Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

city and countryside 583
achievement of the civic governments in maintaining their splendour well
into the sixth century. At Aphrodisias, for example, when parts of the
colonnade of the so-called portico of Tiberius collapsed, apparently in the
sixth century, the western side was reconstructed by a single generous
donor, while several others contributed to the restoration of the south side.
Some of the architrave blocks had been damaged; they were carefully
replaced with blocks, several cut from spolia, which attempted to copy the
sculpture of the original monument.
v. city and countryside
Different, but undoubtedly related, changes can be detected in the archaeology
of the countryside. As travel in the area has become easier, especially
since the Second World War, archaeologists have found more village sites
of the late Roman period. Many of these apparently started to develop in
the third century a.d., and flourished until the end of the sixth, some even
growing into cities.
This has provoked a debate which is far from being resolved: did such
settlements grow at the expense of the cities or in response to the prosperity
of the cities themselves? The evidence is still being uncovered, and is
not simple to evaluate; it also varies between regions. One of the first of
such surveys to be published was of the Troad, where a large number of
new village sites – some of which may have developed from villas – seem
to have been established in the late second or third century, and grew steadily
in size. ‘Roughly speaking, the fifth–sixth century would seem to be the
critical time in which the balance was being tipped from the cities to the
rural settlements . . . We have the impression that churches must have been
built in many places around the sixth century. On the archaeological evidence
we should consider that period to be one of the most flourishing in
the history of the Troad.’ Meanwhile, the ancient city of Ilion appears to
have been inhabited until the sixth century, when it was abandoned. 24 A
similar pattern is emerging from recent survey work in western Cyprus. But
the extent of rural survey in Asia Minor is still very limited, and our understanding
is dangerously dependent on small amounts of undatable
material, and anecdotal evidence.
In Lycia, several village sites in the hills immediately behind the coast
showed important growth, and the first stone buildings at these sites –
some of them very impressive – were built in the fifth and sixth century.
But further inland, small towns were dwindling into rough settlements,
probably under pressure from brigandage. There is considerable debate as
to how this evidence should be interpreted; Martin Harrison detected a
24 Cook (1973) 369–73 (villages), 102 (Ilion).
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