Late antique encroachment in the city centres of Asia Minor: economic bustle and socio-political significance

This article focusses on the appearance of shops and workshops around and on agorae as well as along major colonnaded streets in the city centres of Asia Minor. It presents an overview of the literary and epigraphic sources for such encroachment and stresses the ever-growing contribution of archaeology in our understanding of the phenomenon. It is argued that commercial encroachment was already common long before Late Antiquity and that it was virtually always tolerated by the local government, as long as the shops and workshops did not hinder traffic or pose any other threat to their surroundings. In Late Antiquity, the proliferation of secondary structures in public space became more intensive, more of these shops and workshops were now built in durable materials, and it can be hypothesized that civic municipalities were actively involved in the phenomenon. The size and appearance of all shops and workshops was in any case still controlled by law. The appearance of city centres in Asia Minor no doubt changed drastically, but it is quite clear that the settlements were thriving into the sixth century and that there was often still a balance between aesthetic concerns on the one hand and commercial interests and pragmatic approaches to the urban fabric on the other. The article further touches upon the social status of the owners and occupants of these buildings and spaces. It explores three possible scenarios: that merchants or artisans had acquired ownership of public space themselves, that they rented the space from another, wealthier, individual, or that they leased the space from the civic government. An evaluation of all the evidence suggests that individuals of middling fortune played a significant and active part in the evolution of the urban landscape and civic life in Late Antiquity