Signs of Weakness and Crisis in the Western Cities of the Roman Empire C. Ii-iii Ad (Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beitrage, 68)

At the end of the 2nd century AD the urban network of the Roman Empire was subject to weakness and crisis. We know this on one hand through decrees from the Flavian era, comments of Pliny the Younger on the financial problems of some cities and on the other hand through notices in the Historia Augusta reporting the existence of oppida labentia - "cities in decline". In this volume, we discuss some of these issues with the following questions: was the municipal system, at least in the Roman West and, particularly in Roman Spain, a useful and sustainable model of managing local autonomy? Was it a durable system? Were new cities more fragile than others in terms of financial sustainability? What were the causes and the indicators signalling the lack of strength of many urban centres from the 2nd century AD onwards? Index/Índice (Javier Andreu / Aitor Blanco-Pérez) Editor’s Note / Nota editorial General issues / Cuestiones generales (Nicholas Purcell) Unstable cities: some questions about Roman urbanism (Javier Andreu) Challenges and threats faced by municipal administration in the Roman West during the High Empire: the Hispanic case (Aitor Blanco-Pérez) Imperial responses to urban crisis in the Roman Empire: a conceptual approach (Lourdes Martínez de Morentin) The vectigalia income in western Roman cities A particular assumption (Javier Martínez) Tantam pecuniam male perdiderunt: Aqueducts and municipal investment in Hispania (David Espinosa) From municipia Latina to oppida labentia Bases for a model of the ideological and institutional causes behind the crisis of the Latin municipal system in Hispania Case Studies / Estudios de casos (Mar Zarzalejos / Carmen Fernández-Ochoa / Patricia Hevia / Germán Esteban / Rosa Pina) The urban decline of Sisapo-La Bienvenida (Ciudad Real, Spain): signs and archaeological evidence (Alejandro Quevedo) Carthago Nova between the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD: the decline and urban crisis of a Roman city in South-Eastern Hispania (Pilar Diarte-Blasco) Modelling the Late Antique urban crisis: the Ebro Valley explored (Juan Francisco Palencia) Rupturas del modelo urbano en los siglos II–III d C en las ciudades hispanorromanas de la Meseta Sur (Antonio Guilabert / Manuel H Olcina / Eva Tendero) Lucentum: nacimiento, vida y extinción de un municipio de la provincia Tarraconensis (Rosario Cebrián) Las últimas decisiones del ordo decurionum de Segobriga Evidencias arqueológicas del funcionamiento de la vida pública municipal a partir del siglo II d C. (Cèsar Carreras / Jordi Guardia / Josep Guitart) The Late Iulia Lybica in the context of the Peninsular Pyrenees (Laurent Brassous) Changes in the city network in Roman Hispania (André Carneiro) The cities that never were (?) Connectivity between urban settlements and the rural landscape in Lusitania during Late Antiquity Conclusion/Conclusión (Andrew Wallace-Hadrill) Salvian of Marseilles and the end of the ancient city