Metals were worked in both state and private workshops. Gold, silver, and copper coin was produced in state mints and thesauri under the comes sacrarum largi-tionum, as were largitio gold and silver plate, insignia of office, and ceremonial armour. Other armour and arms were manufactured in eleven state weapons factories in the eastern empire under the control of the magister officiorum, as listed in the Notitia Dignitatum of c.400 (Jones 1986: 834-6). That at Sardis may have been located on the north-east edge of the city (Waldbaum 1983: 9). With regard to private workshops, written evidence suggests that while copper and gold were worked in villages (for household uses and jewellery, respectively), silver plate was produced in cities. Alexandria is mentioned in several sources as such a centre. Furthermore, the horoscope of a ship sailing from there to Athens in 475 states that it carried silver work, while cargoes of the patriarchal fleet of Alexandria, said to have sailed to the Adriatic in the early seventh century, likewise included worked silver. At Constantinople silversmiths operated on the Mese (in both the early and medieval periods), coppersmiths opposite Hagia Sophia, and a blacksmith’s forge is mentioned in the seventh century on the embolos of Domninos. Justiniana Prima
Had two forges making agricultural tools and a goldsmith. At Sardis, shops in use still in the seventh century on the decumanus maximus repaired metal items, such as locks; numerous copper metal vessels were found in other shops (Mango, M. Mundell 2001: 93-5).
World History
