The Geography of Urbanism in Roman Asia Minor; Rinse Willet

Rinse Willet [+–]

University of Leuven

Dr. Rinse Willet is an archaeologist at the University of Leuven.

The Geography of Urbanism in Roman Asia Minor investigates how Roman urbanism manifested itself in Asia Minor during the first three centuries CE, particularly with regards to its spatial patterning over the landscape and the administrative, economic and cultural functions cities fulfilled, and how cities developed in terms of size and monumentality. It also addresses to what extent this was a result of political and socio-cultural and economic context and to what extent ‘structural determinants’, such as the physical topography, agricultural potential and climate (including the shifts/changes therein) influenced the observed patterns. As Asia Minor was already dotted by cities long before the Romans got a hold on this area during the second century BCE, this work compares urbanism of the first three centuries CE with the patterns of cities during the first millennium BCE (Classical and Hellenistic period particularly) and the Byzantine and Ottoman patterns, creating a long term perspective.

The book contains an appendix with the information for the 500 cities and 1000 villages in Asia Minor.

Preliminaries

Preface [+–] vii-ix

The Geography of Urbanism in Roman Asia Minor investigates how Roman urbanism manifested itself in Asia Minor during the first three centuries CE, particularly with regards to its spatial patterning over the landscape and the administrative, economic and cultural functions cities fulfilled, and how cities developed in terms of size and monumentality. It also addresses to what extent this was a result of political and socio-cultural and economic context and to what extent ‘structural determinants’, such as the physical topography, agricultural potential and climate (including the shifts/changes therein) influenced the observed patterns. As Asia Minor was already dotted by cities long before the Romans got a hold on this area during the second century BCE, this work compares urbanism of the first three centuries CE with the patterns of cities during the first millennium BCE (Classical and Hellenistic period particularly) and the Byzantine and Ottoman patterns, creating a long term perspective. The book contains an appendix with the information for the 500 cities and 1000 villages in Asia Minor.

List of Figures [+–] x-xii

List of Tables [+–] xiv-xv

Classical Source Abbreviations [+–] xvi-xvii

Chapter 1

Towards Defining Cities in Roman Asia Minor [+–] 1-32

This chapter sets the stage of the subject, which consists on the one hand of the physical setting of Asia Minor and on the other of the various definitions of cities and theoretical discourses of and approaches to ancient, and more specifically Roman, urbanism. It also deals with the bodies of evidence that area available for this study.

Chapter 2

The Rise of the Roman Urban Pattern [+–] 33-67

This chapter deals with the various forms of urbanism in Asia Minor present before the rise of the Roman Empire. Here a short history of cities and the most important sites in Asia Minor is presented before the second half of the first millennium BCE, before delving deeply in reconstructing the patterns of cities during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Here, various sources of data are combined to create a hitherto unseen sequence of urban development. When they started to get a grasp on the region, the Romans did not encounter a blank canvas during the second century BCE, but rather encountered an already thriving distribution of cities, which the Romans would impacted and expanded upon.

Chapter 3

The Urban Pattern: Self-governing Cities [+–] 69-114

This chapter deals with the places existent under the Roman Empire that were legally defined as cities by their status of civic autonomy. This provides a reconstruction of the first layer of cities. The body of evidence for these places is textual and numismatic, and a critical review of various sources, including the ancient geographers (Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy and others), evidence from assizes, and evidence from minting, is used to reconstruct a pattern of cities in Asia Minor. This pattern is analyzed, revealing how the preceding Hellenistic pattern related to the pattern of the Roman Empire and showcasing the general spatial patterns and densities of cities in the area. However, it also reveals that the pattern of cities that were officially recognized by the central authorities, only tell a limited story on sedentary life in Asia Minor during the Roman Empire, some small cities ending up with territories that were simply to vast to be governed from a single city.

Chapter 4

Secondary Agglomerations and Regional Settlement Patterns [+–] 115-160

This chapter is devoted to the town-like settlements and villages that did not receive official recognition, but played an important role functioning as central places for markets, justice, religion and so on. The bodies of evidence for these secondary agglomerations is discussed and three case studies (Ephesos, Kyaneai and Sagalassos) are highlighted in order to further showcase the important role of villages and town-like settlements in the territories of officially recognized cities. Furthermore, this chapter explores the roles of estates in settlement patterns and tests the effects of structural determinants, such as agricultural potential, the distribution of natural resources, climate, and connectivity on the patterns of official cities and secondary agglomerations.

Chapter 5

The Urban Hierarchy [+–] 161-202

This chapter focuses on the size of cities in Asia Minor, the hierarchy between cities and how these may relate to the economic integration of the Roman Empire. The chapter starts off by exploring the bodies of evidence and how the size of a city is defined, after which the geographical distribution is explored. The differences in the sizes of cities over the regions within Asia Minor (the urban hierarchy) is explored. From this, the claim that such hierarchies are an effect of the degree of economic integration is tested by exploring the independence and interdependence of cities through their food supply, coin supply and pottery trade.

Chapter 6

Monumentality and Cities [+–] 203-249

The final chapter delves deeper into the physical manifestations of cities, particularly the monumentality of cities, city planning and the presence of public buildings. Furthermore the size of cities and the size of public buildings (particularly theatres and bathing complexes) is further tested for scaling phenomena (as found in modern cities) and is revealed for the first time to have been attested for baths of Roman Asia Minor. The relationships between the role and functions of cities, the presence of public buildings and the economic power of cities is a third investigation in this chapter.

Chapter 7

Epilogue [+–] 251-254

The epilogue ties the observations made and conclusions drawn from the patterns of cities in Asia Minor together and pushes the narrative to the grander scale of the Roman Empire, as the patterns observed here are unique in the Roman East, and Asia Minor was one of the most urbanized areas of the Empire. As this is clearly not a result of Roman power alone, but rather a pattern that to an extent began to grow during the Hellenistic period and continues to exist in the Byzantine empire, the epilogue advocates more long term research on ancient urbanism, in which particularly the social developments (i.e. the shift of the economy to a state of proto-capitalism) and the ecological developments (changes in the climate) help to explain the observed patterns better than previous models.

End Matter

Bibliography [+–] 255-289

Appendix I: Settlement Data [+–] 291-377

The appendix contains the data of the cities and secondary agglomerations per province, standardizing the features per city.

Appendix II: Hinterlands and Territories [+–] 379-381

Index [+–] 383-398

Reviews

A work of remarkable originality and scholarship... a brilliant landmark study that is a game changer in urban history and urban archaeology of the ancient world.
John Bintliff, Honorary Professor in Classical Archaeology, Edinburgh University

Asia Minor is generally thought to be one of the most highly urbanised provinces of the Roman Empire, but Rinse Willet's work is the first full-scale study of the chronology, extent and character of this urbanisation. Specialists in the archaeology of Asia Minor and scholars of Roman urbanisation more generally will find much of interest in W's methods and findings.
The Journal of Roman Studies

This is an ambitious project, focusing on the cities of Roman Asia Minor in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD by region. It examines how regions differed from one another by catego- rising cities according to their location, size and the presence of various buildings. Scholars have already been doing this for a long time informally and subjectively, but Rinse Willet is more systematic, making good use of GIS to quantify these factors and good use of a large number of colour illustrations to display the results.
Ancient West and East

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The Geography of Urbanism in Roman Asia Minor

Rinse Willet [+–]

University of Leuven

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