Roman Urbanism Reconsidered: Cities and Non-Urban Sites in North-Central Anatolia

The Roman Empire was characterised by its extraordinary urban expansion, with cities functioning as vital centres for socio-economic, political, and religious life across its vast territories. While urbanism was not unique to Roman society, the Roman conquests in the Mediterranean spurred an unparalleled proliferation of cities, even in challenging regions such as the Central Anatolian Plateau. Scholarship on Roman urbanism has been particularly robust in the Western Mediterranean, with much more limited analysis of the eastern, more peripheral provinces, highlighting the need for a focused investigation into a crucial yet understudied aspect of Roman urban history.This book presents a comprehensive examination of urban emergence and development in Roman central Anatolia with an emphasis on the northern territories. While the central Anatolian Plateau was traditionally considered less urbanised than the western and southern coastal zones, recent archaeological investigations have uncovered substantial new evidence of its urban growth. Yet, much of this evidence remains under-examined, particularly in terms of its contextual significance within broader patterns of Roman urbanism. Contributors here seek to address this gap by focusing on the distinctive characteristics of Roman urbanisation in north-central Anatolia and by integrating these findings into the broader framework of Roman imperial urbanism. The papers, covering a broad geographical area from Gordion in the west to Komana in the east and Sagalassos in the south-west, demonstrate that the Romans employed distinct methods of administration across different regions of Anatolia. Recent archaeological data, particularly from the north-west, indicate substantial Roman military investment in the region. While a small number of ‘new’ cities were founded, such as Pompeiopolis and Hadrianopolis, existing cities with long traditions of settlement, such as Gordion, Hattuşa, and Komana, were primarily repurposed for military use. Roman urbanism can also be understood through various forms of non-urban data, and the transformation of the region through various mechanisms of power and administrative control is explored, providing discussions of both urban and rural investment. Questions of urbanism are explored through epigraphy, historical sources, coinage, architecture, and settlement patterns.