James Scott, "Legibility," Flavius Apion, Anoup, the Emperor Justinian, Robin of Locksley, Rebecca Daughter of Mordecai, King Richard, and Others..

Cato Unbound: James Scott: The Trouble with the View from Above.

A comment:

In 542 AD the late Roman (early Byzantine?) Emperor Justinian I wrote to his Praetorian Prefect concerning the army--trained and equipped and paid for by the Roman State to control the barbarians and to "increase the state." Justinian was, Peter Sarris reports in his Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian, upset that:

certain individuals had been daring to draw away soldiers and foederati from their...