Centres of the Late Roman Military Supply Network in the Balkans: a Survey of horrea

Abstract

This article presents a study of the architectual infrastructure of the annona militaris in the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire from the late 3rd to the 6th century AD through a survey of public warehouses (horrea). Excavations since the 19th century have revealed several late antique public warehouses in this region, which allow us to follow the infrastructure of the annona in remarkable detail. This rich architectural material can substantially promote our understanding of the function, development and transformations of the supplynetwork into the end of Antiquity. The examples are categorised chronologically and according to their settlement context. The vast majority dates from the late 3rd and 4th centuries, while those from the 5th and 6th centuries are much fewer. The large early group (late 3rd and 4th centuries) is discussed first, divided into three subcategories of settlement context (forts and small fortified settlements, villas and rural sites, cities), while the few later examples are discussed in separate sections.
The ambitious effort of the Empire under the Tetrarchs and Constantine to secure a well-equipped supply network for the Danubian army produced a large number of horrea in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. The revival and building of large villas and the involvement of cities as principal gathering bases suggest that the production of supplies was now organised in a highly centralised way with the involvement of the civil authorities and great landowners. However, it seems that the building of public warehouses lost much of its importance after the mid-4th century, and declined even further after the wars and crises of the 380s. Great estates and villa-based agriculture collapsed, leaving a gap that may have been partly filled by small fortified settlements. The role of cities as annonary centres also declined, and all the urban horrea gradually fell out of use. A new building drive, reflected in the few late 5th- and 6th-century warehouses, probably aimed at restoring the supply network to its initial effectiveness, but probably to limited effect.