ABSTRACT
Epigraphy, like numismatics and sigillography - with which it is related methodologically in several respects - represents an important and independent branch of study in its own right (epigraphers certainly no longer consider themselves as practising an auxiliary or marginal science), which has over the last century and a half evolved its own specific techniques and methods of interpretation. In contrast with the preceding centuries, however, the fifth and sixth centuries show a marked decline in the production of inscriptions of all categories; and from about 600/650 there is an even more apparent diminution. Inscriptions thus provide only very limited material for the iconoclast period, not only because the absolute number of inscriptions dateable to this period is smaller, but also because the dateable inscriptions themselves tend to be far less informative or detailed - there are only a handful of detailed imperial edicts or administrative ordinances, for example, preserved in epigraphic form. 1 One of the effects of this has been that epigraphy has not developed a strong identity as an independent specialism within Byzantine studies as it has for Roman and classical studies. The reduction in the number of inscriptions made has been associated with the changing priorities of late Roman society, and, in particular, with the changing character and shift in cultural values of the social elites in the towns and cities of the provinces. These changes have been connected not only with developments in the ways in which the central government supervised provincial fiscal matters, and the transformation of the dominant elements in provincial society, but also with the christianization of the elite and their priorities. In the seventh century, furthermore, and with the longer term effects of invasions and social and economic dislocation in both the Balkans and Asia Minor, the dramatic reduction in the incidence of epigraphic material seems to run in parallel with the dramatic reduction in urban culture and the disappearance of traditional urban culture and its values. We may assume a direct causal relationship, although its exact nature needs further research.
