Striking Gold? Landscape, Labour, and Metal Extraction in the Sixth-Century Balkans

Gold solidi, lead seals, silver plate: metal objects are some of the most recognisable products of the sixth-century Byzantine state, often directly connected to the patterns of administration, fiscality, and ideation that defined the empire. While much attention has been devoted to the objects themselves, we know relatively little about the spaces and communities that supplied the imperial offices, workshops and mints with their precious metals. This paper draws on archaeological and legal evidence to demonstrate that, under Anastasius and Justinian, the diocese of Dacia in the central Balkans emerged as one of the key centres of metal extraction within the empire. From hilltops to river gorges, mining and smelting operations in the sixth-century Balkans were undertaken by a variety of actors and communities operating at different scales, and metal extraction was woven into the spectrum of labour regimes that characterised the region. This period belongs within a longer history of exploitation of mineral resources within the region. At the same time, the sixth century was markedly different from anything that came before. As I argue, the Dacian peasants, bishops, and landlords who invested in mining ventures were attuned to the demands of the successive imperial regimes and continually attempted to reshape the conditions under which the early Byzantine state sought to capture and harness these key mineral resources. Their exploitation linked local lives to empire-wide patterns of governance, allowing local choices to reverberate in and beyond Constantinople. At the same time, imperial desires and appetites profoundly shaped local landscapes and lifeways, exerting distinctly unequal kinds of pressure on the different local constituencies that were engaged in metal extraction. By following the faint tracks of miners, I argue, it is possible to view the sixth-century imperial state from the bottom up, locating the empire in local experiences.