This volume chronicles buildings constructed in eight cities of Rome's Levantine provinces. Those with an interest in, but little familiarity with, these contexts will benefit most from this abundantly illustrated volume. Anyone enticed by ‘Alexander’ or ‘the Successors of Muhammad’ will be underwhelmed, as Hellenistic and Islamic material receives cursory treatment. Likewise, those interested in the non-Roman cultures of the Near East or in urban planning will find coverage of such topics wanting.
The preface notes a three-pronged approach: the first is an emphasis on city pairs, like an urbanistic Plutarch's Parallel Lives; the second (broad time span) and third (longue durée) (pp. xvi–xvii) overlap. Chapter 1, ‘Introduction’, highlights three foci: the relationship of Graeco-Roman and indigenous cultures; rulers’ impacts on urban forms; and late antique urban change. The literature review does little to set an agenda. A geographic overview follows, and a brief chapter outline recapitulates much from the preface.
Chapter 2, ‘Urban Planning and Structures in the Near East’, opens with an apologia on W.'s overwhelming focus on Roman monuments, then catalogues building types. Scholarly preoccupation with the monuments of the classical city, their orderly arrangement and the activities or institutions they represent goes back to F.J. Haverfield's Ancient Town-Planning (1913) and A. von Gerkan's Griechische Städteanlagen (1924). W.'s engagement with urban theory is minimal: discussion of armatures somehow avoids mentioning ‘armature’ or W.L. MacDonald's Urban Appraisal (1986); pre-Hellenistic and Islamic modes of planning receive little attention despite their importance for understanding processes of urban development in the time span covered.
Chapters 3–6 – ‘The Tetrapolis (Antioch and Apamea)’, ‘The Decapolis (Gerasa and Scythopolis)’, ‘Judea and Palestine (Jerusalem and Caesarea)’ and ‘The Desert Fringe (Petra and Palmyra)’ – are the meat of the volume. Historical outlines preface period-by-period alternations through each pairing; brief concluding remarks offer minimal analysis. Outright engagement with material adduced is rare (pp. 131, 133, 148–52). Concise assessments of urbanistic trends appear all too infrequently: ‘While the Roman roads [of Scythopolis] were generally straight and angles were disguised with tetrapylons, arches, or other monuments, the late antique builders were willing to employ curved roads that followed terrain, rather than cutting through the town's topography, as at Gerasa’ (pp. 123–4). These are counterbalanced by meaningless circular statements: ‘[Apamea's] theater is unique in the Near East, not only for its size but also for its plan, which is also unique and different from other Roman-period theaters of the Near East’ (p. 73).
Chapter 7, ‘Conclusion’, weaves together the eight urban histories, but its seven pages are too little too late. Trends observed are neither insightful nor unique to these historical contexts: political, commercial and religious centres prosper; imperial favour brings construction; conflict and cataclysm cause damage, prompting redevelopment; religious changes manifest architecturally; outmoded buildings are abandoned, repurposed or despoliated; street plans change, albeit gradually etc. The keenest observation is of a shift from private benefactions to constructions initiated by political or religious officials (p. 232). W.'s closing ‘important conclusion’ is that ‘historical events were extremely important for the development of these cities’ (p. 232). Surely, this is self-evident. Indeed, the first example here, the earthquake of 363 ce, is so fundamentally important that it marks the horizon separating the Roman and Byzantine strata of many sites in Israel.
W. notes throughout that Hellenistic and Islamic strata of these sites are poorly understood or offer little material – but this speaks to faulty research design. Diachronic studies of these eight sites simply cannot yield the data required. Why not pick different sites that illuminate the urbanism of each period? Further limitations are a narrowly defined Near East and a lack of engagement with its varied cultures and their urban traditions. What of Mesopotamia? What of Parthian and Sassanian cities? What of pre-Hellenistic cities? What of urban planning beyond the nebulous and anachronistic ‘Hippodamian’ style? What of the extensive scholarship on the morphology of Islamic cities? It is impossible to understand what is distinctive about W.'s cities collectively without looking before and beside and beyond. Inasmuch as there is an argument, it seems to be that the cities of the Roman east defy categorisation. M. Van De Mieroop's The Ancient Mesopotamian City (1997) provides a model of how to treat such variability. While each city's development differs, there are general processes that act on all of them.
Citing ‘readability’, W. opts against footnotes or a bibliography of the ‘hundreds’ of works consulted (p. xvii). Chapter 7 features the sole endnote and full citation. In-text citations are rare, often incomplete and may refer to unnamed works not featured in the scant suggestions for further reading. The text reads more as a compendium of facts than a synthesis thereof, and the aversion to citation impedes discernment of whether observations are novel or epitomised from elsewhere.
The text bombards readers with endless broadsides of new information, often minutiae; rare are the pauses for commentary, analysis, synthesis. Imagine pinballing around eight cities in turn (visiting buildings in chronological order of construction), while a guide points out where doorways lead, what adornment each building has, who built it and so on, without pause to take in the bigger picture. A thematic organisation (housing, street plans, religious architecture etc.), as in C.H.J. De Geus's Towns in Ancient Israel (2003), would have improved clarity.
The book's great strength is its 142 images. Unfortunately, image references are divorced from their contexts and grouped at the ends of paragraphs – and some placed a paragraph early. Cross-references to images in prior chapters, though, are inserted at the apposite points within paragraphs.
The copy-editing is atrocious: syntactic errors abound, orthography and capitalisation are inconsistent, commas are misplaced, spaces are missing, rulers often lack regnal numbers, and non-English terms are italicised at random (and give no clue as to which appear in the Glossary). In the index, multi-word entries are alphabetised inconsistently, and some topics are dispersed among multiple headwords but not cross-referenced. Proper nouns prove challenging throughout: ‘Borea’ (Beroea) (p. 18), ‘Byblus’ (Byblos) (p. 18), ‘Litanti’ (Litani) (p. 19), ‘Mount Herman’ of the ‘Lebanon’ Mountains (Mount Hermon of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains) (p. 19), ‘Galilea’ (Galilee) (p. 19), ‘Sharra’ Mountains (Shara) (p. 19), ‘Antakaya’ (Antakya) (pp. 56, 57, 62, 237), ‘Qalaat al-Mundiq’ (Qalaat al-Mudiq) (pp. 59, 86), ‘Ostakine’ (Ostrakine) (p. 78), ‘Galasa’ given as distinct from ‘Gerasa’ (p. 93), ‘Abila, Lysanius’ (Abila Lysanias) (p. 93), ‘Rahal Harod’ (Nahal Harod) (p. 97), ‘Hexpla’ (Hexapla) (p. 167), ‘Flacius Euelpidius’ (Flavius Euelpidius) (p. 173), ‘Thilouna’ (Thilouana) (p. 191), ‘Qasr a-Bint’ (Qasr al-Bint) (p. 228) and ‘Limestone Mastiff’ (Limestone Massif) (pp. 89, 239) are archaisms or wrong.
I truly wanted to like this book, yet it worked so hard to undermine my goodwill. Clearly, I am not the intended audience, but I struggle to pinpoint who is. Someone with a rudimentary understanding of Roman art and architecture, but little familiarity with the cities of the Levantine provinces stands to benefit the most. W. presumes no knowledge of Roman building types, but assumes familiarity with temple columniations, Pompeian painting styles and the monuments of Rome.
Derived from a graduate seminar, W. positions the book as a scholarly contribution accessible to a general audience (p. xvi). I fear it achieves neither goal. I cannot see assigning this text to students, as it does a lot that I advise against. It is frustrating to use, makes no substantial argument, is rife with errors and will not guide students to other scholarship. W. and Routledge have no doubt put an immense amount of work into its preparation. Sadly, more was needed.
