Description
Book SynopsisThe focus of Regional Urban Systems in the Roman World is on urban hierarchies and interactions in large geographical areas rather than on individual cities. Based on a painstaking examination of archaeological and epigraphic evidence relating to more than 1,000 cities, the volume offers comprehensive reconstructions of the urban systems of Roman Gaul, North Africa, Sicily, Greece and Asia Minor. In addition it examines the transformation of the settlement systems of the Iberian Peninsula and the central and northern Balkan following the imposition of Roman rule. Throughout the volume regional urban configurations are examined from a rich variety of perspectives, ranging from climate and landscape, administration and politics, economic interactions and social relationships all the way to region-specific ways of shaping the townscapes of individual cities.
Trade Review"The relevance of these contributions to the study of regional urban systems across the Roman world is demonstrated not only by the authors’ discussions, but also by the wealth of analytic data, tables, catalogues and appendices supplementing many of these texts. Undoubtedly, the volume provides new information that will be of use to anyone working on the urbanism, economic and socio-political history of the Roman Empire, striking a good balance between archaeological and ancient historical standpoints." - Niccolò Mugnai, University of Oxford, in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2021.01.29 ''This volume successfully champions the ‘regional perspective’ as a fruitful way to analyse the process of urbanisation in the Roman period. The adoption of multiple scales allows the publication to account for the diversity of urban developments, while paying due attention to both pan-imperial and region-specific factors. The publication makes it evident that a number of important insights would have been missed if urbanisation studies remained limited to research on single cities. The larger scale and the systemic context provided by the volume allow for more complex observations about economic integration and about the nature of contacts between individual cities. The volume’s key conclusions about provincial urbanisation and the data it assembles will pave the way for further work on cities in the Roman world.'' - Pawel Borowski, in: The Classical Review 70.2 (2020)
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures and Tables Abbreviations Notes on Contributors 1 Introduction Luuk de Ligt and John Bintliff 2 A World of 200 Oppida: Pre-Roman Urbanism in Temperate Europe Manuel Fernández-Götz 3 The Size Distribution of Self-governing Cities in the North-Western Provinces: Trends and Anomalies Frida Pellegrino 4 The Roman ‘Small Towns’ in the Massif Central (civitates of the Arverni, Vellavii, Gabali, Ruteni, Cadurci and Lemovices): Methodology and Main Results Florian Baret 5 Towns, Roads and Development Dynamics in the Territory of the Arverni in Roman Times (Auvergne, France) Frédéric Trément, Florian Baret, Marion Dacko, Jérôme Trescarte, Maxime Calbris, Lise Augustin and Guy Massounie 6 Urbanisation of the Iberian Peninsula during the Roman Period: Choices, Impositions and ‘Resignation’ of the Newcomers Oliva Rodríguez Gutiérrez 7 The Urban Landscape of Roman Central Adriatic Italy Frank Vermeulen 8 The Impact of Roman Rule on the Urban System of Sicily Luuk de Ligt 9 Roman Towns and the Settlement Hierarchy of Ancient North Africa: A Bird’s-Eye View Matthew Hobson 10 A Diachronic and Regional Approach to North African Urbanism David Stone 11 Micro-regional Urbanism: An Ancient Urban Landscape in Roman North Africa Paul Scheding 12 Urbanisation and Population Density: The Case of the ‘Small Municipia’ in the Balkan and Danube Provinces Damjan Donev 13 Between the River and the Fort: Applying Critical Regionalism to Roman Towns in the Pannonian Basin Dragana Mladenovic 14 Urban Networks in Early Roman Macedonia and Aegean Thrace Michalis Karambinis 15 Regional Perspectives on Urbanism and Settlement Patterns in Roman Asia Minor Rinse Willet 16 From Mountain to Coastal Plain: Settings of Settlements and Stages of Urbanisation in Ancient Lycia Frank Kolb Index
