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Colonnaded Streets in the Cities of the East under Rome
Apamea, northern Monumental Street (photo: R Burns 2009)
Ross Burns
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy,
Macquarie University Department of Ancient History, February 2011
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ABSTRACT
Many of the major and mid-ranking cities of the Greek-speaking East under Rome
adopted the cross-city colonnaded axis as the central unifying element of their urban
layout. This thesis seeks to explain the origin of the idea. Earlier works, usually treating
the issues briefly in the course of more general surveys, have identified possible origins
in the Greek and Roman architectural traditions (the Greek stoa or the Roman porticus).
Other have identified influences stemming from the Pharaonic or Achaemenid
traditions. This study looks at the whole range of ideas on urban development prevalent
in the Eastern provinces under Rome in the early centuries of the Empire (up to AD
250), including the use of monumental architecture to implant Roman authority in the
loose political structure of the Eastern provinces. It seeks to identify why the first
colonnaded axis (Antioch), attested in the writings of Josephus and attributed to Herod
the Great in the early Augustan period, is apparently not replicated until the early
second century AD when the axis suddenly becomes a common element of the town
plans of most major cities and many minor ones. The study looks at possible ‘missing’
examples of street colonnading in the first century AD and at the complementary idea
of a straight and wide cross-city axis which had some precedents in both Greek and
Egyptian planning. It concludes that the adoption of the colonnaded axis in the Eastern
provinces is a reflection of a diverse range of architectural and town planning practices
in the eastern Mediterranean at the time, over which Rome sought to impose only a
weak centralizing influence. It was, however, given new emphasis by the introduction in
the second century AD of a more centralized architectural vocabulary which went hand
in hand with the reorganisation of the system for the mining and transporting of the
materials and the provision of the expertise required for such massive projects. It was
not specifically a tool of ‘Romanization’ but by the second century AD it was to become
an indicator of cities’ attachment to the Roman system. It was the product of the
collective inventiveness of the architects, builders, patrons and administrators operating
within a system that allowed ideas to flow freely, tolerated experimentation and a sense
of competition between urban centres, provided the right administrative and legal
systems to protect the use of public spaces and could assemble massive amounts of
material efficiently.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS V
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XIII
ABSTRACT XV
INTRODUCTION 1
Scope of this study and previous examinations ..............................................................1 Attempts at a theory 3 Traditional assumptions 5
Terminology .........................................................................................................................7
Written sources ....................................................................................................................9
Visual sources.....................................................................................................................14
Archaeological sources .....................................................................................................15
Practicalities ........................................................................................................................16
PART A — ARCHITECTURAL TRADITIONS — HELLENISTIC AND EARLY
STAGES OF ROMAN RULE 19
1. THE HELLENISTIC CITY IN THE EASTERN CONTEXT 21
The Greek tradition...........................................................................................................21
Persistence of other local traditions................................................................................26 Achaemenids and Parthians 27
Pharaonic and Ptolemaic Egypt ......................................................................................29 Alexandria — the idea of an axis 32 Beyond Alexandria 37
2. ROME AND THE CITIES OF THE NEAR EAST FROM 64 BC 41
Technology and structural requirements .......................................................................41
Regulation and planning ...................................................................................................43
Political, economic factors ...............................................................................................46
Religion and cult centres as major factors defining the urban environment............48
3. URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND PROPAGANDA IN THE EARLY EMPIRE 51
Greek precedents — the stoa ...........................................................................................51
Roman precedents .............................................................................................................53
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Covered streets 54 The enclosed porticus 55 Continuous colonnades 58 Imperial Forums 60
Eastern Cities under Augustus........................................................................................ 63 From polis to administrative centre 65
New Civic Institutions — Imperial Cult, civic assemblies ......................................... 66 Cyrenaica — Cyrene and Ptolemais 67 Tripolitania — Sabratha and Lepcis Magna 72 A Roman template? 74
PART B — EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF THE COLONNADED AXIS 77
4. EXPERIMENTS LEADING TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLONNADED AXIS AS A MAJOR
TOOL OF URBAN PLANNING 79
Client kings and transmission of Hellenistic and Roman models ............................. 79 Petra 79
Herod the Great................................................................................................................ 87 Antioch 94 Beirut 106
Other Herodian projects................................................................................................ 111 Caesarea Maritima, Antipatris 111 Panias (later Caesarea Philippi) 112 Samaria Sebaste 114
5. URBANIZATION IN THE EAST — PROVINCE OF SYRIA 115
Persistence of local traditions in southern Syria ........................................................ 115
Southern Syria and the Decapolis ................................................................................ 119 Jerash (Gerasa) 119 Damascus 125
Northern Syria ................................................................................................................. 136
6. URBANISATION IN THE EAST — ASIA MINOR (AND NORTH AFRICA) 139
Early examples — Asia Minor...................................................................................... 139 Ephesus 141 Sardis 143 Pergamon 145 Aphrodisias 146 Hierapolis in Phrygia 148
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Prusa 150 Roman military colonies — Pisidia 153 Sagalassos 155
Is Cilicia another ‘missing link’? ....................................................................................156 Soli 157 Uzuncaburç (Diocaesarea / Olba) 158 Other Cilician sites (Augusta Ciliciae, Anazarbus, Hierapolis Castabala) 158
Trajan’s experiments in North Africa...........................................................................159 Timgad (Thamugadi) 159 Cuicul (Djemila) 161
Situation at the end of the first century AD................................................................162
PART C. THE COLONNADED AXIS AS A TOOL OF URBAN PLANNING UNDER
THE NEW BUILDING PROGRAM 165
7. THE NEW FACTORS OF THE EARLY SECOND CENTURY 167
The school of Apollodorus of Damascus and the rise of monumentalism ...........167
Hadrian and urban regeneration (AD 117 – 136) ......................................................170 Hadrian, the Antonines and Antioch 173 Apamea 175
Egyptian experiments......................................................................................................178 Antinoopolis 179 Hermopolis Magna 184 Oxyrhynchus 186
Massive reorganization in the supply of materials......................................................187
8. THE COLONNADED AXIS AS IT EVOLVED IN THE EASTERN CITIES 191
Cross-city armatures........................................................................................................191 Palmyra 192
Decapolis and southern Syria ........................................................................................206 Bosra (Bostra) 206 Shahba (Philippopolis) 211 Amman (Philadelphia) 212 Um Qeis (Gadara) 212 Beit Ras (Capitolias) 215
Asia Minor ........................................................................................................................215 Smyrna 216 Aizanoi 218
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Perge 218 Patara 218
9. ANTONINES AND SEVERANS — HEYDAY OF THE COLONNADED AXIS 221
Imperial sponsorship or local initiative?...................................................................... 221 How were these projects funded? 221 Who owned and used the spaces behind? 225
Syria — the colonnaded street in its heyday............................................................... 226 Latakia 226 Tyre 230 Byblos 232
Concluding thoughts on the colonnaded axis in the East........................................ 232
10. THE COLONNADED AXIS IN THE WEST, CONCLUSION — SEEING THE CITY AS A WHOLE
235
Why was the idea not exportable?................................................................................ 235 Rhodes 238 Corinth 238 Gaul, Spain 239
Conclusion — Seeing the city as a whole ................................................................... 240
BIBLIOGRAPHY 245
ILLUSTRATIONS 291