Romanization in the East: a case study: Sagalassos and Pisidia (SW Turkey)

The Romanization of the provinces under the Empire has become one of the hottest topics in current archaeological and historical research. In the past, Romanization was thought of as a 'deliberate' promulgation of 'Roman' art, technology, religion and customs by Roman authorities at the expense of the conquered civilizations and nations. Meanwhile, it has become clear that this picture was much more complex, that it was not a unilateral but a bilateral transfer of culture, and even multi-directional. In the following pages, I attempt to reconstruct the effect on a middle-sized provincial town in the east, that is Pisidian Sagalassos, of incorporation into the Roman empire. A comparison of the urban developments at Sagalassos between the Hellenistic period and the three centuries that followed the installation of the Principate, shows a complete transformation of the urban settlement, both in character and morphology.Archeologie (OE)status: publishe