Rome in the East
The Transformation of an Empire
Preview
Book Description
This new edition of Rome in the East expands on the seminal work of the first edition, and examines the lasting impact of the near Eastern influence on Rome on our understanding of the development of European culture. Warwick Ball explores modern issues as well as ancient, and overturns conventional ideas about the spread of European culture to the East. This volume includes analysis of Roman archaeological and architectural remains in the East, as well as links to the Roman Empire as far afield as Iran, Central Asia, India, and China. The Near Eastern client kingdoms under Roman rule are examined in turn and each are shown to have affected Roman, and ultimately European, history in different but very fundamental ways. The highly visible presence of Rome in the East – mainly the architectural remains, some among the greatest monumental buildings in the Roman world – are examined from a Near Eastern perspective and demonstrated to be as much, if not more, a product of the Near East than of Rome.
Warwick Ball presents the story of Rome in the light of Rome’s fascination with the Near East, generating new insights into the nature and character of Roman civilisation, and European identity from Rome to the present. Near Eastern influence can be seen to have transformed Roman Europe, with perhaps the most significant change being the spread of Christianity. This new edition is updated with the latest research and findings from a range of sources including field work in the region and new studies and views that have emerged since the first edition. Over 200 images, most of them taken by the author, demonstrate the grandeur of Rome in the East. This volume is an invaluable resource to students of the history of Rome and Europe, as well as those studying the Ancient Near East.
Table of Contents
List of Line Drawings
Photographic Acknowledgements
List of Photographs
List of Tables
Preface
East or West?
Constraints and considerations
Sources, perspectives and evidence
The limitations of epigraphy
Terminology
Geographical limits
Objectives
Genesis
1. Historical background
To the Euphrates
Rome and Iran
Hannibal and Antiochus the Great
Pompey the Great
Crassus, Carrhae and the Parthians
Beyond the Euphrates
Trajan and the ghost of Alexander
Septimius Severus and Mesopotamia
The end of the beginning
The Long Retreat
Iran restored: Alexander and Artaxerxes
Shapur I, Valerian and the disaster of Edessa
Shapur II, Constantius and the disaster of Amida
Julian and the loss of the Tigris Provinces
Justinian the Peasant's son and Khusrau of the Immortal Soul
Endgame: Heraclius, Khusrau Parviz and Muhammad
2. The Princely States - Near Eastern kingdoms under Roman protection
Rome and the Arabs
Emesa and the Sun-Kings
The Kings of Emesa
The religion of Emesa
The Great Temple of Emesene Baal
Judaea, Herod the Great and the Jewish Revolt
The Rise of Herod
The successors of Herod
The Jewish Revolt
Arabia and the Nabataeans
Rise of the Nabataeans
The Nabataean Achievement
Nabataean Religion
Palmyra and Queen Zenobia
Origins of Palmyra
Palmyrene Trade
The Rise of Udaynath
Zenobia
The Revolt
Aftermath of the Revolt
Palmyrene Civilisation
Edessa and the coming of Christendom
Origins
The kings
Religion at Edessa
Edessa and Christianity
The Tanukhids and Queen Mawiyya
'King of the Arabs'
Queen Mawiyya's Revolt
Aftermath
The Ghassanids and the coming of Islam
3. Rome East of the Frontiers
Military Campaigns
Mark Antony and Iran
Aelius Gallus and Yemen
Roman prisoners of war
Crassus’ lost legions?
Survivors of Edessa
Roman trade
Rome in India
Rome in Central Asia and China
‘Romano-Buddhist’ Art
4. The Towns and Cities
Antioch, the Imperial City
Origins
Eastern city or foreign implant?
Antioch as an Imperial city
The Macedonian heartland of the north
Seleucia and Laodicaea
Apamaea
Aleppo
Cyrrhus and Chalcis
The Euphrates and Mesopotamia
Halabiya
Rasafa
Dura Europos
Mesopotamia
The Phoenician Coast
Aradus, Antaradus and Marathus
Byblos
Beirut
Sidon and Tyre
Caesarea
Aradus, Tyre, others
The Decapolis
Damascus
Qanawat and Si‘
Jerash
Amman
Other Decapolis cities
‘Roman’ Arabia: Bosra and Shahba
Bosra
Shahba
Conclusion
5. The Countryside
The Dead Cities
The settlements and their setting
The houses
Public buildings
Christian buildings
Economy
Date
Explanation
Other areas
Elsewhere in north Syria
The desert fringes
Cilicia
The Negev
Jordan
The Hauran
Villages and their settings
Public buildings
Conclusions
6. Secular architecture: Imperial stamp or imperial veneer?
The urban layout
Planned towns
Sacred and processional ways
Colonnaded streets
The four-way arch
Other ornamental arches
Dedicatory columns
Nymphaea
The kalybe
Forums
Oval and circular plazass
Buildings of pleasure
Baths
Entertainment
Military architecture
Occupation
Defence
7. Buildings of religion: the resurgence of the east
Temples
The temenos temple
Temple propylaea
Eastern temple origins
Exterior altars
Temple sanctuaries
Circumambulatories
High places
Early Christian architecture
The basilica
The martyrium
Funerary architecture
Pyramids, temples and columns
Tower tombs
Underground tombs
Tomb facades
Fabric and style
Building material
The trabeate style
The ‘baroque’ style
The ‘Syrian Niche’
Conclusion
8. The transformation of an Empire
The Arabs and the West
India and the West
Julia Domna and the Arabs who ruled Rome
Septimius Severus and Julia Domna
Caracalla and Geta
Elagabalus and Baal
Alexander and the end of a dynasty
Aftermath
Philip the Arab
Lepcis Magna: Roman City in Africa and the orientalisation of Europe
From Paganism to Christianity
Religion in Pagan Rome
From slave to master
From Iran to Rome
From Anatolia to Rome
From the Semitic East to Rome
From East to West
The Oriental Revolution
East and West
Character and prejudice
The view from the east
Triumph of the East
Author(s)
Biography
Warwick Ball is a Near Eastern archaeologist who has excavated in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya and Ethiopia, and travelled extensively in most other countries in the region in his professional capacity. He has held posts with the British Institute of Afghan Studies in Kabul, the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. The first edition of Rome in the East was Choice Outstanding Academic Book in 2000 and was awarded the James Henry Breasted Prize in 2001. Author of many other books on the history and archaeology of the region, Mr Ball now lives in Scotland.
Reviews
"When this book first appeared it proved highly controversial. Now a timely updated second edition has taken into account much of the recent literature. Postcolonial approaches that foreground the viewpoint of the ‘other’ have reset the academic agenda and in many ways the first edition was a precursor of this approach. This second edition has continued the legacy of the first and is thought provoking, provocative and challenging. Such works are badly needed as a corrective to the prevailing orthodoxy of the western paradigm in Graeco-Roman studies. It is a very readable and valuable work and one which every student of both the Roman world and the ancient Near East needs to study."
- Professor Paul Newson, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
"The new version of Rome in the East is still a major scholarly achievement worthy of praise for its wealth of detail on architecture, urban planning, religious cults, and so on ... the book is still outstanding in its scope and detail. Anyone reading it will learn a great deal about the culture and history of the Roman Near East."
- Professor Lee E. Patterson, Eastern Illinois University, USA, in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review
“The first edition of this book, published in 2000 (CH, Sep'00, 38-0450), was a Choice “Outstanding Academic Title." This second edition has all the virtues of the first brought up to the present, when many of the monuments it illustrates are threatened by war. Ball is a Near Eastern archaeologist who approaches the Roman Empire with an outsider’s optics. His book is not only the best compendium of the archaeological remains of the Roman East, it also sets forth his thesis, once again: in the competition between the cultures of eastern and western portions of the Roman Empire, the east won … For researchers, graduate students, upper-level undergrads and, perhaps, the general reading public.”
- J. A. S. Evans, University of British Columbia