavations is a supplement to our knowledge of the economic well-being of the city as it can be adduced from the sources.

Archaeological evidence to date tends to support the view that the part of the city that lay outside the Kadmeia, particularly to the east and north (in the direction of Pyri) was never walled.48 An assessment of the finds shows that the east side of the city outside the Kadmeia, between the Chrysoroas and Ismenos streams, repeats the urban picture of the Kadmeia itself, though undoubtedly in looser form: churches, houses,

44AD (1978): 115.

45AD (1986): 87 and AD (1987): 117–18; C. Koilakou, “Buzantina´ ejrgasth´ria (bafh'"…)sth´ Qh'ba,” Tecnologi´a 3 (1989): 23–24.

46Koilakou, “Buzantina´ ejrgasth´ria,” 24.

47Constantini Harmenopuli, Manuale legum sive Hexabiblos, ed. G. E. Heimbach (Leipzig, 1851).

48Unfortunately, it has not proved possible to find any information about the Byzantine (?) wall that may at some time have been excavated close to the railway station. The large and extensive classical wall seems to have passed across this point and would then have been quite close to the Kadmeia.

Medieval Athens

Maria Kazanaki-Lappa

The kindness of the earth remains the same, the mildness of the climate, bringing forth fruit and all other plants, honey-sweet Hymettus, serene Piraeus; . . . and the Acropolis remains the same, where I now sit, and it seems to me that I tread upon the very edge of heaven.

—Michael Choniates

Athens, the city that symbolized the classical world, was throughout the medieval period a small provincial town in the Byzantine Empire to which the sources rarely refer, and then only coincidentally. Its history from the end of the sixth century to the Turkish conquest of 1456 can be divided into three periods: the Dark Ages (7th–9th centuries), when life in the city continued but was confined to a small area around the Acropolis; the middle Byzantine period (10th–12th centuries), when Athens grew and can truly be said to have flourished (as witnessed by the large number of churches built during this time); and the period of Frankish rule (13th–15th centuries), under the rule, successively, of French, Catalan, and Italian dukes, when the Acropolis was converted into a medieval castle and the city shrank to a settlement huddled at the foot of the rock (Figs. 1 and 2).1

The medieval city succeeded its ancient forebear on the lower slopes of the rock and around the Acropolis, where it was protected by a triple belt of fortifications.2 The ancient wall of Themistocles, repaired by Valerian in the mid-third century A.D. formed

This chapter was translated by John Solman.

1 For the medieval history of Athens, see F. Gregorovios and Sp. Lambros, IstoriJ´a th'" po´lew" tw'n Aqhnw'nj kata` tou`" me´sou" aijw'na",3 vols. (Athens, 1904–1906); Sp. Lambros, AiJ Aqh'naij peri` ta` te´lh tou' dwdeka´ tou aijw'no"(Athens, 1878); K. Setton, “Athens in the Later Twelfth Century,” Speculum 19 (1944): 179–207; idem, “The Archaeology of Medieval Athens,” Essays in Medieval Life and Thought, Presented in Honor of Austin Patterson Evans, ed. J. Mundy, R. W. Emery, and B. N. Nelson (New York, 1955), 227–58, reprinted in K. Setton, Athens in the Middle Ages (London, 1975); J. Herrin, “Realities of Byzantine Provincial Government: Hellas and Peloponnesos, 1180–1205,” DOP 29 (1975): 255–87.

2 The book by J. Travlos, Poleodomikh` ejxe´lixi" th'" po´lew" tw'nAqhnw'nj ajpo` tw'n proi¨storikw'n cro´nwn me´cri tw'n ajrcw'n tou' IQaijw'no"(Athens, 1960), 135–72, brings together all the conclusions reached by research to that time about the medieval city and summarizes it in the form of maps. With minor revisions produced by subsequent research, those conclusions still represent our knowledge of the medieval topography of Athens. See Ch. Bouras, “City and Village: Urban Design and Architecture,”

¨

JOB 31.2 (1981): 626–27.

640 MARIA KAZANAKI-LAPPA

the outermost fortified precinct and the furthest limit to which the city expanded during its periods of relative prosperity. The late Roman wall, built shortly after the catastrophic raid of the Heruli in A.D. 267 and enclosing a small area north of the Acropolis and the area from the Odeion of Herodes Atticus to the west side of the Theater of Dionysos on the south side of the rock,3 was the inner precinct and the principal defensive wall of Athens. On the rock itself, the walls of the Acropolis surrounded the monuments of classical antiquity, which though converted were still intact. This wall was the last line of defense, and inside it the population took refuge in the event of raids. All three lines of defense were repaired and reinforced with towers in the sixth century as part of Justinian’s program of reconstructing the castles of cities all over Greece.4 It was this system of walls that enabled Athens to survive through the Dark Ages, when the cities of Byzantium were threatened by the Slavs on land and the Arabs by sea.

In the late Roman period, Athens had flourished for the last time as one of the empire’s centers of education and as the focus for the development of Neo-Platonic philosophy. It can be deduced from the sources and from the finds of excavations that the Greco-Roman tradition and the slowly emerging Christian world coexisted peacefully in Athens to the late fifth century.5 When Justinian closed the schools of philosophy (in 529), Christianity gained the upper hand in Athens, and the city could now clearly be seen to be in decline. In the late sixth century, and throughout the seventh, the ancient temples—the Parthenon, the Erechtheum, the temple of He- phaistos—were converted into churches.6 A raid by the Slavs (dated to 582) struck yet another blow at the city. The evidence for this raid consists of a layer of destruction in the ancient Agora in conjunction with the hoards of coins found in the stratum and also outside the Agora, at the Dipylon Gate and on the Acropolis.7

During the two centuries that followed, we have little historical testimony to the fate of Athens, and excavations have yielded only scanty finds. The demographic shrinkage and the restriction in urban economic activity by which the provincial cities of Byzantium were hit in the seventh and eighth centuries can be perceived in Athens, too. Throughout that period, the city was confined to a small part of what had once been its area, that is, within the narrow bounds of the late Roman wall. Outside the wall, the city had been abandoned, and there are only occasional traces of building activity, including the repair of certain buildings in the ancient Agora and the replacement by a three-aisled basilica of the Tetraconch, the quatrefoil marble church that had been

3M. Korres, A 35.2 (1980): 1.19.

4Prokopios, De aed. 4.2.272; Travlos, Poleodomikh` ejxe´lixi", 144–45.

5H. A. Thompson, “Athenian Twilight, A.D. 267–600,” JRS 49 (1959): 61–72.

6A. Frantz, “From Paganism to Christianity in the Temples of Athens,” DOP 19 (1965): 187–207. On this subject, cf. C. Mango, “The Conversion of the Parthenon into a Church: The Tu¨bingen Theosophy,” Delt.Crist. Arcj. EtJ. 18 (1995): 201–3.

7D. M. Metcalf, “The Slavonic Threat to Greece circa 580: Some Evidence from Athens,” Hesperia 31 (1962): 134–57; A. Frantz, Late Antiquity, A.D. 267–600, The Athenian Agora 24 (Princeton, N.J., 1988), 93–94.

1. Plan of Athens from the Justinianic period to the Frankish conquest (after J. Travlos,

PoleodomikØ §j°lijiw t∞w pÒlevw t«n ÉAyhn«n épÚ t«n proÛstorik«n xrÒnvn m°xri t«n érx«n toË IYÄ afi«now [Athens, 1993], 162)

2. Plan of Athens during the Frankish period (after Travlos, PoleodomikØ §j°lijiw, 172)