Asia

Province Description

The region of what is now modern Turkey became a part of the Roman Empire in 133 BCE when king Attalos III of Pergamum bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman people. The province included the heartland of the Pergamene kingdom as well as the territories of Mysia, Lydia, Ionia, Caria, western Phrygia and the eastern Aegean islands. Under Augustus in 27 BCE, Asia was declared a senatorial province and the governance of a proconsul. The capital of the province was Ephesos, although Pergamon may have fulfilled this role initially. Under Diocletian (284-305 CE) the province was subdivided into smaller administrative units: Hellespontus, Asia, Lydia, Caria, Phrygia I and Phrygia II. Due to its excellent harbors on the west coast and its many navigable rivers, Asia's water-borne trade with the rest of the Mediterranean flourished. In the second century CE, Asia experienced great prosperity, to which the growth and architectural aggrandizement of many of its cities attest. In the area of Kibyra, bordering the regions of Lycia, Caria, Phrygia and Pisidia, numerous inscriptions refer to the large imperial estates of Roman families. Woolen textiles, marble, and timber constituted a significant part of the commodities exported from the province.

While the Romans might have looked to the Greeks for inspiration in philosophy, architecture, sculpture, and the fine arts, the non-Greek peoples of the eastern Mediterranean are their inspiration for luxury, fine-living, and the status conferred by displays of individual wealth (Athenaeus Deip. XV.690). Asia was a center for such splendor, first in the kingdoms of Lydia, Phrygia, and Lycia, and then continued by the Persian satraps, and later the Hellenistic kings. The Persian paradeisos is particularly well-attested in literature referencing Asia. That these gardens are known primarily from Roman-period literary sources indicates their continuing influence. For example, long after the gold of Lydia's Pactolus River had disappeared, Lydia remained a literary topos, not only for copious wealth, but for a life of luxury set in a landscape of natural abundance. Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae 12.515d-f) wrote in the second century CE that

"The Lydians in their luxury planned parks and made them like gardens and so kept in the shade. For they thought it more dainty not to have the sun's rays touch them at all..."

Other districts of Asia captured the Roman imagination: Pliny the Elder writes of an ancient plane tree (Sycamorus orientalis) in Lycia with a girth of sufficient circumference to house a grotto in its hollow trunk, ornamented with pumice and moss with provisions for 18 people to dine there (Pliny HN 12.9).

The paradeisoi of the Persian satraps are of particular influence on the introduction of horti and gardens of Rome. The paradeisos, from the Persian, paira daeza, or "enclosed place," is a term that had evolved by the Hellenistic period to mean a large enclosed park with luxurious gardens as well as orchards, collections of trees, crops, and hunting areas (see Sardis below). It was at Sardis that the Greek Lysander visited Cyrus the Younger, a visit recorded by Clearchus and retold by Xenophon. It is an essential moment in garden history recounted for the Romans by Cicero, De Senectute. 17.59. These paradeisoi, in the sense of luxurious orchards, are said by the Romans to have been brought to Greece by Kimon (Aristot. apud Plut. Cim. 10; comp. Cic. de Off. 2.18Plutarch), and were adopted by Hellenistic kings throughout Greece and southern Italy during the late Hellenistic period. The hunting parks at Daskyleion and Celenae are also vividly described by Xenophon (See Anabasis 1.2.7, 2.4.14 and Oeconomicus 4.13). Xenophon also describes how paradeisoi were occupied or cut down by armies during the fourth and third centuries BCE. Appreciation for these parks apparently continued, and Seleucus of Syria took over the royal paradeisos at Sardis (Plutarch, Demetrios 50.6). Years of instability followed, so it is difficult to know what the Romans themselves thought of paradeisoi in Asia in the second and first centuries BCE. Notable examples of paradeisoi, in some form, may have been visible to Romans visiting Asia, as well. For example, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus is now thought by its excavators to have been set in a grove or park.

Thus, the paradeisos, the alsos, the gymnasium, and the quadriporticus are not forms the Romans suddenly "discovered." They had had a long influence and were integrated into the Hellenistic architectural forms of the Italic landscape. In the second century BCE, however, when the Roman generals began to define themselves as rulers of an empire, they turned directly to the palaces and paradeisoi of the Hellenistic monarchs to establish their power, to display spoils of war, and to create the luxurious setting for life in Rome. They further adapted the evolving quadriporticus form for display to the public.

Despite the importance of Asia Minor in the history of the Roman landscape, archaeological evidence is scant. The excavators contacted for this essay indicated that parks, gardens, and other planted areas have yet to become a subject of research design for the region and finds appear to be few—primarily inscriptions and wall paintings. Most of the smaller domestic courtyards—often the most manageable to investigate - are paved. The larger palaestrae, gymnasia, and enclosed open spaces have not been investigated for landscape architectural and planting features, although recently an important campaign of work in the South Agora at Aphrodisias is setting an important precedent (see below). This catalog includes areas with dirt and incomplete paved surfaces, and notes sites where the excavators have some level of optimism about fruitful future study. The subject of designed landscapes, gardens, and planted areas in Asia Minor awaits archaeological investigation.

Places

• Asia (Roman Province) (Pleiades:981509)
• Asia Minor (general region) (TGN:7002294)