Imperial Ideals and Provincial Realities: The Construction of Baths in the Roman East

This dissertation examines how local populations in the Roman East responded to empire-wide trends by focusing on the construction of Roman-style baths. Specifically, it explores the degree to which provincial building industries applied their own well-developed and deeply entrenched building traditions to the construction of these baths. It also pays special attention to the environmental factors that conditioned these local building traditions and limited the choice of construction materials and techniques at the disposal of those tasked with building these facilities. To investigate the reception of Roman-style baths by provincial communities as well as the means by which local building industries overcame the structural and technical challenges posed by these novel structures, this dissertation examines the construction of 90 bathing facilities throughout the Roman East, from Cilicia to Arabia. In doing so, it demonstrates that while Roman-style baths were universally adopted by provincial communities, they were not passively received. Instead, wherever possible, the construction of baths was adapted to fit the environmental contexts and architectural traditions of local building industries. At the same time, this dissertation explores how, when faced with the technical challenges presented by Roman-style baths (such as the vaulting and heating systems), the builders of these facilities imported western techniques or developed innovative solutions derived from their own building practices. The investigation of these instances of importation and innovation elucidates vehicles of technological transmission to (and within) the Roman East as well as the ingenuity of provincial builders. Rather than presenting a comprehensive analysis of all known Roman-style baths from the Roman East, this dissertation draws from a representative sample and focuses on the construction of the walls, vaults, and heating systems of these facilities, where innovation and local influences are most visible. The focus on these three elements allows for architectural analysis at the necessary level of detail, while the transregional scope of this study enables the broader, interregional contextualization of cultural trends previously identified by regional or localized studies.PHDClassical Art & ArchaeologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/166153/1/caharvey_1.pd