Much about this volume appears uncommon, fresh, and refreshing: Gracchi Books is a new imprint of Punctum Books, the location of which is given as “Earth, Milky Way”: a whimsical way of saying that Punctum Books is dedicated to Open Access publishing--of the radical kind advocated by the Radical OA Collective. Since 2011 Punctum, as a non-profit corporation, has published a formidable collection of what they themselves call “unconventional scholarly work” across many different disciplines, often multi- or interdisciplinary. Gracchi Books’ motto is “too many echoes, not enough voices.” One of the editors--Burrows--of the work under review has recently finished his PhD (Leeds), and it is great that he got this opportunity. The other editor--Kelly--is, relatively speaking, more of an old hand, and an interdisciplinary scholar if ever there was one, whose published work ranges from philosophy of history to Visigothic Spain.
The moot question is of course: does this volume live up to the expectations raised by the publishing house and by the editors? Is it innovative, multi- and interdisciplinary, even unconventional? The blurb on the back of the book promises a volume dedicated to addressing “a lacuna in urban history” by bringing a range of different approaches to bear on questions of “entanglement and competition.” In order to “elicit the interactions between localities,” it will not so much look at urban centres as subordinate within larger structures, but as “entities in itself”--which seems somewhat contradictory; what is meant is that horizontal connections between communities will be more important than the vertical, hierarchical relationships in which they are embedded. It wants to examine “how local people thought about, engaged with, and struggled against nearby or distant urban neighbours...through a broad geographical range of late ‘Roman’ provinces and post-‘Roman’ states.”
I will come to an answer straight away: no, this volume is not the innovative, ground-breaking collection of papers that one might have been led to expect. The individual papers are not multi-, let alone interdisciplinary, and definitely not unconventional. They are very valuable: the authors are all competent and unlock a lot of hard-to-find scholarship, especially a wealth of archaeological publications, much in French and even more in Spanish, not easily accessible to everybody. But it is exactly for this same reason that I have characterized these papers as not innovative and conventional: we are presented with lengthy historical and archaeological exposés summarizing a lot of literature. Thus, we have a potted history of Nicomedia by Dimitris J. Kyrtatas, much archaeological information about Reccopolis and other towns in the Meseta by Javier Martínez Jiménez, even more archaeological detail about Augusta Emerita by Pedro Mateos Cruz, about two insulae in Ostia by Michael Mulryan, and about Toledo by Isabel Sánchez Ramos. The other papers may dedicate a larger part of their text to analysis, but still present quite a lot of empirical evidence, historical and/or archaeological. I repeat: this is all valuable, especially the archaeology. But we are entitled to ask what the authors do with all this source material.
Before answering that question, we should have a look at the preface by Kelly and the introduction by Ian Wood (the recently retired early medieval specialist from Leeds, and the PhD supervisor of Kelly--there is a strong Leeds connection to this collection which is not explained). Kelly and Wood escape more or less from the criticism above. Kelly’s preface is not the usual thing with some technical information and acknowledgements, but a spirited account of the rivalry between Jamona (Ciudadela/Ciutadella) and Magona (Mahón) on Menorca, and of resulting tensions within those communities. He argues convincingly that written accounts are normative, rather than descriptive: they urge people on to despise, diminish or even kill their neighbours, but the facts on the ground may be quite different. Nevertheless, the written/spoken word may create the divisions that it purported to describe. Ian Wood in his introduction picks up on this theme, and elaborates on the fuzzy edge between competition and cooperation, referring to Regine Le Jan’s concept ofcoopétition. Alas, no other author in this volume returns to that. Otherwise, Wood summarizes the individual papers and tries to tie them together. He singles out religion as the main force driving late antique changes and developments, but urges us not to reduce the whole complicated story of the period to the establishment of the Church, even it was the dominant party.
Preface and introduction, interesting and readable as they are, do not, however, run very deep conceptually. Methodological issues are raised only by Michael Mulryan, in discussing the interplay of space and human agents and in rejecting the dichotomy of public and private as unhelpful, and to some extent by Douglas Underwood, with some consideration of horizontal interactions as compared to centre-periphery models. In sum total, that is quite underwhelming. Even a basic issue such as ethnicity (talking about Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages one would think ethnic markers, self-identification, ethnogenesis and so on, to be important issues) is hardly problematized: the scare quotes around Roman--as quoted above from the back of the book--are sensible enough, but return only once, in the paper by Javier Martínez Jiménes (208). He is also the only one to discuss ethnicity more generally. Michael Burrows seems to want to put ethnicity and faith aside, while concentrating “on the city as an aspect of identity” (69). There is no denying that everything from a local sense of belonging to outright campanilismo is an important part of an individual’s identity, but ethnicity (or faith) cannot simply be put aside: they should be got out of the way, which asks for discussion. Also, the perennial question of what can be called “urban” and what that implies is completely avoided. Conceptually, almost everything in these papers is taken for granted. I am not implying that all relevant debates should be redone, merely that they be referred to.
According to the subtitle, the volume deals with communication and competition between cities and within cities. Again, neither of these are problematized. Communication is too ambiguous or pluriform a concept: everything that happens between and in cities can be called communication, so every paper here is about communication. That cities trade with other cities (Mark Lewis Tizzoni, Douglas Underwood) is to be expected. Of course, the specifics are interesting, but what do we learn by labelling the mere existence of trade routes, or of a road network in general, which might not even be a real network travelled by real people but a textual artefact (Ann Christys), as examples of “communication”?
Competition, however defined, is much better graspable than the equivocal “communication.” Lisa Kaaren Bailey speaks of the 5th-century sermon by an anonymous author (she includes a full translation) in which Lyon’s martyrs (the purported victims of the 177 persecution) are set up as superior to the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem. Baily explains this rivalry as a means to the end of building unity in Lyon and relocating Lyon in a wider landscape. She interestingly adds that the sermon is an argument in favour of this competitive train of thought and does not necessarily reflect a local consensus: this takes us back to the preface where Kelly pointed out the normative nature of many accounts of antagonism. Michael Burrows discusses the rivalry between Tours and Bourges: which episcopal see is the most important, who has got the most important saint, which town is favoured by secular power? As Gregory of Tours is our only source, Burrows admits that it is difficult to distinguish between Gregory’s personal antipathies and genuine popular hostility towards another town. One wonders how this proviso relates to his statement about the plausibility of “pre-hegemonic [i.e., before Roman imperial times] antagonistic rivalries re-emerging in the late antique context”: that implies a real antagonism which dates to before the Roman conquest, and was temporarily repressed; however, only Avaricum (Bourges) is the continuation of a Celtic oppidum; Caesarodunum (Tours) is a new foundation. Dimitris J. Kirtatas notices that in Nicomedia we can see tensions between pagans and Christians, but also between the one pagan sect and the other, and between different groups of Christians. He also notes Nicomedia’s enmity against Nicaea: both towns vie for primacy (it is Nicaea that gets the very first church council, not Nicomedia). Javier Martínez Jiménez discusses competition between cities in the Meseta: which one had the most powerful saint; which could establish itself as the royal seat. Otherwise, tensions arise between elite and non-elite elements within the cities, and between Christians and Jews (alas merely mentioned in passing). Isabel Sánchez Ramos hypothesizes that diversity within the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo, such as competing episcopal administrations, did not undermine but stimulated unification of the kingdom. On the one hand she tries to develop this by looking at councils, coinage and taxation, but on the other she rather weakens her argument by pointing out how Toledo’s position in the hierarchy of settlements in Roman days laid the basis for its pre-eminence in the inner Carthaginiense in Late Antiquity. If this is so, how much need was there to stimulate unification of the kingdom around Toledo? Apart from these examples, we find little competition mentioned in these papers.
So, if there is little methodology, some competition, but not too much, and a lot of communication with little or no explanatory value, what do these papers argue? There is one theme that keeps recurring: (dis)continuity. After decades of debate about Late Antiquity in general, and about the fate of the cities of the Roman Empire when that empire ceases to exist in particular, that is a subject bound to crop up. It is stressed repeatedly that change should not be seen as decline, that the transformations that cities are undergoing show their continued vitality or vibrancy. Even if there is discontinuity in some aspects, there is still overall continuity. The view of Late Antiquity permeating this volume is definitely the view that has been in the ascendancy since Peter Brown started to break down the barriers between Late Antique and Early Medieval. It is certainly the view that informs Ian Wood’s introduction with its talk of change being constant, and of survival and re-invigoration. One may ask whether the archaeology on display in these papers really bears this out. That is difficult to say: for instance the general encroachment of private occupation on public space, a recurring theme (pace Mulryan, and even he does not escape from using “private”--though within quotes--space versus communal space, 293), can be interpreted in different ways: vitality is one, but decay or dilapidation another. The unmitigated opinion expressed in this volume says: vitality.
Other changes frequently mentioned are, obviously, Christianization, which impacted urban landscapes and urban life (nothing new here; Pedro Mateos Cruz interestingly speaks of Christian building programs as the creation of new public spaces after the old ones were abandoned), and the centres of power shifting across the map. Several authors focus on the Germanic successor states, and there is some reference to Islam; there is little explicit attention paid to the other side of the coin, that is the end of Roman political dominance (a subject approached intelligently and with much nuance, however, by Mark Lewis Tizzoni). Physical changes in the urban fabric that are repeatedly mentioned are the refashioning, destruction and/or spoliation of religious and entertainment buildings of Roman imperial date--again, one can question how to interpret this.
In conclusion: this is a collection of papers that does not live up to its title and to the expectations raised by the words of publisher/editors and the preface and introduction. It simply is not very exciting: “too many echoes, not enough voices.” Notwithstanding, it contains a lot of valuable information, especially about the late antique archaeology of the western Mediterranean (the geographical range is rather more limited than the “broad geographical range” promised: Kelly’s preface, titled “Iberian rivalries” sets the tone. Of the ten papers, four deal with the Iberian peninsula, three with Gaul, one with Carthage, one with Ostia, and one with Nicomedia). If only it had been titled something like “Urban Transformations and Urban Life in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, mainly in the Western Mediterranean,” one could praise it for bringing together a lot of evidence not easily accessible. One might still criticize its lack of methodological rigour and its somewhat superficial analysis, but there would not be a lot of unfulfilled promises to complain about. Better to claim too little and be seen to surpass oneself, than claim too much and fall short. In that way, all the good things here run the risk of being overlooked, which would be a pity.
Table of Contents
Michael J. Kelly--Preface: Iberian Rivalries
Ian Wood--Introduction
Lisa Kaaren Bailey--“The Innocence of the Dead Crowned You, the Glory of the Triumphant Crowned Me”: The Strange Rivalry between Bethlehem and Lyon in Eusebius Gallicanus Sermon 11
Michael Burrows--Tours vs. Bourges: The Secular and Ecclesiastical Discourse of Inter-City Relationships in the Accounts of Gregory of Tours
Ann Christys--Did All Roads Lead to Córdoba under the Umayyads?
Dimitris J. Kyrtatas--Religious Conflict in Roman Nicomedia
Javier Martínez Jiménez--Reccopolitani and Other Town Dwellers in the Southern Meseta during the Visigothic Period of State Formation
Pedro Mateos Cruz--Augusta Emerita in Late Antiquity: The Transformation of Its Urban Layout During the Fourth and Fifth Centuries CE
Michael Mulryan--The So-Called “Oriental Quarter” of Ostia: Regions III.XVI-VII, a Neighborhood in Late Antiquity
Isabel Sánchez Ramos--Looking through Landscapes: Ideology and Power in the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo
Mark Lewis Tizzoni--Locating Carthage in the Vandal Era
Douglas Underwood--Good Neighbors and Good Walls: Urban Development and Trade Networks in Late Antique South Gaul