THE TOPIC OF ÉLITES raises basic questions of definition. It is so deeprooted in the historiography of the Later Roman empire, that I wish to return in this paper to some of those very issues, and on that basis to raise further questions about the definition of élites in the early Byzantine period. My title consciously refers to previous scholarship on late antiquity, to which I shall return; however, I think it will be useful to start with the notion of élites as used by historians of an even earlier period, namely the Greek east under the Roman empire. Some of the issues raised about Greek-speaking urban élites in the early empire, and especially the second century, for which there is a great deal of evidence, are the same as those which considered in this volume- the absorption of a dominant culture from outside, the adoption by local notables of the values and practices of that culture, the roles played by education, language and religion first in changing and then in perpetuating social stratification, to name only some of the more obvious. Above all, the term “élite” is constantly used in modern scholarship on the Greek east under the Roman emperors, whether in relation to political life, literacy and culture, or visual art. In the light of this earlier scholarship, I shall argue that however tempting it may seem, it is unwise to plunge straight in to a consideration of élites in the later period of change and transition between late antique Christian culture and early Islamic culture without considering some of the pitfalls inherent in the term itself. I will also argue that in this descriptive sense (“élite culture” , “élite values“), “élite” is too blunt a term to be of much real use to the historian, and that we need rather to recognise the existence of multiple élites, some overlapping, others not.

It will be helpful, then, to start with the Greek east in the high Roman empire, in whose study a major theme of recent research has been precisely a concern with élites, or specifically, how and why, as is argued , the local élites adapted themselves to the power and culture of Rome.