FROM MYCENAE TO CONSTANTINOPLE Richard Tomlinson introduces a representative selection of Greek and Roman cities, looking specifically at their architectural remains. They are chosen for their importance to our understanding of the evolution of the city-form, either because they were already important in antiquity, or because the quality of the remains makes them particularly interesting. Thus the survey includes early places which failed to develop, places which were major, dominant cities in their own time, and others which were never more than ordinary but which through accident (for example the eruption of Vesuvius at Pompeii) have left especially significant remains. This is more than a book about pure ancient architecture: rather it is architecture in its social context—showing how architecture is a part of history rather than an aesthetic topic to be treated in isolation. Tomlinson emphasises how the form and arrangement of different building types persist or develop in response to differing circumstances. Richard Tomlinson is Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Birmingham. FROM MYCENAE TO CONSTANTINOPLE The evolution of the ancient city Richard Tomlinson First published 1992 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 1992 Richard Tomlinson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Tomlinson, R.A. From Mycenae to Constantinople: the evolution of the ancient city I. Title 723 Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Tomlinson, R.A. (Richard Allan) From Mycenae to Constantinople: the evolution of the ancient city/ Richard Tomlinson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Cities and towns, Ancient. I. Title. HT114.T66 1993 307.76’093–dc20 91–47142 ISBN 0-203-41290-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-72114-4 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-05997-6 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-05998-4 (pbk) CONTENTS List of illustrations vii Preface xi Acknowledgements xiii 1 INTRODUCTION: CITIES AND THEIR CREATORS 1 2 BUILDINGS: TYPES AND FUNCTIONS 17 3 MYCENAE: THE FORERUNNERS 31 4 ATHENS AND PIRAEUS 45 5 CORINTH 75 6 PRIENE 85 7 ALEXANDRIA 97 8 PERGAMON 111 9 THESSALONIKE 123 10 CYRENE 129 11 ROME 147 12 POMPEII 175 13 LEPCIS MAGNA 191 14 PALMYRA 203 15 EPILOGUE: CONSTANTINOPLE 213 Notes 225 Select bibliography 233 Index 235 v ILLUSTRATIONS INTRODUCTION: CITIES AND THEIR CREATORS 1.1 Section through the mound of Kara Novo, Bulgaria 3 MYCENAE: THE FORERUNNERS 3.1 The citadel from the south-west 32 3.2 View of the citadel from the north-east 33 3.3 The Lion Gate 34 3.4 Shaft-grave enclosure, Grave Circle A 35 3.5 Postern gate 36 3.6 Treasury of Atreus 37 ATHENS AND PIRAEUS 4.1 The Acropolis as seen from the Hill of the Muses 48 4.2 View of the Agora from the Acropolis 51 4.3 West side of the Agora and the Temple of Hephaistos 54 4.4 View towards the main cemetery from the Parthenon in 1882 56 4.5 The Parthenon before the recent conservation programme 57 4.6 Remains of the Pompeion 62 4.7 Theatre of Dionysus 63 CORINTH 5.1 Temple of Apollo 77 5.2 ‘Triglyph’ wall of the Sacred Spring 79 5.3 Acrocorinth: entrance to the medieval castle incorporating fourth-century BC fortifications 80 vii ILLUSTRATIONS PRIENE 6.1 Agora and Acropolis 86 6.2 North Stoa and terrace of Temple of Athena 89 6.3 Assembly building 91 ALEXANDRIA 7.1 Pompey’s Pillar and the Serapeion 103 7.2 Hellenistic tomb 106 7.3 Later Hellenistic tomb at Anfushy 107 7.4 Rock-cut catacomb of Mex 108 PERGAMON 8.1 Paved street and the walls of Eumenes 112 8.2 The Citadel 113 8.3 Theatre and theatre terrace 115 8.4 Gymnasium and the modern town of Bergama 116 8.5 Colonnaded court of the Gymnasium 117 8.6 North wing of the Precinct of Isis 118 THESSALONIKE 9.1 The Forum 124 9.2 Arch of Galerius 125 9.3 The Rotunda 126 CYRENE 10.1 Sanctuary of Apollo 132 10.2 Pool of the Fountain of Cyrene 133 10.3 Temple of Apollo 136 10.4 Tomb of Battos 137 10.5 View of the Gymnasium from the road to the west 138 10.6 Gateway and colonnades of the Gymnasium 139 10.7 Decorated stage frieze from the Theatre of Septimius Severus 140 10.8 Wall of reservoir-cistern 141 10.9 Road and cemeteries north of Cyrene 142 10.10 Weathered remains of a built tomb 143 10.11 Ancient road from Cyrene to the west 143 viii ILLUSTRATIONS ROME 11.1 Arch of Severus 149 11.2 Forum Romanum 150 11.3 Tabularium and Temple of Vespasian 151 11.4 Trajan’s Forum and Basilica Ulpia 155 11.5 Via Biberatica 157 11.6 Palace of Domitian 159 11.7 Baths of Caracalla 162 11.8 The Colosseum 165 11.9 Theatre of Marcellus 166 POMPEII 12.1 Street with raised pavement and stepping stones 176 12.2 Forum and Capitolium 179 12.3 Temple of Apollo 180 12.4 External staircase to the Amphitheatre 182 12.5 House of the Faun 184 12.6 Colonnaded garden of the House of the Vettii 186 12.7 Two-storey houses 187 LEPCIS MAGNA 13.1 Main street and Arches of Tiberius and Trajan 193 13.2 Baths of Hadrian 195 13.3 Hunting Baths 196 13.4 Forum of Severus 197 PALMYRA 14.1 View over Palmyra from the west 203 14.2 Temple of Bel 205 14.3 Colonnaded street 206 14.4 Triangular-plan triple archway 208 14.5 View over Camp of Diocletian 208 14.6 Tower tomb 209 EPILOGUE: CONSTANTINOPLE 15.1 The Hippodrome 219 15.2–4 Sculptures on the base of the obelisk 220–1 ix PREFACE The world of Greece and Rome was essentially a world of cities. At times, the countryside attracted, and poets might sing of rural delights, but more usually the countryside was a place of menace and danger; people were more secure in the towns and, often, behind town walls with gates that could be shut at night. The cities were not necessarily large; of those in this book only Alexandria and Rome approached in the numbers of their inhabitants the cities of the present day, and even here the total absence of mechanised transport prevented them from becoming formless urban sprawls of the type which so disfigures the modern world. Many cities, of course, were much smaller, and some of those included in this book had populations which at the present day would hardly qualify them for a status grander than that of a village; it is their institutions, their system of administration, their sense of identity, which give them their enhanced status. In this book I present only the smallest of a selection from them but one intended to be representative, of greatest and largest, almost all of them successful in their own particular ways, and (most of them at least) continuing to exist over centuries, often when the world around them changed its character and, therefore, their fortunes. At its height, the Roman Empire encouraged the development of cities, regarding it as an essential element of their political system, over an area which included much of Europe, as well as substantial parts of western Asia and northern Africa. Only Egypt remained largely immune to the system. The cities I have chosen to describe are situated around the Mediterranean; only Palmyra, a link between the Roman and the oriental kingdom of Parthia, is remote from the sea, but that too was on an important inland trade route. Of the others, Cyrene is furthest inland, but that is less than a day’s journey, at 19 km. But at the height of the Roman peace, as well as the rural estates, cities flourished far from the sea, in central France, in what is now the middle of Turkey, in areas all over the Balkan Peninsula. However distinct they were from each other, they were all part of the same system, which grew up in the days of Greek independence and which constituted a form of existence whose attractiveness ensured its durability. For those who lived in the cities—or xi PREFACE at least, those of the more privileged social classes—it is hard to imagine a more pleasant form of existence. Even my small sample should give some impression of the quality of life which the cities of the Classical world produced, and regarded as normal. xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful to Richard Stoneman, who suggested this book to me; it is based on work which I have carried out at intervals since I completed my book Greek Sanctuaries (London, 1976). Not all the cities I have investigated in that time have found their way into it, but all have contributed to my understanding of them. I owe a debt to those who have helped me with surveys (particularly my wife and daughter at Haliartos). The plans of the cities, which are intended to show their general layout (as far as it can be recovered) and the position of the major public structures within them, rather than details of individual buildings, have all been prepared by Henry Buglass of the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Birmingham.