My interpretive approach to the analysis of civic space can be summarized under four headings. I understand the public spaces of ancient cities as (a) products and crucibles of sociopolitical practice, (b) venues for concerted monumental statements of individual and/or corporate power, (c) stages for the presentation of personal authority and identity, and (d) “scripts” for the negotiation and definition of authority and identity. Although these aspects are obviously interdependent, presenting them in sequence is a useful means of clearly outlining both the elements of my approach and the bodies of modern theory to which it is indebted.45
42 See Ch. 1.
43 Although several nuanced discussions of civic building have appeared in recent years (e.g. Ando 2012; Thomas
2007, 2013; Zuiderhoek 2014), cityscapes still tend to be analyzed exclusively or primarily as products of elite competition, directed at a basically local audience (e.g. Pont 2010).
44 Though fundamentally correspondent with the various approaches to Roman rule that have stressed the
importance of communication between emperor and subjects (e.g. Millar 1977, Ando 2000; cf. Ma 1999) and prefigured by some discussions of the relations between space and power (e.g. Revell 2009), my emphasis on space is unprecedented.
45 Although my interpretation of civic space has clear affinities with certain bodies of theory, both my articulation of
it here and my applications of it throughout this study are consciously independent of any single theoretical
approach. The best general conspectus of theoretical approaches to the interactions of setting and human behavior is Gieseking and Mangold 2014. Lawrence & Low 1990 and Low 1996 provide good reviews of the literature on
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Space as a Social Product
I begin with the assumption that civic space was at once the mold and the expression of the social, political, and cultural practices that took place within it. Since first articulated in the work of Henri Lefebvre, the idea that built environments are both produced by and productive of sociopolitical practices and relations has been deployed in a number of premodern contexts, perhaps most notably in discussions of state formation.46 Though broadly acknowledged in
recent scholarship on premodern urbanism, the work of Lefebvre and his followers has had relatively little impact on the study of the Greco-Roman city. In the most general terms, it has been recognized that the public spaces of Greco-Roman cities were ultimately shaped by and for distinctive traditions of self-government and sociopolitical organization.47 Specific analyses of
how civic spaces generated and were generated by sociopolitical practices, however, have mostly been confined to case studies, notably of Pompeii.48
Although it is generally admitted that elite goals and ambitions fundamentally shaped Roman provincial cities,49 the manner in which building projects manifested, or even constituted,
power relations has not been extensively discussed. Monumental construction has sometimes been described in terms of elite-dominated practice, particularly in discussions over
“Romanization” in the western provinces.50 The fact that construction was only one species of
practice by which the position and authority of elites was made implicit in civic space, however,
spatial theory in anthropology; cf. Low and Lawrence-Zuniga 2003. Smith 2011 summarizes the applications of urban theory for premodern archaeology; compare Fogelin 2006: 66-79.
46 The classical statement is Lefebvre 1991, esp. 73-4, 151-2; cf. Soja 1989: 43ff and Lawrence and Low 1990: 482-
91. Applications of Lefebvre’s theories to ancient state formation include Smith 2003, esp. 69-73; Routledge 2013; and Smith 2015. Other interesting discussions of how built environments are produced by and productive of sociopolitical relationships include Markus 1993 and the contributions to Maran 2006.
47 See, for example, Lewis 2015, a comparison of public space in Roman and Han Chinese cities. 48 E.g. Laurence 2006: 102ff; Hartnett 2008
49 E.g. Laurence et al. 2011: 4-6 50 See especially Revell 2009: 40-79.
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has yet to be widely acknowledged.51 Rhetorical descriptions of cities, for example, tend to be
regarded as fantasies or stylized versions of reality, rather than as expressions of an elite image with real implications for the conduct of local politics.52 Likewise, though the significance of
civic ritual for performing and/or adjusting the sociopolitical organization of a community has long been recognized, the implications of such ceremonies for the meaning of the physical settings in which they are performed are seldom discussed by classicists.53
Virtually all scholars of the Greco-Roman city, in short, at least tacitly assume that civic space is created in constant dialogue with citizen practices. On the level of individual practice, this insight has served – as we shall see in the discussion of “space as stage” – as a valuable tool for discussing domestic architecture and other contexts of self-presentation. Only a few studies, however, have explicitly applied it to the questions of how whole social groups and communities represented themselves,54 and none have yet satisfactorily juxtaposed monumental construction
with the practices of description, self-presentation, and motion that generated the meaning of ancient cityscapes.
Space as Political Message
Space, of course, is never simply reproduced, just as tradition is never simply inherited. Although many of the practices that defined ancient cityscapes were formulaic and conservative, they were perpetuated not merely by the force of custom, but also by their consistent utility for
51 On the idea of genres or modes of practice, see Hanks 1987. See Ch. 6-8 for more extensive discussion.
52 Although Schmitz 1997: 26-31 applies Bourdieu’s theory of practice to the reproduction of sociopolitical relations
in Second Sophistic rhetoric, no scholar has analyzed the physical descriptions of cities in contemporary
declamation on these terms. If mentioned at all, the cityscapes of imperial rhetoric tend to be regarded as akin to the anonymous Classicizing settings of contemporary declamation (Russell 1983: 21-39).
53 General discussions on how motion is implicated in space include Latham 2007, Laurence 2011, and Newsome
2011; cf. (for a late antique perspective) Shepardson 2007 and Andrade 2010. Osborne 1987, Rogers 1990, and Maurizio 1998 are good case studies on the possibilities of communal performance (and modification) through processions. For additional literature, see Ch. 8.
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serving the goals of the individual and corporate elites who orchestrated them.55 As a class,
imperial Greek notables had two basic political goals: to maintain the social relations that upheld their local position, and to use these relations as a platform for aggrandizing both themselves and the city that served as the vehicle of their prestige.56 Both these goals were articulated in and
through civic space, increasingly, as integration into the structures of the Empire continued apace, for the benefit of “external” audiences.
There is no shortage of literature discussing civic architecture in the terms of elite goals.57
For our purposes, the most interesting examples of this approach are those that describe whole cityscapes as reactions to shifting political constellations.58 In the mass of scholarship on specific
monuments and political agendas, a useful distinction may be made between discussions of “canonical” and “indexical” meaning. These labels, introduced by Richard Blanton to describe the design of residential architecture, distinguish design elements meant to signal participation in a broader cultural tradition (“canonical”) from those intended to assert prominence within that tradition (“lexical”).59
In the context of Greco-Roman architecture, where public building empire-wide was, by the second century CE, characterized by a remarkably unified “Classical” architectural language,
55 Perhaps the most famous articulation of the idea that cultural traditions are fundamentally shaped by political (or,
in the Capitalist era, economic) power relations is Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. A good survey of scholarship on how and why traditions can be consciously deployed for political ends is Routledge 2013, esp. 49-66; cf. Zukin 1991).
56 Pleket 1998 provides a useful survey of political relations in Roman Asia Minor. On the goals and values of local
elites in the Roman east more generally, see Quass 1993 and Stephan 2002.
57 See in general Smith 2011: 174-6. On the nature of monumentality in Greco-Roman architecture, see especially
Thomas 2007: 53-69.
58 Three of the most interesting examples (from very different contexts) are Shear 2011, Spawforth 2012, esp. 207-
32 and Dey 2015; cf. Thomas 2007: 107-64. The gradual reconfiguration of the great panhellenic sanctuaries was an analogous process (Scott 2010).
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the significance of “canonical” meanings in a given city or region can be difficult to assess.60 To
a certain degree, differences of material, method, and design persisted between the eastern and western parts of the Empire (and, of course, on a regional scale). It is debatable, however, whether any set of conventions cohesive enough to comprise a distinctive “Greek” or “Roman” architecture existed in the mid-imperial period.61 Despite the prevailing syncretism, imperial
Greek elites, at least, remained aware of the symbolic possibilities of constructing new buildings in styles deliberately evocative of the Classical or Archaic past.62
The most basic “lexical” meaning of public architecture in provincial cities was, of course, its monumentality. Although the correlation of scale and decoration with power and wealth is hardly specific to the Greco-Roman context, it had distinctive forms under the Empire, perhaps most evident in the conspicuous use of imported marbles.63 Scholarship on the
“propagandistic” value of monumental architecture has focused largely on Rome itself, and particularly on the reigns of the few emperors (notably Augustus and Hadrian) whose building programs are extensive and well-attested enough to repay analysis.64 Broader investigations of
the phenomenon of euergetism and – most interesting for our purposes – a number of case
60 On Classical ornament as language, see Von Hesberg 2003 and Grüner 2014; cf. Bandmann 1951 and Hölscher
2004. Thomas 2007: 157-9 briefly discusses significant uses of architectural conventions. Forty 2000: 62-85 provides a survey and useful commentary on the senses in which vernacular architecture can be regarded as a language.
61 Useful treatments of “Greek” and “Roman” architectural conventions in the imperial era include Alzinger 1974,
Strocka 1988, Sherwood 2000, Hueber 2007, and Thomas 2013.
62 Consider, for example, the deliberate archaism of building programs associated with Hadrian’s Panhellenion:
Spawforth and Walker 1985: 92-103 (Athens and Eleusis), Spawforth and Walker 1986: 100-3 (Cyrene and Argos), and Walker 2002 (Cyrene).
63 On the idea of monumental architecture as “conspicuous consumption” intended to demonstrate and perpetuate
elite power, see Trigger 1990 and Demarrais et al. 1996. The palaces of Minoan Crete have generated a number of interesting discussions on the nature of monumental architecture (Schoep 2004 and Pantou 2014; cf. Regev 2011 and Osborne 2012). On the uses of imported marble under the Empire, see Fant 1993, Fischer 1996, and Paton & Schneider 1999.
64 On the general topic of building as propaganda, see the contributions to Weber & Zimmerman 2003. On building
in Augustan Rome, see especially Zanker 1988 and Favro 1996. Boatwright 1987 discusses Hadrian’s construction projects in the city of Rome; Boatwright 2000, his building throughout the Empire. Spawforth 2012 surveys the influence of the Augustan program in Greece.
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studies have analyzed the impact of elite political agendas and ideology on construction in provincial cities.65
Civic architecture has, in summary, frequently been discussed in terms of the goals and values of the elites who sponsored it. As noted earlier, however, most of these discussions operate on the assumption that elites were almost exclusively interested in impressing their fellow citizens, and especially their social peers. My discussion nuances this received wisdom by asserting that local notables were always conscious of external audiences, and that, in cities regularly visited by Roman officials, they presented their projects as components of a dialogue with imperial power. I contend that civic elites positioned themselves, and thus their projects, in relation to multiple sociopolitical systems. The cityscapes they built manifested this complexity.
Space as Stage
It is usually assumed that the message a building or monument was meant to convey was immediately obvious to contemporaries. This may well have been true of at least the local audience; but it should not be forgotten that every monumental message, however simple and straightforward, had to be interpreted.66 The manner in which a viewer or user responded to a
space or monument was conditioned not only by his comprehension of the designer’s intent, but also by the manner in which chose to position himself (literally or figuratively) in relation to it.67
During a conventus visit, both the travelling governor and the notables who hosted him were
65 E.g. Halfmann 2001; cf. Zuiderhoek 2013
66 An interesting introduction to this idea is De Certeau 1984: 91-110. Compare the reception of civic ritual, equally
subject to tendentious interpretation (e.g. Darnton 1984) and, in a modern context, the culturally-conditioned reactions to products of globalization (Appadurai 1990).
67 Perhaps the best illustrations of the many factors that guided individual reactions to monuments are the dozens of
inscriptions that Greek and Roman tourists carved onto the Colossus of Memnon near Thebes, which indicate that individuals were responding not only to the statue’s “song,” but also to the graffiti of previous tourists, creating increasingly formal “genres” of response. The inscriptions are collected in Bernand & Bernand 1960. Compare the insights of Squire 2010 on ecphrastic epigrams.
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constantly calculating how to use the built environment for their advantage. Far from being purveyors of single messages, civic buildings were repositories of possible interpretations.
As intimated in the section on space as a social product, I interpret individual reactions to civic architecture broadly under the aegis of practice theory.68 Here, again, I am hardly breaking new ground. Ever since Bourdieu’s analysis of the Berber house, theories of practice have been prominent in scholarship on domestic space.69 To a somewhat less visible degree, they have also
influenced research on public spaces.70 In searching for a model to help me articulate how
individuals engaged with civic architecture, however, I drew also on a number of sources related tangentially, if at all, to the work of Bourdieu and his followers.
My conception of the interrelation between structure and agent – or, more specifically, between actor and setting – is basically that of Giddens, whose concept of structuration
definitively implicates actors in time and space.71 Louise Revell’s application of structuration to
identity in the western Roman provinces, and particularly her suggestion that individuals performed their rank and status by using the built environment in socially-specific ways, has proved particularly useful.72 The dramaturgical model of self-presentation associated with
Goffman – a significant influence on Giddens – has also contributed to my understanding of the relationship between actor and setting, primarily in the sense of conceiving the civic built
68 Bell 1997: 76-83 provides a useful summary of practice theory.
69 Bourdieu 1973; see the survey articles of Turnbull 2002 and Fisher 2009. Nevett 2010 is a representative
testimonial to the influence of practice theory on the interpretation of Classical domestic architecture.
70 Theories of practice have been central to a number of influential discussions of sacred spaces (e.g. Carmichael et
al. 1994, Bradley 1998, Foeglin 2006). They have also been used to explicate the palaces of Minoan Crete (McEnroe 2010).
71 Giddens 1984: 110-44, esp. 127 (on ritual). Although I have found Bourdieu’s idea of habitus useful for
conceptualizing the worldview of individuals, his theory of practice (Bourdieu 1977) is a less flexible way of understanding agency than Giddens’.
72 Revell 2009, esp. 10-15; cf. Dornan 2002: 305-8. On the problems of deducing agency from the archaeological
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environment as a frame for certain types of sociopolitical communication.73 However, with the exception of Rush Rehm’s situation of Athenian drama in its spatial contexts, which usefully emphasizes the significance of setting to all performance in the urban fabric,74 I have derived less
benefit from performance studies proper than from the more general scholarship emphasizing the theatricality of premodern, and especially Greek, public life.75
Space syntax analysis, the prevalent model of extrapolating the uses of the built environment from archaeological evidence, has relatively limited application to my
understanding of how viewers engaged with the built environment. Although calculations of accessibility and visibility are useful for considering how individuals were meant to engage with a given space, the highly formalized occasions on which governor and city met imposed on the urban fabric a template for use and interpretation that often bore little or no relation to the quotidian patterns for which it was designed.76 Phenomenological approaches, likewise, have no
place in my study.77 The various models of spatial cognition are somewhat more helpful,
particularly for their discussions of the visual cues that visitors use to assign meaning to their surroundings;78 Diane Favro’s reconstruction of Augustan Rome, which draws heavily on the Kevin Lynch’s pioneering work on urban wayfinding, well illustrates the possibilities of this
73 Goffman 1956, esp. 66-86; cf. Burke 1969: 3-20 74 Rehm 2002: 35-62, 273-96
75 Geertz 1980 and 1983 vividly emphasize the centrality of ritual to public life in premodern polities. Inomata 2006
is an interesting analysis of the ritual needs shaped the plazas of Mayan cities. On the “theatricality” of life in ancient Greece, see (to provide a representative sample) Slater 1995, Chaniotis 1997, Goldhill & Osborne 1999, Wiles 2003, Melfi 2010.
76 Hillier and Hanson 1984 summarizes the principles of space syntax analysis. Interesting applications of the theory
to ancient built environments include Chatford-Clark 2007, Regev 2011, and McMahon 2013.
77 Tilley 1994 is the most important work on phenomenology of the landscape; see Seamon 2000 for a survey of
potential applications. While it is certainly useful, and indeed necessary, to emphasize sensory effect in certain situations (e.g. Witcher 1998, Letesson & Vansteenhuyse 2006), I employ this approach only in the sense that I intermittently emphasize certain of the experiential qualities of civic ritual.
78 Kitchin and Blades 2002: 11-32 summarize the various models of cognitive mapping. On the decision-making
process by which visitors orient themselves in unfamiliar settings, see Golledge and Stimson 1997, esp. 31-70. For a more recent treatment of landmark selection, see Ishikawa & Nakamura 2012; cf. Nothegger et al. 2004.
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approach.79 Comparable, and more directly pertinent to my topic, is the research of Amos Rapoport, who identifies “high,” “middle,” and “low” registers of architectural meaning in built environments.80 The most relevant of these for the purpose of identifying how viewers engaged with built environments are “low-level” meanings, which supplied users with mnemonic cues for appropriate engagement with a space. In the premodern context, this insight has been applied with particular success to the design of ancient Mesoamerican cities.81
The mélange of theories concocted here reflects the unique nature of my project. While I am far from the first to observe that the manner in which individuals interpreted monuments and spaces was influenced by the public pose they wished to assume in relation to it, this insight has seldom been applied to Greco-Roman cities, and never to the phenomenon of imperial or official travel.82 By interpreting the public spaces of provincial cities as landscapes designed to allow for
certain types of elite performance and self-presentation, and thus as carefully-presented stages for the reception of Roman governors, I am breaking new ground.
Space in Dialogue
The meanings assigned to a space or monument are always determined by interplay between the aims of the designer and the tendentious interpretation of the viewer or user. On a basic level, of course, designers always project the reactions of a given set of audiences when planning and realizing a building project. In spaces like the main plazas and thoroughfares of imperial Greek cities – which, I contend, were designed partially to accentuate certain forms of
79 Favro 1996; cf. ead. 1994, 2010. On urban wayfinding, see Lynch 1960, esp. 46-90.
80 Rapoport 1982, esp. 137-62. Later restatements of these views may be found in id., 1990, 2006. Compare Kuper
1972: 420-22 for an anthropological discussion of the condensation of value in significant spaces.
81 Smith 2008: 8-15, 136-50; compare Moore 1996.
82 With a few exceptions (e.g. Bérenger 2009), the receptions of governors have been almost wholly neglected, and
have only been discussed in empirical terms. The receptions of emperors have been discussed in more detail (Dufraigne 1994, Lehnen 1997), but again without reference to theory.
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elite self-presentation – this entailed careful consideration of the response evoked not only by the architecture itself, but also of the manner in which the design complemented elite efforts to