
Contents
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Urban Benefaction and Competition in Asia Urban Benefaction and Competition in Asia
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Imperial Ephesus Imperial Ephesus
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The ‘Basilica Stoa’ at Thera The ‘Basilica Stoa’ at Thera
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Antonine Smyrna Antonine Smyrna
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The Rebuilding of Carthage The Rebuilding of Carthage
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127Chapter 7 The Cities and the Emperor
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Published:November 2007
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Abstract
Monumental architecture, then, strengthened a sense of public or civic identity in Antonine cities. But, because a public building could assert the political power of a city and, in so doing, challenge the aspirations of a rival city, it was potentially destabilizing in the context of the Empire as a whole. A balance had to be struck between the development of urban forms that reinvigorated a city’s urban identity and promoted the power of local elites loyal to Rome, and the consolidation of the unity of the Empire. Public buildings were the symbols of their city’s separate identity, but they could also represent the power of Rome and its ruling dynasty. Although provincial public buildings were mainly funded by the largesse of local elites, they could also be the result of imperial initiatives or a combination of local funding and imperial support. How far was this involvement of the emperor and his staff motivated by the attempt to control or ‘harmonize’ the architectural appearance of provincial cities? The following two chapters address the question of how, under the Antonines, supposedly civic buildings became, in effect, ‘imperial architecture’. This chapter examines the role of Antoninus Pius and his successors in two instances, the cities of Ionia in the East and the reconstruction of Carthage in the West; and considers the extent to which new buildings there promoted an imperial, rather than a local, ideology. Chapter 8 explores the characteristics of such ‘imperial architecture’ more generally. Local civic pride was a strong factor in the architecture of cities in the Roman East. Public buildings were a marriage of civic loyalty and personal desire for fame. Benefactors competed to advance their own architectural projects as of particular importance to a city in her rivalry with her neighbours. When Dio ‘Chrysostom’ Cocceianus paid for the construction of a stoa in Prusa at the beginning of the second century, he was attacked by others for ‘digging up the city’ and creating a desert. Later, when he planned to erect another public building for the city, opponents urged that he had brought down ‘monuments and sacred buildings’.
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