The Maritime Facades of the Cities of Coastal Asia Minor in the Early Roman Period

Abstract

This dissertation explores the experience of arriving in the port cities of Asia Minor and the Aegean islands from the Hellenistic through the Early Roman periods, describing the historical, environmental, and architectural backgrounds of these sites and offering an outline of the development of their maritime facades throughout this period. A selection of four of the most important sites of this region and period are studied: Ephesus, Pergamon, Smyrna, and Rhodes. Their site biographies are presented and analyzed, later supplemented by visual reconstructions of the experience of arrival, including static viewsheds of the landscapes and basic outlines of the major monuments, which offer rigor and novel support to the claims about the cities’ facades and what would have been prominent or memorable to those arriving at the ports and harbors of Asia Minor. By comparing the facades of these cities with each other, and with their earlier forms, this dissertation provides a clearer understanding of the changes to the experience of maritime travelers, and how the memorable, identifiable features of the cities of Asia Minor developed in the context of the rise of Rome.

The results of this dissertation contribute to the ongoing dialogue about the sociopolitical aspects of communal and individual identity expression in the eastern Mediterranean amid the shifting power structures of this dynamic period. In the case of the cities of Asia Minor, the rise and growth of Rome had a notable political impact as their control passed to the Attalids of Pergamon and the island of Rhodes with the Treaty of Apamea in 188 BCE and then to Rome itself in 133 BCE at the bequest of Attalus III. The maritime facades of these communities could be used to communicate ideological, political, social, and other messages to visitors approaching from the sea, and via these travelers to secondary audiences further afield, and ultimately to Rome itself. Through a regional study of architectural developments in major port towns along the coast during the 2nd century BCE – 2nd century CE I discuss the development of the maritime façades at these cities specifically by evaluating the visual impact of the built environment on the ‘outsider’ experience.

This dissertation expands upon the current scholarship on port towns of the eastern Mediterranean to include aspects of the maritime facade beyond the harbor side, and offers a thorough description of what was visible, contextualized with evidence from classical authors that demonstrates how these cities may have been perceived, where possible, and supplemented by selected virtual reconstructions that will highlight certain aspects of the development of these sites. It reveals patterns of, and exceptions to, trajectories of urbanization at coastal communities, in response to the rising influence of Rome and changes to the landscape brought about by natural processes such as sedimentation and the changing sea level of the Mediterranean.