Byzantine Preservation of Ancient Monuments at Miletus in Caria

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Local autonomy used to characterize ancient urbanism, but was curbed by the cen-
tralized Byzantine administration and church, with particularly adverse consequences
for cities in western Asia Minor114 that were the largest and oldest on the Anatolian
peninsula and had once derived much benefit from the urban autonomy of old.115 As
late as the fourth century, during the last urban building boom of antiquity,116 cities
in western Asia Minor appear to have fared particularly well, judging by the long new
city walls, which were built at Aphrodisias and Sardis at that time,117 or by the many
large peristyle houses that were newly built or sumptuously renovated there, as in
other cities of the region.118 This was followed by steep decline in the fifth to seventh
centuries,119 apparently due to interventions of the central government and changes in
administration that deprived the urban elites of their former privileges and favoured
rural settlements and small towns.120 These policies would explain a disaffection to-
ward the capital as the seat of the central government and toward Constantinopolitan
fashion and, instead, a preference for ancient monuments that had once been erected
as urban status symbols and continued to distinguish large and old cities from smaller
and more recent settlements, even after the loss of other urban privileges.
Lack of ancient monuments
Antiquarianism may thus have been a means of maintaining privilege and distinction,
at least in appearance, when the cities had in fact been downgraded and - ancient urban
infrastructure and monuments aside - hardly differed from large and newly prosperous
villages or towns. To substantiate this hypothesis, the cities of western Asia Minor are
compared in the following section to other Byzantine settlements - cities and towns -
that, for one reason or another, lacked an equivalent ensemble of ancient monuments
and displayed no comparable antiquarian tendencies in their church buildings either.
This applies to Andriake,121 Olympos,122 Corycus,123 Antioch,124 Amorium,125 and
Barata(?)/Binbirkilise,126 to name only six examples, four on the south coast of Asia
114 Niewöhner (2007), p. 101; Niewöhner (2011a); Niewöhner (2oi6d.)
115 Winter (1996); Halfmann (2001); Marek (2010), pp. 542-555.
116 Niewöhner (2007), pp. 87-94; Ladstätter (2010).
117 Greenewalt (2001), p. 228; De Staebler (2008). The city walls of Smyrna/Izmir and of Hierapolis, Blaun-
dos, and Laodicea in western Phrygia appear to date from the same period: Müller-Wiener (1962),
pp. 62-63; D’Andria (2003), p. 115; Filges (2006), pp. 116-122; §im§ek (2007), pp. ni-114.
118 Niewöhner (2011b), p. 113 (earlier bibliography); Rose (2011), p. 160; Summerer (2011), pp. 75-120; Schei-
belreiter-Gail (2011); Uytterhoeven (2014); Stroth (2017).
119 Niewöhner (2017a), pp. 43-46 (bibliography).
120 Brandes/Haldon (2000); Liebeschuetz (2001); Brandes (2002).
121 Niewöhner (2012); Aygün/Bulut/Çevik (2014).
122 Olcay Uçkan (2017).
123 Guyer/Herzfeld (1930), pp. 90-161.
124 Brands (2016).
125 Lightfoot (2007); Ivison (2010).
126 Bell/Ramsay (1909); Restle (1966); Eyice (1971); Jackson (2017).