At BMCR Giovanni Ruffini's Social Networks in Byzantine Egypt reviewed by Conor Whately at the University of Warwick:
Much is often made about the application of
modern theory to the ancient evidence, and one can be assured that some
will find fault with Ruffini's usage of modern network analysis.
Indeed, some of the results are unsurprising, such as his conclusions
about the close face-to-face ties of Aphrodito, a seemingly timeless
characteristic of village life as any long-time resident of a small
town (whether in southern Ontario, such as myself, or Byzantine Egypt)
could attest. Perhaps what is surprising is the fact that this position
has not been adopted more widely before. The same might be said for his
observations on the centralized character of social relations in the
Oxyrhynchos, given the generally hierarchical character of late
antiquity, and the Roman world generally, as this too is unsurprising.
Other conclusions, however, such as what Ruffini's analysis has to tell
us about the growth of the Apionic holdings, and the role of important
individuals and groups (shepherds for example) in Aphrodito, are new.
As such, his use of social network analysis has, to my mind, proven its
worth, and those with an aversion to numbers and figures should not be
put off. Although I am a sceptic of the applicability of the Egyptian
papyrological evidence to the whole of the Mediterranean, this analysis
has ably dispensed with many of my reservations (p. 252). Ruffini has
made an important and provocative addition to modern scholarship on the
social history of late antiquity.
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