Overview
Title: Interconnectivity in the Mediterranean and Pontic World during the Hellenistic and Roman Periods
Editors: Dr. Victor Cojocaru; Dr. Altay Coşkun; Dr. Mădălina Dana
Conference: Proceedings of the international symposium organized by the Iaşi Branch of the Romanian Academy, the Museum of National History and Archaeology Constanţa, the research project “Amici Populi Romani” (Trier–Waterloo ON), and the Cultural Complex “Callatis” Mangalia (Constanţa, 8–12 July 2013)
Place & Press: Cluj-Napoca: MEGA Publishing House
Year: 2014
Extent: 708 pp.
Summary
This large proceedings volume assembles twenty-eight contributions by leading specialists from nine European countries, Turkey, the United States, and Canada to explore interconnectivity between the Mediterranean and the Pontic/Black Sea worlds from the Hellenistic through the Roman periods. The studies mobilize a broad range of primary evidence— inscriptions, papyri, coins, ceramics, sculpture, archaeology, and literary testimony— to analyze networks of politics, economy, religion, and culture that linked coastal cities and their hinterlands. Contributors treat both macro-connections (long-distance routes, diplomatic ties, imperial administration) and micro-responses (local adaptations, regional markets, civic identities), showing how connectivity was uneven, multi-scalar, and historically contingent.
A first cluster of papers addresses governance, administration, and provincial integration in the north-western and western Black Sea. New documents and re-read evidence clarify boundary arbitrations, the residence of provincial governors, and the spread of civic institutions such as the gerusia under Roman rule. Military history features prominently: the mobility of units in Cappadocia is tracked to show the gradual incorporation of the region into the Roman East, while case studies on cities such as Olbia reassess civic life in the second and third centuries CE, challenging older narratives of decline by demonstrating sustained urban dynamism.
A second cluster focuses on economic connections and maritime networks. Essays reconstruct the relations of Pontic cities with Rhodes and other Aegean centers, the activity of Nicomedian naukleroi and their wide-ranging routes through the Propontis and into the Mediterranean, commercial links between the western Pontic coast and Asia Minor documented by lead seals, and the circulation of glass and other commodities. Trade routes are mapped not as a single, monolithic “Mediterranean network,” but as multiple regional and interregional systems centered on particular products, shipping practices, agents, and markets. One study revisits the traffic in amber, arguing for routes via the Adriatic (and for additional eastern supplies), while another identifies exports from Pontic/Propontic regions to Rome based on amphorae and related finds.
A third cluster treats the movement of people, cults, and images. Prosopographical analysis highlights patterns of migration from and into the Black Sea, with foci such as Sinope, Heraclea, and Athens. Individual city histories (e.g., Tieion/Tios) trace local responses to shifting hegemonies from the Archaic to Byzantine periods. Religious and artistic exchange is explored through the diffusion and transformation of Dionysiac cult traditions between the Aegean and the Black Sea, the spread and adaptation of iconographic models in West-Pontic terracotta workshops, and comparative studies of coin imagery across Asia Minor and Thrace that reveal divergent strategies of representing local cults and civic identities.
Across these thematic sections, a common methodological thread is the careful pairing of quantitative/archaeometric datasets with historical interpretation: ship routes, harbor hierarchies, and cargo types are considered alongside epigraphic dossiers and literary testimonia to build a multi-layered picture of connectivity. The volume is thus designed both as a reference tool for the ancient Black Sea and its adjacent territories and as a platform for future research encouraging dialogue between scholars in the West and East.
Publication Details & Citation
Victor Cojocaru, Altay Coşkun, and Mădălina Dana (eds.), Interconnectivity in the Mediterranean and Pontic World during the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Proceedings of the International Symposium organized by the Iaşi Branch of the Romanian Academy, the Museum of National History and Archaeology Constanţa, the research project “Amici Populi Romani” (Trier–Waterloo ON), and the Cultural Complex “Callatis” Mangalia (Constanţa, 8–12 July 2013). Cluj-Napoca: MEGA Publishing House, 2014, 708 pp.
Acknowledgements (from editors’ preface)
The editors acknowledge institutional support from the Romanian National Agency for Scientific Research (CNCS–UEFISCDI), the Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik (Munich), and members of the series editorial board; and they dedicate the volume to the memory of Heinz Heinen, in the spirit of fostering scholarly links “between savants of all countries.”