The Cities of Caria

Abstract The region of Caria in south-west Asia Minor was part of the province of Asia during the first three centuries of the Roman Empire. It is presented in this chapter in three sections. After a brief description of the region and its inhabitants, the chapter first investigates how the cities of Caria were conquered by Rome at the end of the Republic and how the winner, through conquest and civil war, shaped the civic landscape of the region for a long time to come. The chapter then looks at how these cities functioned under the imperium Romanum, and in particular at the different ways in which the local populations demonstrated their attachment to Rome. Finally, the chapter analyses how the cities of Caria preserved distinctive regional features in an area dominated by a foreign (Greek) culture and (Roman) power.