Archaeological field research in the territory of present-day Turkey has a long tradition that continues to this day—from the large-scale excavations of the 19th century, which were dedicated to a few prominent metropolises, to the almost incalculable wealth of current investigations that has revealed sites of very different sizes and significance in both central and peripheral regions of ancient Asia Minor. The development of these cities in the Roman Imperial period was often characterized by a long period of prosperity, which helped to transform even remote places in the hinterland into urban attractions characterized by monumental marble architecture. Like few other areas of the Imperium Romanum, the findings therefore provide material for a wide range of research into ancient architecture and urbanism. Indeed, researchers have repeatedly dealt with individual architectural genres. Ursula Quatember’s book, however, is the first attempt to present the architecture of Anatolia as a whole in the period from the establishment of the Roman province of Asia in 129 BCE to the accession of Diocletian in 284 CE.
The basis of her study is a catalog of individual buildings mostly from the Imperial period. Completeness with this compilation would hardly be possible given the abundance of known monuments. Nevertheless, the total of 238 examples, which she records with brief descriptions and references to the relevant literature, convey a good idea of the typical design patterns as well as the diversity of types and individual solutions. Almost all of them are represented in the extensive plate section with floor plans and, in some cases, elevations taken from the original publications. In addition, the author’s own photographs show their current state. The book provides thus a clear idea of its subject matter.
Quatember presents the architecture of Roman Asia Minor not as part of an overarching history of development, just as she tends to focus on the continuities of the construction and design patterns during this period. Instead, she chooses a systematic approach, taking into account categories like construction, typology, and urban context. The question of the position of the architecture “between the ‘global’ building culture of the Roman Empire and its ‘local’ manifestation in Asia Minor”, as the author puts it, forms a clear guideline for the investigation.
First of all, the study is concerned with the building material and here above all with the persistence of marble, as brick and opus caementicium, widespread in the western parts of the empire, were only applied in a few cases. Following a line of interpretation that has been developed by Ulrike Wulf-Rheidt[1], Quatember demonstrates that the established marble system prevented the switch to other building materials, as entrepreneurs tried to keep their current businesses while the threshold for new investments in brick production was too high for a change of material in the construction industry. Continuity was thus primarily based on economic considerations.
In a further chapter, she focuses on the importance of benefactors for the design of public space, which she estimates to be comparatively high[2]. The centers of smaller towns in particular could indeed be claimed by individuals or single families—a phenomenon that we also know from other parts of the empire[3]. However, this only seems to have led to individual, innovative building designs at the beginning of the imperial period. After that, a uniform horizon of expectations for the design of urban centers seems to have quickly emerged, as becomes clear in the following chapter on cityscapes, describing the standard set of buildings types that we find in many places. It is revealing that even the Roman coloniae, which by no means appear to be copies of Italian models, are part of this process of convergence.
On the other hand, we should not overlook the fact that individual cities stagnated in the shadow of the large boom towns even in the imperial period, as Quatember argues referring to Frank Rumscheid’s analysis of Roman Priene[4]. A certain persistence of the Hellenistic situation could also have been described for other places, e.g., in Caria, so Priene may be less an “exception to the rule” than the author supposes. While she sees the cause of such inequalities primarily in the differing financial capacities of the cities, it would certainly also be worthwhile to take a closer look at the constellations of specific agents and other factors, such as the road networks as a parameter for the degree of the integration into the Empire, to better understand the complexity of the underlying processes.
Quatember also deals with individual building types and urban figurations, which she examines mainly on the basis of their ground plans, and particularly with regard to the question of Roman influences. She is, in my eyes rightly, skeptical about the simple juxtaposition of Western and Eastern models that constituted part of the research of former generations. Instead, she points to various traditions of Hellenistic architecture, for example in connection with the characteristic bath gymnasia. The reception of the basilica type in Asia Minor also shows how much effort was put into finding specific solutions that obviously met better the expectations of the local public than the Roman forerunners. I wonder, however, whether, beyond plans and elevations, space and furnishing would not be important categories in describing the specific nature of the different building types. When we think of theatres, for example, would not their connection to urban space, their elaborate inner structure as well as their rich decoration with relief friezes often illustrating local myths[5] provide a more vivid idea of their typical atmosphere of local pride than the identification of an ‘Anatolian’ plan scheme or the relevant type of stage of these structures? What were, more generally speaking, the specific qualities of the transformed cities in the Roman period[6]?
The last chapter is devoted to chronological turning points. Quatember distinguishes the transition from Hellenism to the Imperial period as a phase of experimentation from the subsequent building boom at the end of the 1st and during the 2nd century and the decline in building activity in the 3rd century, which, in accordance with recent research, she no longer understands as the result of a crisis situation, but as a change in the self-presentation patterns of the elites.
Overall, the book provides a good overview of the architecture of Roman Asia Minor and a fair idea of relevant approaches to its research. It is therefore a welcome starting point for anyone wishing to delve deeper into the rich urban heritage of ancient Anatolia.
Notes
[1] U. Wulf-Rheidt, “Warum konnte der römische Ziegelbau in Kleinasien keine Erfolgsgeschichte werden?” in: M. Bachmann (ed.), Bautechnik im antiken und vorantiken Kleinasien (Istanbul 2009) 497-507.
[2] For a more nuanced interpretation of the evidence and a differentiation between various manifestations of euergetism see e.g., St. Cramme, Die Bedeutung des Euergetismus für die Finanzierung städtischer Aufgaben in der Provinz Asia (Cologne 2001).
[3] G. Alföldy, Los Baebii de Saguntum (Valencia 1977).
[4] F. Rumscheid, “Den Anschluss verpasst. Priene in der frühen Kaiserzeit,” in: Patris und Imperium. Kulturelle und politische Identität in den Städten Kleinasiens in der frühen Kaiserzeit (Leuven 2002) 77-87.
[5] M. Gybas, Das Theater in der Stadt und die Stadt im Theater. Urbanistischer Kontext und Funktionen von Theatern im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien (Hamburg 2018).
[6] Ch. Berns, “Die ‚Tiberiusporticus‘ in Aphrodisias und andere Versuche zur Maximierung urbaner Qualitäten im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien,” in: A. Busch, J. Griesbach, J. Lipps (eds.), Urbanitas – Urbane Qualitäten. Die antike Stadt als kulturelle Selbstverwirklichung (Mainz 2017) 111-120.