The overall demographic decline had two important consequences: shortage
of manpower became a principal factor in imperial policy, and this in
turn transformed the landscape of the empire. Human spoils, the captives
who followed in the train of victorious armies, were a constant feature of
the wars against the Arabs, Bulgars and Slavs. Prisoner exchanges and the
refusal to hand over fugitives are more often mentioned in Arabic sources
than in Byzantine ones, but show that manpower had become a precious
commodity; the withholding of captives led to the disastrous campaign
against the Bulgars at Bersinikia in 813.38 The emperors conducted a veritable
settlement policy. Constantine V and Leo IV settled prisoners taken
on the Arab border – from Germanikeia, Melitene and Theodosioupolis –
in newly-constructed kastra in Thrace.39 Constantine repopulated Constantinople
in 756 with natives of Greece and the islands,40 and in the
760s he installed migrant Slavs on the Asiatic coast of the Black Sea near
the Bosporus.41 But it was Nikephoros I who pursued a settlement policy
most vigorously. According to Theophanes’ Chronicle, in 807 he began by
moving to Thrace people in Asia Minor found to be without fixed homes,
and in 809–10 he settled impoverished soldiers from the themes of Asia in
the Sklaviniai of Greece and Macedonia. The so-called Chronicle of Monemvasia
corroborates Theophanes’ information for the region of Sparta.42
Later, according to the Life of Athanasia of Aegina, manpower shortages
forced Theophilos to issue an edict requiring Roman widows to marry barbarian
immigrants.43 Likewise, Theophilos adopted the policy of settling
defectors from the caliphate in Asia Minor: initially the Banu Habib of
Nisibis were installed as freebooters on the border, and the famous Persian
unit commanded by Theophobos was transferred to the regions of Sinope
and Amastris, later to be dispersed throughout the themes (see below,
p. 393).44 The empire required men, both to join the army and to pay the
taxes which provided for its upkeep: this could explain both the forced
conversion under Leo III of the Jews andMontanists,45 and also the persecution
of monks by Constantine V between 767 and 770, forcing them to
return to lay status and marry.46
The scarcity of men also transformed the landscape and economy
of the empire between the end of the sixth century and the seventh.
Certain regions, such as Mount Athos, were abandoned and would not
be repopulated until the ninth century.47 The empire was no longer a
network of cities, but rather a rural state supervised from Constantinople,
the metropolis which survived behind its walls. The fate of the cities of
antiquity has been much studied48 and there is agreement that the standard
model – that of cities being abandoned for fortresses or refuges built on
higher ground – needs refining. To begin with, a large number of cities
were abandoned outright – including Anemurion49 and Tyana – even if
some, such as Pergamon, revived in the tenth century.50 However, despite
could cite the case of Locri, abandoned for Gerace (Hagia Kyriake) before
78751 and examples from Asia Minor are legion52 – the inhabitants often
remained inside the ruined city, even when they had no means of rebuilding
it: they withdrew to a defensive position, fortifying only a small part of
the city with materials from the ruins. Such was the case at Ankyra,53
Amorion,54 Side55 and Sardis.56 Ephesos combines the two patterns: one
small part of the ancient city surrounding the port was reused and fortified,
and a fortress was built on higher ground nearby, around the cathedral
of St John (now Selc¸uk).57 Furthermore, fortifying a reduced space was
in no way incompatible with small groups living in other districts inside
the perimeter of the ancient city, as at Amorion, or with the presence of a
kastron on higher ground further off, as is well illustrated by the Miracles
of St Theodore at Euchaita under Constantine V.58 Finally, there were the
cities created on virgin sites or on the sites of ancient fortresses, strongholds
on high ground which contained the newly constituted civil, ecclesiastical
and military administration within their walls. Such were the Thracian
kastra of Probaton and Bulgarophygon constructed under Constantine V,59
ranking high on the list of bishoprics, or Santa Severina (Nikopolis) in
Calabria.60
There were many variants, but the essential pattern was that cities shrank
to a quarter of their previous size; all of them – whether old or new – were
now fortified and their main function had changed. The city had become
above all a local branch of the state; both from a military point of view
– as garrisons or refuges for the surrounding rural population – and from
an ecclestiastical perspective – as the residence of the bishop. However, it
should be noted that the economic function of the city as a place for markets
and fairs did not disappear. In the context of the demographic and economic
depression shown by numismatic records, the written sources sometimes
give paradoxical information; one example is the remission by Constantine
VI of fees amounting to 100 pounds of gold (7,200 nomismata) for the fair
of St John at Ephesos in 795 – an enormous sum which continues to puzzle
historians.61 One explanation might be the industry of local peasants, whose
villages (ch¯oria) had become the basic unit of the fiscal system, so vividly
pictured in the Farmer’s law.62 Indeed, the Arabic geographers describe the
empire as having no cities and being made up of prosperous districts with
fortresses and villages, often in caves or underground.
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