Peter Shi, "Getting Around in A Byzantine Village" - dissertation defense

The Department of Classics at Stanford University invites you to attend a public (virtual) dissertation defense by Peter (Chenye) Shi, entitled "Getting Around in A Byzantine Village: Social Network and Financial Activities in the Sixth-Century Aphrodito”.

For more than a century, the papyrological archives from the Byzantine village Aphrodito have

contributed the key evidence to our understanding of the socio-economic life in Late Antique Egypt.

However, most research still combines evidence from the village with that of the Apions’ archives

from the Oxyrhynchus to analyze the economic patterns in Late Antiquity. The financial activities

and conditions in the micro-landscape of Aphrodito are still in want of a dedicated study. My

dissertation, as a result, examines the financial status and economic activities in Aphrodito through

the political structure and village social network. It focuses on two main aspects of village financial

life- tax and land. Tax and rental receipts, lease contracts, and account books constitute a major part

of the Aphroditan archives. For these documents, villagers’ positions in the land market and the

fiscal system also reflected their social, political, and financial positions. Related documents, as a

result, can be insightful for tracing the transformation of other powers (prestige, bureaucratic

authorities, religious power) to financial advantages or vice versa in the village context. Instead of

analyzing only the political and economic hierarchies, my study relies on social network analysis to

tease out how the community of either equal or hierarchical actors assists or limits different social

tiers' financial capabilities. A detailed study of the interactions of landlords and their managing

teams also reveals the mechanisms of both wealth accumulation and estate maintenance. The

available strategies of property accumulation and tiers of social hierarchy, as I argue, determined the

balanced financial status of Aphrodito, where no large landlord had the absolute upper hand.

For zoom link, please contact Jill Westbrook - jmwestbrook [at] stanford.edu (jmwestbrook[at]stanford[dot]edu)