Aesthetic Maintenance of Civic Space: The 'Classical' City from the 4th to the 7th c. AD (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta)

Summary: During the Roman period the construction and maintenance of civic infrastructure and monuments, such as bath buildings, theatres, fountains, arches, statues and so on were regarded as the normal duty of well-off citizens, who constituted the local government. For the subsequent period, encompassing the 4th to the 7th century AD, it has long been assumed that changing social and political conditions within the Roman Empire resulted in a severe reduction of expenditure and concurrent loss of sentimental and aesthetic attitudes towards public space. This book challenges this assumption. It assesses the care still given to monuments and public space in the cities in the Eastern Mediterranean, reconstructs how the city represented itself, and focuses on the protagonists in this field. First, it evaluates the diverse initiators of interventions and their motivation. Second, the skills of the actual constructors are looked into in order to judge their identity and number. Third, the priorities of the viewers and use of public space. "In the Roman period, construction and maintenance of civic monuments and infrastructure were regarded as the normal duty of well-off citizens. For the subsequent centuries, encompassing the 4th to the 7th century AD, changing social and political conditions within the Roman Empire assumingly resulted in a severe reduction of expenditure and concurrent loss of sentimental and aesthetic attitudes towards public space. This book challenges this assumption. It reconstructs how cities of the Eastern Mediterranean in late antique and Early Byzantine times represented themselves towards outsiders by assessing the care given to urban fortifications, streets and squares, decorative and religious monuments and, finally, statuary. Thereafter, the architectural changes that distinguished these centuries from previous times are discussed. The book then evaluates the identity and motives of the diverse initiators of interventions, as well as the skills and work organisation of the actual constructors. Finally, the priorities of the users of public space, as well as their responses to it, are explored"--