From Texts on Walls to Walls of Text: The Layout of Late Antique Greek Documents Inscribed on Architecture

Late Roman documents inscribed in Greek on wall space in Asia Minor look surprisingly different from earlier Greek documentary inscriptions also inscribed on walls, which were often carved with the text subdivided into neat and orderly columns. By contrast, some late antique documents were carved in continuous lines stretching for metres, and they incorporate disparate visual features, such as kalends dates in Latin cursive letters. Rather than assume that such mise en page and visual characteristics represent the “decline” of classical epigraphic traditions, I trace the dissolution of the older, columnar formatting in documentary inscriptions on architectural wall space and the development of new layouts in Asia Minor, beginning in the Roman imperial period and accelerating in Late Antiquity. I argue that the aesthetic change can be summarized as follows: earlier Greek and Roman inscriptions appear as “texts on walls,” that is, discrete columns of texts written upon a pre-existing wall space. In the late Roman period, inscriptions fill up larger wall spaces without division, transforming these architectural surfaces into “walls of text.” These late antique inscribed documents become visually inseparable from their architectural writing bearers, acting as an “inscribed skin” and adding texture to the buildings. In some cases (e.g. Hagios Polyeuktos in Constantinople), architects or building teams clearly planned space for inscriptions early in the construction process. These changes correspond with the wider aestheticization of inscriptions in the late Roman period.