Gephyra (May 2018)
A new Late Antique Property Inscription from the Isaurian City of Germanicopolis Recording a Landlord by the Name of Nikopssianis Owner of a Proastion/Topothesia
Abstract
The large estates owned by the landlords, who caused the emergence of the feudal system, had a significant place within the economic structure of Late Antiquity. These landowners were generally city dwellers possessing residences and cultivated estates outside the cities. These landowners were not only wealthy, members of the agrarian elites, but were also influential persons for the administration in Late Antiquity.This contribution introduces a new epigraphic document indicating the property (proastion/topothesia) of a certain landlord Nikopssianis who was a Christian from the city of Germanicopolis. Both terms proastion and topothesia, which are for the first time seen together in this inscription, were used with the same meaning for the real estates of Nikopssianis. The papyrical and the epigraphic documents from Late Antiquity attest that the term proastion was also used to describe a large estate or an estate house outside of a city with the difference of its classical sense of suburban or a military settlement in the ancient literary sources. Likewise, the term topothesia, which is used in the meaning of an imaginary place in the literary sources, seems in Late Antiquity to be a word describing a certain district or a large area of agricultural land.Consequently, with the use of the terms proastion and topothesia in this inscription it is suggested that both terms should be understood as indicating Nikopssianis’s farmstead comprising both a residence and an area of agricultural land in the suburb of Germanicopolis.
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