The Oxford Handbook of Greek Cities in the Roman Empire

This handbook provides the first comprehensive treatment of the Greek cities in the Roman Empire. The poleis are studied here both as urban forms, with a specific organization of space and specific public buildings, and as socio-political entities, with specific institutions and social hierarchies. The contributions cover all the important aspects of civic life and present the on-going debates on the degree of integration and autonomy, uniformization, and diversity of the Greek civic model in the Roman Empire. One of the main guidelines of the handbook is the issue of the impact of Roman rule on the long-lasting Greek model of political, social, and spatial organization.

Geographically, the volume covers the whole Roman Empire, with a focus on regions where the Greek polis was the dominant form of organization, such as mainland Greece, the Aegean Islands, Asia Minor, Syria, and the Black Sea region. In addition to that, the Greek cities of Sicily and Egypt as well as more isolated Greek settlements such as Cyrene in North Africa are also considered. The chronological scope of the handbook runs from a community’s integration into the Roman Empire (varying depending on the region) until the 3rd c. AD, when the epigraphic documentation strongly decreases and some important changes make way for the transition to Late Antiquity.

Martin Hallmannsecker studied Greek Philology and Ancient History at the universities of Munich and Oxford and obtained his doctorate in Ancient History at the University of Oxford in 2019. Until 2023, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Vienna with a specialization in Greek epigraphy and Roman Asia Minor. He is now working as Classics editor for the publishing house C.H.Beck in Munich.

Anna Heller is a former student of the École Normale Supérieure-Paris. After a degree in Classical Philology, she studied epigraphy and ancient history, and completed her PhD at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. She has been Assistant Professor at the universities of Limoges and Tours, before getting a position of Full Professor of Ancient History in Tours in 2015. Her main interest lies in the social and institutional history of the Greek cities under Roman rule, as it emerges from the epigraphical evidence from Asia Minor. She is also interested in quantitative methods applied to historical sources.