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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi

ORIGINS OF THE COLONNADED STREETS

IN THE CITIES OF THE ROMAN EAST
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi
Augusta Raurica

Gaul

Veleia
Zernaki
Italy Tepe

Rome Proconnesos
Bithynia
Aphrodisias
Italica Pompeii Hierapolis Docimion
Troad Bursa Sagalassos
Assos Anazarbus
Spain Pergamon Cremna Augusta
Sardis Ciliciae Euphrates
Smyrna

ia
Cyrrhus
C Tigris
Ephesus Phrygia Pisidia

ilic
Athens Penteli Soli Aleppo Dura
Seleucia

C
Priene Antioch Europos
Miletus Perge Uzuncaburç Ebla on the Tigris
Corinth Paros Lycia Latakia Apamea Mari
Djemila RhodesPatala Side
Cyp us
Cyprus
Syria
Palmyra Babylon
Orontes
Timgad Selge Byblos
Beirut Damascus
Numidia
Tyre Si a
Panias Bosra
Caesarea Um Qeis
Cyrene Samaria Sebaste Jerash Beit Ras
Sabratha Ptolemais Jerusalem Amman
Tripoli Lepcis Magna Cyren
Cyr aica Alexandria

ia
Tripolitania

ab
Petra

Ar
Egypt
Saqqara
Dionysias Tebtunis
Oxyrhynchus
Hermapolis Antinoopolis
Magna
sources of Nile
Mons Porphyrites
imported stone Mons Claudianus Mons Claudianus
N Karnak
Aswan
Philae

0 100 200 500 km

RB Jan 2016

Fig. 0.01 Map of the Mediterranean basin locating sites mentioned and main sources of imported stone
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi

Origins of the
Colonnaded Streets in
the Cities of the
Roman East

ROSS BURNS

1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi

3
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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi

To Margaret and to Jorge Ivan—for all your support

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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi

Preface

Many of the major and mid-ranking cities of the Greek-speaking East under
Rome adopted the cross-city colonnaded axis as the central unifying element
of their urban layout. This book seeks to explain the origin of the idea. Earlier
studies, usually treating the issues briefly in the course of more general
surveys, have identified possible origins in the Greek and Roman architectural
traditions (the Greek stoa or the Roman porticus). Others have traced roots
stemming from the Pharaonic or Achaemenid traditions. This study looks
at the whole range of ideas on urban development prevalent in the Eastern
provinces under Rome in the first two centuries of the Empire (up to AD 150),
including the use of monumental architecture to implant Roman authority
amidst the diverse political structures of the Eastern provinces. It seeks to
identify whether the first colonnaded axis (Antioch)—attested in the writings
of Josephus and attributed to Herod the Great in the early Augustan period—
was replicated in the intervening decades before the axis suddenly became a
common element of the town plans of most major cities and many minor ones
in the early second century AD.
The study looks at possible ‘missing’ examples of street colonnading in the
first century AD and at the complementary idea of a straight and wide cross-
city axis, which had some precedents in both Greek and Egyptian town
layouts. It concludes that the adoption of the colonnaded axis in the Eastern
provinces is a reflection of a diverse range of architectural and town planning
practices in the region at the time, over which Rome sought to impose only
a weak centralizing influence. A few examples of the colonnaded axis did
emerge in the first century, but the idea was given new impetus by the
introduction in the second century AD of a more centralized architectural
vocabulary. This went hand in hand with the reorganization of the system
for the mining and transporting of materials and the associated concentration
in a few places of the expertise required for such massive projects. The
colonnaded street was not specifically a tool of what would once have been
called ‘Romanization’, but by the second century AD it was to become an
indicator of cities’ attachment to the Roman system. It was the product of the
collective inventiveness of the architects, builders, patrons, and administrators
operating within a system that allowed ideas to flow freely, tolerated experi-
mentation and a sense of competition between urban centres, provided the
right administrative and legal systems to protect the use of public spaces, and
could assemble massive amounts of material efficiently.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi

Contents

List of Figures xi

Introduction 1

P A RT A AR C HI T E C T U R A L T RA D I T I O NS
1. The Hellenistic City in the Eastern Context 25
2. Alexandria—‘View Planning’ Embraces the City 38
3. Greek and Roman Precedents in the Early Empire 52
4. Framework for the Development of Cities in the Early
Years of the Roman Presence 73

P A R T B EV O L U T I O N O F T H E C OL ON N A D E D AX I S
5. Provincial Cities in the Early Empire 91
6. Urban Development in Practice—Client Kings 105
7. Urban Development in Practice—Province of Syria 138
8. Urban Development in Practice—Asia Minor and North Africa 166

PART C MONUMENT ALIS M AND THE N EW

BUILDING PROGRAMME
9. The New Environment of the Early Second Century 203
10. The Colonnaded Axis Reaches Its Peak 232
11. Antonines and Severans—End of ‘User Pays’? 273
12. A Singular Experiment 301
Conclusion—Seeing the City as a Whole 311

Appendix 1: Results of the American–French Excavations

in Antioch 323
Appendix 2: Table of Roman-Era Cities and Colonnaded
Streets Discussed 325

Bibliography 337
Index 399
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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi

List of Figures

(Note: all figures by the author unless otherwise indicated. North is top of the page in
all line drawings)

0.00 Apamea, the northern section of the northern Monumental

Street looking north Cover
0.01 Map of the Mediterranean basin locating sites mentioned and main
sources of imported stone ii
1.01 Ebla, courtyard and portico of Palace G 26
1.02 Model of the processional avenue leading to the Ishtar Gate, Babylon
(Vorderasiatsiches Museum, Berlin, with kind permission, photo by
Olaf M. Teßmer) 27
1.03 Dura Europos, plan of the ancient city 31
1.04 Damascus, plan of the city showing evidence of Hellenistic remains
with modern street pattern (in grey) 33
1.05 Persepolis, south doorway to the Palace of Darius I at Persepolis (486 BC) 36
1.06 Saqqara, entrance to the Step Pyramid complex of King Zoser 36
2.01 Karnak, view along the axis of the temple complex through the
hypostyle hall of the Temple of Amun 40
2.02 Remains of the Avenue of Sphinxes joining the Karnak and Luxor
Temple complexes 40
2.03 Luxor Temple, axis looking south through the Colonnade
of Amenophis III 41
2.04 Edfu, the visual axis through the Temple of Horus 42
2.05 Dionysias (Fayoum), the processional avenue (dromos) leading
to the Temple of Sobuk-Re 42
2.06 Alexandria, colonnaded section of the ‘Canopic Way’ near the
Attarin Mosque—columns as seen in 1785 (Louis-François Cassas,
Voyage Pittoresque de la Syrie, Paris, 1799) 44
2.07 Alexandria, plan showing the Hellenistic and early Roman remains
(redrawn from base map (Judith McKenzie 2003: fig. 5) with kind
permission and suggested amendments by author) 46
3.01 Athens, the Stoa of Attalus—plan and cross-section (courtesy of
the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Agora Excavations) 53
3.02 Assos, plan of the agora (originally published in Clarke, Bacon, and
Koldeway, Excavations at Assos, vol. 1, Archaeological Institute of
America, London, 1902) 55
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi

xii List of Figures

3.03 Pergamon, the upper theatre and the stoa 56
3.04 Rome, map of the Campus Martius and Imperial Forums in the
late Republic and early Empire 61
3.05 Rome, columns of the colonnade west of the Porticus Octaviae 65
3.06 Rome, the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus 68
3.07 Pompeii, colonnading along the western side of the Forum 70
4.01 Relief depicting a treadmill crane lifting a column (Jean-Pierre Adam,
Roman Building: Materials and Techniques, 1994: fig. 92. Reproduced
by kind permission of B. T. Batsford, part of Pavilion Books
Company Limited) 74
4.02 Machine for lifting monolith column shafts (Jean-Pierre Adam,
Roman Building: Materials and Techniques, 1994: fig. 96. Reproduced
by kind permission of B. T. Batsford, part of Pavilion Books
Company Limited) 75
4.03 Cross-section and plan of a typical colonnaded street showing
structural elements 76
5.01 Damascus, plan of the Roman city—the two Roman colonnaded
axes are marked with broken lines 93
5.02 Ptolemais, plan of late Hellenistic and Roman structures 99
5.03 Lepcis Magna, plan showing development of major Roman monuments 102
6.01 Petra, plan of the city centre (second century) 109
6.02 Petra, Temple of Dusares (‘Qasr al-Bint’) from the north-east corner
of the temenos 110
6.03 Petra, the decumanus maximus seen from the west (in front of the
monumental staircase to the Upper Market—in the distance, the
gateway to the temenos of the Dusares Temple) 110
6.04 Petra, Temple of Dusares (‘Qasr al-Bint’)—temenos gateway
from the east 111
6.05 View of Antioch with Mount Silpius in the background (plate 1,
Jean Yonoski and Jules David, Syrie ancienne et moderne, Paris, 1848) 125
6.06 Antioch, plan of the city’s ancient remains 126
6.07 Antioch, schematic reconstruction of stages in the evolution of the
colonnaded axis to Byzantine times (measurements as in Lassus
1972: fig. LXIX) 127
6.08 Caesarea Maritima, plan of the city in the first and second centuries AD 133
6.09 Sepphoris, the colonnaded north–south street looking north 137
7.01 Siʿa, plan of the temple complex 141
7.02 Jerash, plan of the ancient city of Gerasa 144
7.03 Jerash, looking north from the Zeus Temple with Bronze Age tell
in the centre and colonnaded axis on left 147
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/5/2017, SPi

List of Figures xiii

7.04 Jerash, junction of the Oval Plaza (left) and the southern end of the
north–south axis 148
7.05 Jerash, propylaeum and staircase to the Temple of Artemis 149
7.06 Damascus, western face of Bab Sharqi, showing the beginning
of the cross-city colonnading 152
7.07 Damascus, beginning of the southern colonnade on the western
face of Bab Sharqi 153
7.08 Damascus, Roman Arch in Straight Street—eastern face, with remains
of the colonnade 153
7.09 Damascus, plan showing assumed outline of the western end of
the Roman Via Recta (Straight Street) (courtesy of Stefan Weber) 155
7.10 Damascus, elevation of the eastern city gate at the start of the
Via Recta (Bab Sharqi) (Porter 1855: 38) 158
7.11 Sbeitla (Sufetula), Temple of Jupiter—doorway with arch over the lintel 160
7.12 Doric-style capitals found at: (a) Damascus, inside Bab Sharqi;
(b) Apamea, outside the North Gate; (c) at the site of the Arch of
Augustus in the Roman Forum 161
7.13 Aleppo, plan of the central area showing the Hellenistic grid surviving
in the modern street layout 164
7.14 Cyrrhus, plan of the ancient remains 165
8.01 Ephesus, the Arcadiane seen from the south-eastern end (from the
Roman Theatre) 172
8.02 Sardis, the colonnaded street running alongside the synagogue/baths 173
8.03 Pergamon, detail of lower city—colonnaded street joining the ‘Via
Tecta’ to the Asklepieion gateway (after Ziegenhaus and de Luca
1975: Tafel 84) 175
8.04 Pergamon, the Via Tecta looking towards the nymphaeum 175
8.05 Aphrodisias, plan of the ancient remains (base map redrawn from
section of R. R. R. Smith and C. Ratté 2000: plate II, with kind
permission and additional information from authors, 2016) 176
8.06 Aphrodisias, the Sebasteion seen from the east 178
8.07 Hierapolis in Phrygia, the Gate of Sextus Julius Frontinus and the
main axis seen from the south 180
8.08 Bursa (ancient Prusa), the main street across the walled city,
Ortapazar Çaddesi, follows the line of the ancient decumanus maximus 184
8.09 Cremna, plan of the Roman remains 186
8.10 Sagalassos, the northern end of the colonnaded axis rising to the
Upper Agora 188
8.11 Soli (Pompeiopolis), remains of the colonnaded street leading to
the port near modern Viranşehir in Cilicia 190
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xiv List of Figures

8.12 Anazarbus, line of remains of the colonnaded north–south axis
looking north from the Monumental Arch 192
8.13 Anazarbus (Anavarza), plan of ancient and medieval remains 193
8.14 Hierapolis Castabala, plan of the ancient remains 194
8.15 Timgad (Thamugadi), the decumanus maximus looking towards
the West Gate (photo with kind permission of Warwick Ball) 196
8.16 Djemila (Cuicul), the northern cardo looking south (photo
with kind permission of Warwick Ball) 197
9.01 Apamea, plan of Hellenistic and Roman remains 215
9.02 Apamea, shop fronts along the western footpath of the southern
‘Grand Colonnade’, showing evidence of a second storey above
the tabernae or shops 216
9.03 Apamea, looking south from the ‘Triumphal Arch’ towards the city
gate at the northern end of the axis—Hellenistic stoa foundations
on the right 216
9.04 Antinoopolis, plan of identified Roman remains 221
9.05 Antinoopolis, ‘View of the Ruins Taken from the Southwest’—showing
the colonnaded north–south axis (foreground) and the principal
decumanus (Jomard in Description de l’Egypte, IV, Paris, 1821: pl. 54) 221
9.06 Antinoopolis, remains of the paving of the colonnaded axis 223
9.07 Antinoopolis, schematic plan of a cross-section of the colonnaded
axis—note irregular paving stones (Mitchell 1982: fig. 3) 224
9.08 Hermopolis Magna, plan of the central area 227
9.09 Hermopolis Magna, remains of paving of the east–west (‘Antinoe’)
street looking east, with surviving columns from the portico of the
fifth-century basilica 228
9.10 Oxyrhynchus, base of honorific column seen from the west with
the tomb of Abu Samra behind 230
9.11 Oxyrhynchus, plan of the ancient remains identified 230
10.01 Palmyra, central section of the ‘Grande Colonnade’, watercolour by
Louis-François Cassas (1756–1827) (copyright Musée des Beaux-Arts
de Tours, photo Dominique Couineau, with kind permission) 234
10.02 Palmyra, the same view of the central section of the colonnaded
axis looking south-east towards the Monumental Arch 235
10.03 Palmyra, Temple of Bel—cella seen from the south-west side of the
courtyard 237
10.04 Palmyra, the oasis and cross-city axis leading to the Temple
of Bel—seen from the north (Qalaat Shirkuh) 238
10.05 Palmyra, plan showing the colonnaded axis on its erratic course
between the Temple Tomb and the Temple of Bel 240
10.06 Palmyra, Temple of Baalshamin, cella seen from the east 242
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List of Figures xv
10.07 Palmyra, Tetrapylon and central colonnaded street seen from
the north 244
10.08 Palmyra, south pedestrian passage in front of the
theatre—looking north 245
10.09 Palmyra, plan of the central section of the colonnaded axis (after
Antoni Ostrasz, 1969, with kind permission of Ina Kehrberg) 245
10.10 Palmyra, the ‘Arc de Triomphe’ (Monumental Arch) as seen by
Louis-François Cassas (Cassas 1799: plate 71) 246
10.11 Palmyra, the southern transverse street leading to the
Tetrapylon—looking east 248
10.12 Palmyra, cross-section of the colonnaded axis (Gabriel 1926: fig. 2) 249
10.13 Palmyra, Aswan granite columns possibly recycled to form
the portico to the ‘Baths of Diocletian’ 252
10.14 Bosra, plan of the Roman and medieval remains 254
10.15 Bosra, cross-section of the north–south axis looking north,
showing roofing structure (Thibaud in Dentzer-Feydy et al. 2007:
242—with kind permission of the Institut français du Proche-Orient) 256
10.16 Bosra, the Nabataean Gate—from the south-west 257
10.17 Bosra, entrance to the enclosure of the Nabataean temple
complex—seen from the east, with the passage connecting the
Nabataean Gate angled to disguise the change in alignment 258
10.18 Bosra, view north from the intersection of the decumanus maximus
and the north–south axis—the Central Baths in mid-ground and
Mosque of Umar in the distance 259
10.19 Amman, plan of the central area showing remains of
ancient Philadelphia 261
10.20 Amman, the Roman theatre, odeon (left), and forum (behind trees)
seen from the Citadel hill (view from north) 262
10.21 Um Qeis (Gadara), plan of the decumanus maximus (base map
Bührig 2008: Beilage 3, with kind permission) 263
10.22 Um Qeis (Gadara), western extension of the decumanus maximus
looking east to the citadel hill 264
10.23 Beit Ras (Capitolias), view of the modern town with the main street
marking the line of the decumanus maximus 266
10.24 Beit Ras (Capitolias), Schumacher’s plan of the ruins sighted in
the 1880s with the decumanus maximus marked by broken line
(Schumacher 1890: 154) 266
10.25 Jerusalem, recent excavations showing the existence of an eastern
colonnaded axis west of the retaining wall of Herod’s Temple 268
10.26 Izmir (ancient Smyrna), plan showing identified Roman remains 271
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xvi List of Figures

11.01 Aleppo (Beroea), stages in the evolution of the colonnaded axis
through to modern times (after Sauvaget 1941: fig. 19) 281
11.02 Beirut, plan showing remains of ancient Berytus 284
11.03 Beirut, columns west of the Maronite Cathedral once forming
a tetrakionion along the colonnaded north–south axis—view
from north 287
11.04 Latakia, plan of ancient and medieval remains in the central city 289
11.05 Latakia, Monumental Arch as depicted by Edward Pococke
(Description of the East, London, 1745: plate XXVII) 291
11.06 Latakia, granite columns surviving on the west side of Sheikh
Muhannah ibn Haris Street in the central city 292
11.07 Tyre, colonnaded central hall of the Roman baths near the sea 294
11.08 Tyre, eastern Monumental Arch and colonnaded street—looking east 294
11.09 Tyre, plan of the identified ancient remains 296
11.10 Byblos, colonnaded street looking south towards the medieval citadel 297
12.01 Corinth, looking south down the start of the Lechaion Road
as it leaves the agora 304
12.02 Italica, view south along the main north–south axis showing the
piers supporting the city’s colonnades 307
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2017, SPi

Introduction

SCOPE O F THIS S TUDY AN D PREVIOU S

EXA MIN ATIONS

The thoughts behind this study have been a long time maturing. Over decades
living in and visiting the great cities of the Roman centuries in the Middle East,
a nagging question became a persistent mental challenge. A visitor only has to
stand on the colonnaded main street at Apamea and see the axis disappearing
to the horizon in both directions to realize that something unique in town
planning had provided a new element in the streetscapes of the Roman period.
Most of these great ruined cities of the East shared this common feature, one
rarely seen in the Western provinces of the Roman world. The central axis
became the physical means by which the cities of the East (usually through a
city council, or boule, in some cases with the active support of the imperial
authorities) controlled the ‘look’ of the city as a whole. The essential aim was to
seize the initiative in commanding a spectator’s attention rather than let the
urban scene be fragmented by the attention-seeking claims of separate projects
such as temples, baths, or theatres, conceived with little attempt to reconcile
the streetscape.
Yet there have been few studies which have touched even tangentially on the
origins of this exercise in urban stagecraft. Though conditioned to recognize
the column-lined cross-city axes as a standard feature of many Eastern cities
from the second century AD on, we have little specific information on how
ideas came together to realize this essentially revolutionary concept, which
turned urban planning inside out. The street, instead of being a mundane
passage, a convenient means of passing from one place to another, or a
dumping ground for trash, had in the course of little more than a century
been transformed into a monumental landscape able in one sweeping vision
to encompass the entire city.
This study will concentrate on the development of such axes, which dom-
inated a city’s layout. This phenomenon cannot be separated from the broad
context of the consolidation of Roman rule in the first two centuries of the
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2017, SPi

2 Origins of the Colonnaded Streets in the Roman East

Empire. This is not an attempt to provide a complete catalogue of known
examples of colonnaded streets. There are many cases which were commenced
after the time frame set for this account: namely, the end of Hadrian’s reign.
By then, the role of the axis was fully developed in its mature form. Among the
fifty or more examples surveyed here, a handful are examined to test assump-
tions in earlier sources that they dated to the first century AD, even though in
some cases, on subsequent examination, they should be assigned later dates.
Some post-Hadrianic cases are included on the basis of a likely earlier start
date for the work on their colonnades, though they were probably completed
in the Antonine or Severan periods. A handful of cases are also selectively
chosen to illustrate the extent to which the colonnades had become an organic
feature of most medium to large cities of the Eastern empire. Within this time
frame, this study does not seek to collect all instances of incidental colonnad-
ing along part of a street (particularly when such sections are clearly an
afterthought, unrelated to the city’s original layout). To illustrate how the
colonnaded axis had evolved to the point where it had become a central tool of
Roman urban development by the late second century, however, an exception
is made for Lepcis Magna. In this and other cases, Septimius Severus used the
axis as a device for re-planning whole sections of cities, an idea which he seems
to have transferred even to Rome itself.
Within these time parameters, readers may still find that several examples
of street colonnading or colonnaded axes are not included. This search for
origins concentrates on examples that trace the key points which would
appear to plot the development of the phenomenon. It therefore comes to a
close as the idea achieved maximum development in the Greek-speaking
provinces of the East in the second half of the second century AD. From that
point, the great axes that stride across many Eastern cities became common-
place in the provinces from Asia Minor to Egypt. The subsequent fragmenta-
tion of the streetscapes into their Byzantine and later Umayyad forms reflects a
different process of urban evolution, one that has been studied elsewhere.1
This book is not about colonnades as such but about their use as all-
embracing devices to open up a city. Two concepts are seen as germane to
the development of this feature, which would mark numerous cities of the
Roman East. This study seeks not only the origins of the idea of visually
continuous street colonnading but of an equally essential element—the broad
axial thoroughfare often stretching right across a city and without which the

1
Full-length general studies, not dwelling on the issue of origins, are found in Williams 1979,
Reiter 1992, Bejor 1999, and Tabaczek 2002 (concentrating on Palmyra and Jerash). Williams
and Reiter include surveys of earlier literature on the broad subject. Articles with conclusions on
the later decline of the streets include Kennedy 1985: 3–27; Lassus 1980: 87–100; Saliou 1996a:
319–30; Tabaczek 2003: 23–36; Saliou 2005: 207–24; and individual reports on sites as noted in
the text. The stages of the streets’ transition in Late Antiquity were first documented in Sauvaget
1935a: 99–102, and Sauvaget 1941: 104–5.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2017, SPi

Introduction 3
colonnades could not achieve their impact. For this reason, some sites with
broad axes are examined which did not qualify for colonnaded treatment within
our time frame. In Appendix 2, a table of sites discussed includes a few examples
which were never colonnaded but whose street plans show the early introduc-
tion of the wide axial thoroughfare or which otherwise contributed to the
concept of colonnading along an axis as a device for urban enhancement.

A Missing Century

The chronological context of this study begins in the aftermath of the collapse
of the Eastern Hellenistic dynasties as Rome extended its sway. The first
surviving written references to a colonnaded axis are at two points in Josephus’
examination of Herod the Great’s building programme,2 where he describes
the great cross-city axis at Antioch. Herod died in 4 BC. These references thus
precede by a century the first fully attested examples in the archaeological
record.3 It is generally recognized that the phenomenon of colonnaded streets
did not become widespread in the Roman East until the second century AD,
when it became part of the common repertoire of town-planning ideas
promoted from the time of Hadrian. This inquiry therefore began with the
following questions: was there a gap, now difficult to explain, before the idea
proliferated throughout the Eastern empire? Is it possible that archaeological
evidence of early examples is simply lost to us or not yet unearthed? And is
something missing in the picture we have from literary sources, masking the
possibility that the colonnaded axis was quietly beginning to spread during the
course of the first century AD?

Structure

In this study, the rise of the colonnaded axis is seen in Part A (Chapters 1–4)
against the background of the development of the urban traditions and
political frameworks that provided the background for the first centuries of
Rome’s presence in the East. The apparent gap between the first manifestation
of the idea and its wider adoption is explored in the context of how the Eastern
cities evolved in the early phases of Roman oversight. Rome’s priorities are
sought in the context of the programmes introduced by Augustus to enshrine
in architecture the image of his new principate in Rome. Specific cases tracing
how the colonnaded axes evolved are identified in Part B (Chapters 5–8).
Part C (Chapters 9–12) studies their evolution under the massive building

2
Josephus Jewish War 1, 21, 11 (425); Jewish Antiquities 16, 5, 3 (148).
3
Tabaczek 2002: 226–39 examines the problems.
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4 Origins of the Colonnaded Streets in the Roman East

programmes of the early second century AD, finishing with a short examination
of why the colonnaded axis was largely confined to the provinces of the Eastern
or Greek-speaking empire. The Conclusion brings together some thoughts on
how such axes operated across the first two centuries, how they were funded,
and why they became increasingly uniform in their style, and questions whether
they could really be described as a tool setting a ‘Roman’ stamp on the great
cities of the Eastern provinces.
This study must necessarily jump between regions which had quite different
experiences of absorption into Rome’s orbit and different historical back-
grounds which continued to influence their approach to urban development.
I faced an impossible choice between a geographical and a thematic thread to
determine the structure of this study. In my view, neither would work alone as
the dominant narrative. Ideas that seemed to govern urban development were
never geographically confined, and some regions of the Eastern empire had an
unfortunate habit of poaching each other’s ideas while others stuck doggedly
to pre-Roman traditions. A third factor resulted from the need to take into
account various conceptual lines of inquiry that have been introduced into our
understanding of how minds worked at the time.
The need to juggle these three levels of inquiry has required unholy
compromises. The book seeks to pursue ideas across regions in a broadly
chronological sequence but will need to jump at times ahead or behind to pick
up the thread as it passes between regions. Since it was clear to me that there
was no single consistent explanation for the choice of this planning device that
could be centrally imposed across regions, cultures, and in time, I have opted
to evaluate the more speculative explanations for the adoption of the colon-
naded street midway through the book and at the end, when they can be tested
against the range of physical evidence cited to that point. If this jumping
between time and place makes the narrative more challenging, I apologize but
with the plea that adopting a strictly chronological, geographical, or theoret-
ical framework would in the end require even more baffling zigzagging,
particularly as much of the dating evidence is uncertain.

Theoretical Frameworks

The study originally sought to evaluate the physical evidence for the evolution
of the practice of colonnading. While, as just noted, theoretical frameworks
which might have governed the development of the colonnaded axis will be
examined later, some preliminary mention should be made of speculative
dimensions which might help establish why the adoption of the colonnaded
axis represented such a significant departure in the way cities evolved.
For the architectural historian (which I am not), the distinction between
dynamic and static vistas is central to an understanding of how we experience
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2017, SPi

Introduction 5
urban space. Looking down the axes of some of the great surviving classical
colonnades of today’s Middle East, the perspective is led relentlessly along
one sight line, drawn by the receding regularity of the columns. Today’s
experience is vastly different from how these cities appeared to the visitor
1,800 years ago—a visual field animated by crowds, chaotic activity, the
hazards of traffic, and the sense that this ever-changing vista was encompassed
within a world where an overarching order prevailed. As the visitor moved
along, the frame kept unfolding while passing activity provided constant
distraction. The axis, in other words, was the most dynamic part of the city.
By contrast, in the metropolitan Greek and Roman traditions, the use of
static enclosed space had been the more traditional way of presenting a city’s
attributes—commercial, educational, cultural. Such spaces either brought the
visitor inside and there sought to control a person’s perspective or to stabilize
the visual experience at fixed points. The scene could be as chaotic as the
street, but it sought to focus its messages about the world by providing a
predetermined perspective.4
An essential new ingredient in establishing both types of spatial experiences,
enclosed or external, was continuous colonnading. It should be emphasized
that colonnades were not in themselves new, but their application to define
streetscapes along an axis was. Many writers have looked briefly at the
evolution of the colonnades and offered their explanations of what had
inspired such constructions.5 These arguments are examined in the course
of this study, but it will become clear that the issues are more complicated than
the tracing of a simple line via columns arrayed in a row, an idea which risked
deadening monotony or visual fatigue. In Chapter 5 I will identify how several
physical and social factors prevalent in these centuries in the eastern
Mediterranean transformed the use of columns that had defined enclosed
space to a new format which essentially embraced a whole city, combining
the qualities of both dynamic and static exploitation of streetscapes. This
would be particularly cleverly exploited in cities which varied the illusion of
receding space by employing fixed visual experiences at key points, notably
tetrapylons, arches, or flexibly deployed spaces such as oval plazas.

4
Rapoport 1990: 247 puts the distinction this way: ‘Dynamic and static spaces are likely to
have, or require, different characteristics. Movement spaces tend to be linear, narrow and to have
high complexity levels so that they entice with hidden views, encouraging walking, strolling, and
sauntering. Rest spaces tend to be more static, and wider, frequently contain greenery, require
sitting facilities, and so on. Such spaces . . . encourage visual exploration from one spot—mainly
of other people; they tend to act as stages for social behaviour, for people who become objects of
interest and provide the requisite complexity levels.’
5
Caroline Williams provides a comprehensive summary of the suppositions advanced
(usually briefly) by a number of writers—Caroline Williams 1979: 16–19.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2017, SPi

6 Origins of the Colonnaded Streets in the Roman East

TRADITIONAL EXPLANATIONS

In earlier studies, broad assumptions were advanced that the colonnaded axis
evolved from the Greek stoa (στοά, a free-standing structure comprising a
colonnade in front of a long wall).6 Other writers have looked more broadly
at the fertile mix of ideas found in the late Hellenistic/Roman Republican eras
in the Mediterranean, including the porticus of second- or first-century BC
Rome.7 A third school found explanations in the East, reflecting ideas of
axiality and perspective in Achaemenid and Pharaonic architecture.8 These
various explanations are tested in this book in the context of a range of sites
where we have evidence of the early stages of the evolution of the colonnaded
axis and how it functioned. As indicated earlier, the geographical coverage is
thus kept deliberately flexible, though usually favouring a chronological rather
than a region-by-region structure spanning Turkey and the modern Middle
East (as far west as modern Libya) (Fig. 0.01). An examination of the building
programmes in Italy, notably Rome, will be important in establishing whether
techniques and concepts developed in the East were unique to that region or
shared a common vocabulary established through the Roman imperial ad-
ministration. Possible Eastern influences on the architecture of Rome itself
from the time of Pompey are also part of this mixture.
The broader political environment is also important. The role urban regen-
eration or new urban initiatives played in the establishment of Roman control
is examined, first in the context of Rome itself and then in the Eastern
provinces. The roles played by Eastern leaders, including ‘client’ kings, in
buttressing Roman authority is looked at in the context of what native ideas
and urban models they might have brought to the mix. The flourishing cities
of Asia Minor in the first century and a half of Roman control are combed for
indications of how the blend of architectural ideas in the wider region evolved.
In Asia Minor the development of the cities often complemented Syria’s
experience, but the former also played a central creative role, becoming an
important source of building ideas, materials, and craftsmen. The contrasting
examples of North Africa and Greece will be drawn upon.
By the early decades of the second century AD, a new urban planning
environment arose to advance the programme of embellishment of the
major Eastern cities. In this context, the colonnaded axis became the chief
instrument available to city rulers and imperial authorities. This brought to

6
See, for example, Owens 2009b: 218—‘Colonnaded streets were essentially the adaptation of
the ubiquitous Greek stoa and its application to the street system.’ Also Winter 2006: 16.
7
Most notably argued by von Gerkan 1924: 142–3.
8
Ball downplays the ‘processional way’ argument but raises the possibility that the inspiration
for the colonnaded street may be found in the Eastern tradition of the ‘grand oriental bazaar’ as
opposed to the Roman preference in the West for forums as the principal commercial venues—
Ball 2000: 267–71.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2017, SPi

Introduction 7
full maturity the various strands of earlier experimentation in the role of cross-
city axes threading through Alexandria, Antioch, and other Eastern cities such
as Sagalassos, Tyre, and possibly Damascus—centres where the axial route had
long been the principal dynamic element in urban growth—leading to the new
prototype at Antinoopolis in Egypt.
In the ‘new’ architecture of the early second century, most illustriously
advanced by Apollodorus of Damascus, perspective became the favoured
tool of urban architects seeking new visual devices and the loosening of
traditional formats. In many cases (Apamea, Jerash) the new building pro-
grammes and materials improved on—or juxtaposed—existing axes or grids.
Other cities would feel that they had to acquire the axial perspective even at
the expense of the heart of their existing urban centres (Palmyra). The
increasing rationalization of the supply of building materials on an empire-
wide basis brought new possibilities for mass-producing the components of
the colonnades. The taste for expensive embellishments took the form of
ready-made monolith columns in variegated colours and standardized types
of marble capitals. Cities outbid each other in razzle-dazzle effects, and with
the new phases of ‘monumentalization’ that came with the Antonines and
Severans few cities could afford to be left behind in the prestige stakes. The
narrative closes with the supremacy of the colonnaded axis by the mid-second
century, noting that the reasons why the West largely escaped the trend also
do a lot to explain why it was so successful in the East.

MIXING CULTU R ES

Some theoretical models of the ways in which architecture and city planning
interacted with their political environment tend to rely on a framework reflecting
Western experience of ‘other’ cultures in recent centuries. While providing
a healthy corrective to older assumptions of the superiority of Western and
elite-based values, this should not necessarily mean that all encounters between
cultures must be framed as unhealthy attempts at dominance in all fields. The
phenomenon once dubbed ‘Romanization’, and seen as a process of cultural
supremacy in the seminal work of Francis Haverfield,9 is today viewed in a
more nuanced way. I hope that this study can look more openly at the way in
which ideas on construction, planning, the role of cities, and the use of
decorative ‘symbolism’ were part of a complex mix that emerged during the
first two centuries of Rome’s presence, but which often had little or nothing

9
Haverfield 1913.
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8 Origins of the Colonnaded Streets in the Roman East

to do with what we might today choose to interpret as ideological or cultural
ideas imposed on subject populations.10
This study will avoid any attempt to redefine terms such as ‘Romanization’
or ‘identity’, which have become so disparate in the meanings conferred on
them that they provoke confusion and misunderstanding. The debate in
recent decades (partly inspired by the examination of the process by which
Gaul and Britain were absorbed into the Empire) has, however, given valuable
insights, overturning the traditional view that the coming of Rome involved a
total transformation through a process more or less uniform throughout the
Empire.11 The massive output of research on the cities of the East in recent years
has discredited traditional assumptions that absorption into Rome’s empire
meant the production of cookie-cutter cities mimicking Rome. The pattern of
evidence in this study rather argues the opposite: that the provinces of the East,
which already possessed urban traditions stretching back millennia, brought as
much to the Roman urban experience as did the metropolis itself.12
Comparative case-studies of how cultural convergence has worked in other
contexts may have helped free us from some of our inbuilt assumptions but
can also impose other distortions. Taking physical evidence as the primary
material may therefore provide a helpful corrective. There is rarely any
indication in styles of architecture or decoration that ethnic affiliations alone
determined whether or how these elements should be used. In some cases

10
The fact that any process of becoming ‘Roman’ did not necessarily involve the imposition
of a cultural template is also made clear in two recent studies on the extent to which the Latin
language was adopted, at least as evident in inscriptions from the Eastern provinces—Eck 2009:
15–42, and Isaac 2009: 43–72. Even at Heliopolis (Baalbek in modern Lebanon)—a Roman
colony founded for veterans as an offshoot from Berytus—a considerable number of inscriptions,
143 out of 344 published, were in Greek, suggesting that many veterans saw the advantage of
adopting a local coloration (Eck 2009: 32).
11
The approach followed here is best summed up in Woolf 1998: 245: ‘There were so many
kinds of Romans to become that becoming Roman did not mean assimilating to an ideal type,
but rather acquiring a position in the complex of structured differences in which Roman power
resided.’ See also Revell 2009: 193: ‘There was no single Roman identity in the past, but instead a
discourse of Roman-ness within which a multitude of experiences could be created.’
The arguments against Haverfield’s traditional views on the ‘Romanization’ process in Britain
are set out in Webster 1997b: 209–25, Woolf 1997: 339–50, and Webster 2003: 26–8. Millett too
redefines ‘Romanization’ away from the traditional view of a process of top-down transmission:
‘We must see Romanization as a process of dialectical change, rather than an influence of one
“pure” culture upon others’ (in Blagg and Millett 1990: 1; also reflected in Millett 1990: 38).
Bispham best sums up the outcome of the debate in relation to the absorption of the Italian
communities into Rome’s orbit: ‘Romanization is often understood today as “self-Romanization” ’
(Bispham 2008: 3). In other words, elites were free to adopt what suited them from the repertoire
available through Rome—language, social structures, architecture. It is also important to balance
any notions of a Rome-centric model by noting that Rome itself at the time was absorbing new
ideas from the East, especially from Hellenistic architecture and urban layouts.
12
‘Even when the conquest did provide the stimulus to cultural change, the conqueror's
culture has not always been the dominant one, as is illustrated by the influence of Hellenistic
culture on the Romans as they extended their power over the Greek world’ (Woolf 1998: 18). The
argument for an open-minded approach was initially put forward in Frézouls 1971: 235.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2017, SPi

Introduction 9
where projects were commissioned from the centre at a political level, this may
have been the case.13 More often, particularly at a local level—as we will see
later in the case of Petra or the Hauran in southern Syria—communities
appeared free to adopt whatever styles appealed, usually for aesthetic reasons
or because the available artisans were skilled in a range of patterns, methods,
or materials.14 Identifying the process of evolution of cities and towns as
some sort of struggle between ethnicities or worldviews is a tempting way to
structure debates, but it is rarely borne out by the physical evidence.15 A heavy
over-concentration on singling out Roman, Hellenized, Semitic, or Egyptian
elements on the architectural scene runs up against the question ‘Did the
audience know which bits were one or the other?’; even more to the point, ‘Did
they care?’16
There is much to recommend the view of Greg Woolf that ‘rather than the
expansion of one national or ethnic culture at the expense of others, we are
dealing with the emergence of a new, highly differentiated social formation
incorporating a new cultural logic and a new configuration of power’. In the
context of Gaul, Woolf argues that ‘Gauls were not “assimilated” to a pre-
existing social order, but participated in the creation of a new one’.17 The
process in the regions of North Africa and Asia Minor drew on quite different
traditional backgrounds but may have been analogous in the sense that a part
of the existing elite in both cases was adopted as Rome’s favourites. These
elites, then, of their own volition sought to suggest their ‘Roman-ness’ as
overtly as possible but often with significant local embellishments.18 Their
experience met Louise Revell’s broad definition of whether a building looks

13
Examples would include the adoption of the Roman porticus/basilica formation at certain
North African and Asia Minor centres—Cyrene, Ephesus.
14
Freyberger draws an apt comparison with the practice in the contemporary Arab Gulf
states where local clients feel free to draw on foreign architects and craftsmen for projects
conceived within the framework of Arab religious and political traditions—Freyberger 1998: 123.
A notable ancient example was the adoption in first-century AD Palmyra of an existing
Hellenistic temple plan to which were added certain Mesopotamian features such as the merlons
along the edge of the cella roof.
15
Arguing against racial stereotyping in the interpretation of fragmentary evidence, Graf
notes that ‘the search for a common ancestry and ethnically pure Nabataean race is doomed to
fail. . . . The search for ethnicity that has become the hobgoblin of trendy academic minds is in
reality a product of post World War Two urban sociologists. . . . The attempt to impose this
category on the population and landscapes of antiquity is rarely successful’—Graf 2007a: 182.
16
Kropp 2013: 383—‘The projection of ruling powers can only succeed if its messages fit into
the cultural templates of those it addresses. The audience must be willing and capable of
connecting the messages with their own knowledge, traditions and personal experiences.’
17
Woolf 1997: 347.
18
The clearest case of embracing clientelism in its most literal form is the Sebasteion at
Aphrodisias. As Thomas has recently put it: ‘For provincial elites building in the East, in Greece,
Asia Minor, and Syria, the architectural style of the Roman West was a sign of cultural status; its
forms demonstrated a “Roman-ness” that indicated their loyalty to Roman government’
(Thomas 2007: 90). In other cases, however, such as the Bel Temple at Palmyra, local decorative
flourishes were added to a largely imported building design (Chapter 10).
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10 Origins of the Colonnaded Streets in the Roman East

‘more or less Roman’—‘whether it enabled the people who inhabited them to
act in ways which made them feel part of a wider Roman identity and, in doing
so, recreate the imperial power of Rome’.19
The steps through which the colonnaded axis evolved, becoming even a
symbol of that absorption into the Empire’s new order, seems to be a good
illustration of that ‘logic of power’, but in a different (largely Eastern) context,
where local experimentation and adaptation were freely encouraged and
eventually enthusiastically disseminated through imperial sponsorship.20

TERMINOLOGY

The use of specific terms to denote the streets of a Roman urban grid are
largely modern shorthand. The Latin words decumanus and cardo were not
employed as technical terms for streets in an urban context but have been
adapted more recently to convey the broad direction of the main avenues.
Decumanus (east–west road in a city or camp) and decumanus maximus are
essentially derived from Latin agricultural surveying terms, where cardo was
also employed in the specialized sense of a north–south bearing to demarcate
rural allotments (hence, in modern English, ‘cardinal’ points).21 While cardo
(plural cardine) can be used to differentiate north–south axes from east–west
ones, the word has sometimes been adopted as shorthand for the colonnaded
axes, even in contexts where compass points do not appear to have determined
the alignment. This implies the prime notion of cardo as a line that gives a
bearing to which everything else relates.22 This sense is also captured in the
word ‘armature’ employed in William MacDonald’s study of Roman town
planning.23 It underlines the essential purpose of the present study, which is to
describe how the colonnaded axis came to be the spine around which the
Roman cities of the East were assembled, even in cases where an earlier street
layout required considerable adjustment to conform to the new alignment.
It should be noted, however, that cardo is not the term normally employed
in classical written sources (usually, of course, in Greek not Latin). The
following words were used in ancient sources to describe colonnaded spaces,

19
Revell 2014: 97.
20
The recent study by Andrade goes much further and identifies a process by which cultures
interacted under Roman rule, viewing the axes as part of a conscious programme to stabilize
‘contexts of civic inclusion’ through a process of ‘integrated landscapes’ (Andrade 2015:
loc. 4445).
21 22
J. B. Campbell 2000: 31–5. Dilke 1998: 90.
23
MacDonald 1986: 33, notes six categories of thoroughfare. The definition applied in this
work is the sixth.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2017, SPi

Introduction 11
streets, or structures (though rarely in the exclusive sense of a colonnaded
street):
• embolos (Greek ἔμβολος)—literally ‘peg, wedge, or stopper’: the term
applied in Ephesus, for example, but used by extension to refer to
examples of a porticoed street dividing a city, particularly in the Late
Roman or Byzantine periods;24
• plateia (Greek πλατεῖα from πλάτος)—literally ‘breadth’, but πλατεῖα was
used in numerous sources to describe an open space or major avenue, not
necessarily (but often, in the East) lined with porticos;25
• porticus (Latin, plural porticūs)—‘colonnade’ or ‘walkway with roof sup-
ported on columns’. Initially an adaptation of the Greek stoa, the first
recorded example in Rome of a porticus structure dates from 193 BC.26
The first examples did not enclose a space but simply provided shelter in
linear form. The porticus later developed into a square plan (hence the
modern coined description, quadriporticus);
• quadriporticus (derived from Latin)—four-sided space surrounded with
colonnades;27
• stoa (Greek στοά, plural στοαί)28—‘roofed colonnade’, also ‘cloister’,
‘gallery open on one side’, or ‘long store-room’.29
In short, the ancients have left us no single term to cover the system of
colonnading along the sides of axial streets, and descriptions were simply
borrowed from other contexts where necessary.30
In this study, the terms East and West used to describe regions of the Roman
Empire are used loosely. Broadly, they reflect only the informal distinction
between provinces where Greek or Latin was the dominant language of official

24
For an earlier summary of terminology, Williams 1979: 19–29. For a recent commentary on
Greek terms, du Bouchet 2009: 57–8.
25
The word πλατεῖα passed into Latin as platea, indicating a broad street but also in later
periods a ‘place’ or ‘square’, as it does in modern Greek—André 1950: 130–3; Thomas 2007: 119.
26
Senseney 2002: 152, examines the original meaning of the Latin term porticus, which he
equates with the Greek στοά, but notes that it described a wide variety of structures, not all of
which would have corresponded to the later quadriporticus.
27
Senseney 2002: 4, notes that the term quadriporticus is not used in ancient sources. It is
adopted by Boëthius and J. B. Ward-Perkins in Boëthius and J. B. Ward-Perkins 1970: 585
(glossary). The form (Coulton’s peristylar court) existed earlier in Greek architecture for
enclosing agoras or temple compounds, especially in the Hellenistic period—Coulton 1976: 7.
28
Coulton 1976: 1.
29
Caroline Williams also lists via tecta among relevant terms (Williams 1979: 28–9). This
literally indicates a ‘covered passage’, sometimes along one side of a street or forming a separate
passage route. There is no evidence that it was used in sources to refer to the phenomenon of the
axial cross-city streets. See also the section on ‘processional triumphal route’ in the context of the
Campus Martius in Rome, Chapter 3 below.
30
Caroline Williams 1979: 19–27. For a full list of Latin terms applied to streets or rural
thoroughfares, van Tilburg 2007: 7–8.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2017, SPi

12 Origins of the Colonnaded Streets in the Roman East

business and education. No cultural distinctions are implied, and indeed this
work views the evidence of material culture as a pool of architectural ideas that
prevailed in the Eastern provinces—ideas which imperial authorities only inter-
mittently sought to direct for the first century and a half. After that, the
centralized control of the trade in materials and artisans introduced in the
second century AD brought greater conformity, especially in the East.

WRITTEN S OURCES

The colonnaded axes of the Eastern cities impressed the first Western visitors
to venture into these regions in recent centuries to satisfy curiosity or scientific
interest.31 It became obvious that the cities of the East often displayed a
spectacular form of urban planning not seen in the Western provinces of the
Roman Empire. It was, moreover, a phenomenon that had received very little
attention in its own right among classical writers. Vitruvius, writing just as
the Augustan building boom was getting under way, would not have seen the
impact of colonnading along public streets. His lofty pronouncements on
architecture only viewed colonnades in the context of enclosed spaces provid-
ing practical facilities such as arenas for games:
The Greeks design fora on a square plan with exceedingly spacious double
porticoes (in quadrato amplissimis et duplicibus porticibus); they adorn these
with closely set columns (crebisque columnis) and stone or marble epistyles,
and on the joists above they make walkways (ambulationes). In the cities of
Italy, however, one should not proceed by the same method because from
our ancestors we have inherited the custom of giving gladiatorial games in the
forum. For this reason, distribute more spacious inter-columniations (around the
performing space).32
Vitruvius managed to express approval for colonnades a little more warmly in
Book 5, on Public Buildings, with reference to theatres:
Behind the scene building, set up porticoes (porticūs), so that when sudden rains
interrupt the performances, the audience has a place to gather outside the theatre,
and the performers have a space in which to rehearse, like the porticoes of
Pompey, and, in Athens, the portico of Eumenes next to the theatre and the
shrine of Liber Pater. . . . in every city that has conscientious architects there are
porticoes and walkways around the theatres.33

31
For the first accounts—Halifax et al. in Philosophical Transactions 1695; de Bruyn 1700;
Wood 1753.
32
Vitruvius 5, 1, 1–2—Rowland and Howe translation 2001: 64.
33
Vitruvius 5, 9, 1.
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