The Political Topography of the Late Antique City: Activity Spaces in Practice

The political topography of the late antique city is a subject that has been largely neglected. This is largely because research has concentrated on new buildings, mainly churches, rather on than the re-use of older structures and because textual evidence has been neglected. In this article aspects of political topography are examined in terms of ‘activity spaces’. This involves studying discrete units of human activity, plus their material setting, whether this involves a specific building type or not. All source types are used to create a general narrative, which here mainly concerns cities of the East and Central Mediterranean. Emphasis is placed on changes that this approach can bring to our understanding of urban life.