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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 

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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 

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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 

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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