The Busy Periphery. Urban Systems of the Balkan and Danube Provinces (2nd – 3rd c. AD)

This study is about the reconstruction of the urban geography of the Balkan and Danube provinces at the time of the Severan dynasty. Four basic parameters were in the focus of research: the origin and socio-economic character of the settlements, their size, micro-location and the size of their administrative territories. The principal goal of this exercise was to map the variable developments of the urban network, both between and within the sub-regions that constitute this part of the Roman Empire. This line of inquiry helped in bridging the gap between the regional and the general. In the process of explaining the apparent gaps in the urban map of the study-region or the differential growth of the individual towns and settlements, we were inevitably faced with the question of the role of the town in Roman provincial society and economy in general, or the basic prerequisites for the emergence and prosperity of towns.