PhD ThesisThe first part of this thesis is concerned with the assimilation of
Pisidia into the Roman Empire, reviewed against a background of general
expansion and development. Hellenistic and Roman influences contributed
to the transformation of a district with a basically tribally-structured
society, primitive communications and a self-sufficient agrarian economy,
into a Roman province which had adopted Roman culture and urbanisation,
whose road network was part of an Empire-wide system and whose economy
was integrated with that of the Empire as a whole. Still it appears
that, for fundamentally geographical reasons, Pisidia retained some of
her independent characteristics and the process of assimilation of the
highlands into the Empire was, on the whole, more retarded than that
of the lowland and coastal regions.
The second part of the thesis is concerned with aspects of later
Antiquity, beginning with the archaeological evidence for Christianity
in Pisidia. This is of major importance because Christianity was one
of the critical and most influential aspects of change in the Roman
world and because the churches are very often the only evidence which
bears witness to the occupation of a site after the 4th century.
There is thought to have been an Empire-wide decline during late
Antiquity, resulting in urban decay, economic dislocation, depopulation
and discontinuity of city life and traditions. The main cause seems to
have been political instability, in particular almost continual warfare
from the mid 3rd century. These and other possible factors of decline
are assessed against a background of general transformation and
development, the symptoms reinterpreted, whenever justifiable, as
reflections of changing traditions and changing needs. The closing
chapter considers more specifically the questions of continuity, decline
and change in Pisidia, exploring the possibility that Pisidia's element
of independence and her geographical isolation protected the district
to a certain extent from adversities which were not the result of
natural causes.The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, the Department of
Education and Science, the European Science Foundatio
