Implications for the Empire as a whole

Although there will have been many local factors, differences, and influences across the Empire, it is important not to consider Britain in isolation but to keep in mind the broader picture (cf. Swift 2000). The reconceptualisation of late urbanism in Roman Britain in this book will be of huge importance for considering towns elsewhere. Archaeological studies of the late Roman period in other areas such as France, Spain, Italy, and North Africa have tended to rely more on historical frameworks and accounts in documents, of, for example, 'barbarian’ invasions, for understanding the late phases of towns. This is, in part, understandable, because many useful texts survive that refer to events in these areas of the Empire that do not exist for Britain. The available evidence can, however, sometimes

0 The ritual of Adventus, for example, was the means by which powerful cities greeted incoming dignitaries; it had a strong relationship with the monuments within the town, including the gates, arches, statues, and colonnaded streets (Lavan 2003b: 330). Roueche (1999) has looked at inscriptions of acclamations within public spaces at Ephesos and Aphrodisias during Late Antiquity and demonstrated that certain places within the towns, outside the public buildings, were foci of public ceremony and that this continued into the later Roman period. It is uncertain whether this occurred in Britain, but similar rituals across the townscapes and hinterlands are possible.

Be problematic and lead to an overreliance on historical frameworks without addressing the theoretical complexities and potential of the archaeological evidence, although there have been some important recent works that do address some of these issues (e. g., Christie 20o6; Leone 2007).

Kulikowski’s (2004) reanalysis of some of the urban excavations in Spain has demonstrated how unconvincing some of the dating used by the excavators has been because of their attempt to fit the evidence with historical events. The situation is changing across Europe, but there is still much to be done to raise awareness of the difficulties of interpreting the evidence. In other conquered parts of the Empire, as in Britain, the pre-Roman evidence associated with town sites is frequently viewed as inferior to what came after, and most accounts of Roman urbanism do not address pre-Roman activity or an understanding of the landscape in any detail (e. g., Bedon 1996; Keay 1988; Maurin 1992).