19 Nov The Forum of Philippi during the Imperial Period: The Evolution of a Civic Center
Jean-Yves Marc (Université de Strassbourg)
Wednesday, November 19, 2014 / 6:00 PM
HSSB 4080
The Forum at Philippi was not built on the site of the city’s Hellenistic Agora. Rather, the Forum was built as an entirely new project in the Roman imperial period. At the height of its development the Forum occupied ten percent of the city’s surface area. In spite of the fact that the Forum was an entirely new project, its architecture, design, and building techniques present a paradoxical combination of imported Roman and local Hellenistic features. This paper explores the reasons for these surprising developments by comparing them with other Roman colonies in the provinces of Achaia and Macedonia, and with local developments in Thessaloniki and Thasos.
Prof. Marc is the director of the French School excavations in the Agora of ancient Thasos, an island off the coast of northern Greece near Philippi. He also collaborates with the French School excavations at Philippi.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group; co-sponsored by the Department of Classics; the Department of History; the IHC’s Archaeology Research Focus Group; and the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.