The Urban System of Roman Asia Minor and Wider Urban Connectivity University Press Scholarship Online Oxford Scholarship Online Settlement, Urbanization, and Population Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199602353 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602353.001.0001 The Urban System of Roman Asia Minor and Wider Urban Connectivity J. W. Hanson DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602353.003.0009 Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines the urban system of Roman Asia. The distribution of urban sites indicates that a large proportion of Roman Asia was surveyed and controlled by urban centres, fairly evenly distributed across relief, but not across space, becoming sparser in the central plateau and east. The dense clustering of cities seems to reduce the span of control of individual cities within the region considerably, resulting in an average intercity distance of 24.5 km. Supporting this is a far denser network of agricultural sites. This arrangement seems to tally reasonably precisely with central place theory, since sites seem to have functioned as nodes of control (military and political) and as centres of administration and justice, as well as service centres. Keywords: Roman Asia, urbanization, urban sites, central place theory Introduction Page 1 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 26 August 2015 The Urban System of Roman Asia Minor and Wider Urban Connectivity When were there ever so many cities both inland and on the coast, or when have they ever been so beautifully equipped with everything? Did ever a man who lived then travel across country as we do, counting the cities by days, and sometimes riding on the same day through two or even three cities, as if he was passing through one only?…Now all the Greek cities rise up under your leadership, and the monuments which are dedicated in them and all their establishments and comforts redound to your honour like beautiful suburbs. The coasts and interior have been filled with cities, some newly founded, others increased under and by you. Aelius Aristides, To Rome: 93–4. In Aristides’ To Rome, there is a certain sense of excitement, real or rhetorical, about the apparently considerable changes brought about in the urban system of Roman Asia since the coming of Roman rule in the Late Republic. The impression given not only by Aelius Aristides, but also by a range of other authors including Strabo, Ptolemy, Pliny, and Dio Chrysostom,1 is of a dramatic increase in the number of cities within Asia and an increased level of urban life. Scholarly (p.230) interpretation of this has added that whilst old sites continued to flourish, a significant number of new towns and cities were founded, along with the imposition of military colonies, a network of new roads, and a new political and administrative system.2 It is claimed that a number of these cities rose to new-found prominence, developing populations of as many as 225,000.3 The settlement pattern of the region also seems to have become increasingly nucleated, moving away from a system geared largely towards subsistence agriculture and based around a scatter of hamlets and small villages, to a more heavily urbanized system, concentrated around a smaller number of large towns and cities. Alongside this, poleis, with their emphasis on local self-sufficiency and focused on their own territories, ceased to exist as separate political entities. In tandem, and partially, if not entirely, as a result of these changes, the region also seems to have come by a new prosperity. This changing urban system is explained both by Aristides and his contemporaries, and by modern scholars, as a direct result of Roman rule and as a direct result of being connected to the wider system of the Roman empire.4 While the process of Romanization seems slow, it is also clear that by the third century the cultural and political milieu of the region had become ‘indivisibly bound up’ with that of Rome and entangled in her political and economic fortunes.5 This picture of Asia’s urban system has not received adequate treatment, however, despite the fact that an examination of the urban system has great potential to inform us about the impact of Rome on the region and the effects of wider connections offered by integration into the Roman empire. No recent systematic study of the urban system of Roman Asia has been undertaken, based on a comprehensive catalogue and distribution map of sites. Pounds’s distribution map is a particularly striking example, since it has often been deployed as the fullest study of the urban system of the Roman empire, despite neglecting the whole of Asia, Syria, Arabia, and North Africa (Fig. 9.1).6 While Scheidel supplements Pounds’s map with a more detailed map of the eastern provinces, his Page 2 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 26 August 2015 The Urban System of Roman Asia Minor and Wider Urban Connectivity illustration is essentially an adaptation of Jones’s study of 1937 (Fig. 9.2).7 In this context, our understanding of the phenomenon of urbanism within Asia is generally poor. Lacking a more recent (p.231) Fig. 9.1. The distribution of Roman towns and cities in Europe. Source: (Pounds 1973, fig. 3.6). archaeological study of the region, our understanding is based on travellers’ accounts from the early nineteenth century to as late as the 1980s, a handful of ‘biographies’ of individual cities, a few surveys of small areas, and a number of largely out-of-date historical accounts, loosely integrating archaeological material.8 Our picture of the urban system of Asia as a whole has also tended to be drawn to a large extent from primary sources, such as those detailed above, and the extrapolation of trends perceived in the wider Roman empire.9 The impression of the urban system of Asia derived from these sources has been accepted uncritically and has attracted very little examination or explanation, making re-evaluation essential.10 (p.232) Page 3 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 26 August 2015 The Urban System of Roman Asia Minor and Wider Urban Connectivity Fig. 9.2. The distribution of sites in the eastern Mediterranean. Source: (Scheidel 2007, map. 3.3 (based on Jones 1937, maps II–IV)). An investigation of the density and nature of an urban system can be extremely informative since there is a strong correlation between rates of urbanism on the one hand and the performance and level of development of the economy on the other.11 In a city beyond a certain size, the bulk of the population will be engaged in non-agricultural activity, and will therefore depend on a surplus produced by the agrarian sector. The higher the rates of urbanization and the populations of cities within a region, the greater the surplus that must be generated and supplied, and therefore the greater the per capita (p.233) production implied, and thus the greater the prosperity of the region. Large cities are particularly economically significant, since they will exert a strain on the economy by drawing individuals from the countryside and placing them in a position where they rely on the surplus of others (although in turn enabling greater division of labour and greater productivity). An extra facet of the Roman urban system is that such urban centres will also display high ‘monumental overheads’, which will also need to be funded.12 Furthermore, a dense urban system, with large cities, requires a relatively complex economy, including the organization and tapping of a large and productive hinterland, the extraction of resources from a wide region, and effective transport. The characteristics of an urban system and its levels of connectivity will therefore have far- reaching implications for our understanding of the society and economy of the region. This study adopts the methodological stance put forward by the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OXREP) and its attempt to advance theoretical debates by working from bodies of quantifiable data that can then be interpreted and analysed as indicators of the performance of the Roman economy. This chapter thus starts from first principles to Page 4 of 40 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 26 August 2015 The Urban System of Roman Asia Minor and Wider Urban Connectivity collate data that can be analysed by reference to a series of models, many of which have only seldom been applied to archaeological material.