Abuse or Reuse? Attitude of „Private Owners” Towards Public Space in Late Antiquity

The Late Antique roman-byzantine society is a constantly changing world. A new political and military background also calls for economic, social and cultural changes. In such an instable world the abuse was inevitable. The existing historical research focused mainly on the abuses of public authorities and even on imperial abuses. This paper is a research on the abuse of private owners against the public property. Using archaeological and historical evidences there had been identified two kinds of abuses: invasion of the public property and the use of spolia. This paper is divided in two parts, analysing those two kinds of abuses. The main primary sources which the author used in this paper were the laws combined in the Theodosian Code and also in the Iustinian Code which showed us the perspective of state regarding the abuse of private owners who affected the integrity of the public domain. Studying them we came to the conclusion that the state failed to stop those abuses and ended up by accepting these behaviours. This new kind of attitude of individuals toward urban landscape may show us a new perspective of how the „city” is understood. The consequence of this new behaviour is dramatic for the image of urban landscape in Late Antiquity.