Beyond Urban Planning: Challenges of Resource Management in the Construction of Late Antique Capital Cities

Constantinople and Ravenna found new life in Late Antiquity through calculated decisions to transform them into capitals. For these cities to succeed, simultaneous large-scale imperial building projects had to be undertaken, such as fortifications, roads, aqueducts, palaces, and harbors. This created great competition for resources, especially considering the local lack of any established procurement and production industries of the scale required. Unfortunately, there exists no direct archaeological evidence for these industries. Though law codes provide useful insight into how the construction industry functioned, they do not mention brick, a critical building material that was used in great quantities. As such, this article addresses this gap in the evidence. It uses Actor-Network and Material Engagement Theories to investigate and reimage the complex human-object relationships involved in material sourcing and production industries in Ravenna and Constantinople in the decades following their accession as capital cities. Quantitative analysis of extant structures under the framework of backward induction—starting from an end result and reasoning backward in time to identify the most advantageous sequence(s) of events—helps us identify the comparable and contrasting nature of supplying enough building materials for these two new capitals in Late Antiquity. The qualitative and quantitative results from representative case studies show not only that new, large-scale industries focusing on the procurement of bricks were necessary to ensure the success of these new capital cities but that their successful operation was facilitated only by linking rural, peri-urban, and urban landscapes.