Chapter 2 asks who was interested in and knowledgeable about the physical traces of the past in Roman Anatolia. The chapter is focused on the various people in the region who interacted daily with ruins and other such indices of antiquity. It sheds light on the very wide social range of ancient interpreters, on the dynamics of interaction among them, and on the different strategies of interaction with realia that those various people had.

Chapter 6 discusses how the author’s analysis of Roman-period evidence intersects with current discussions in about the location of authority in archaeology and anthropology. It argues that the evidence treated in this book is fundamental to the long-term history of archaeology and antiquarianism, even without being evidence of either.

Chapter 1 provides examples of the types of data available, specifies the temporal and spatial scope of the investigations, and offers brief descriptions of the individual chapters of the book.

Chapter 5 offers a series of interrelated vignettes that shed light on Roman-period in interest in material remains of the past in regions other than Anatolia. These vignettes are intended as an invitation to historians and archaeologists working beyond Anatolia to explore the specific political and cultural circumstances in which archaeophilia is mainfest in different parts of the Roman world.

Chapter 4 surveys some of the many memory horizons available to the inhabitants of Roman Anatolia interested in the physical traces of the past. Rome loomed large throughout much of the region, but Anatolian interpreters of antiquities also tapped into historical traditions that did not recognize Rome as a center, including ones that modern scholars associate more readily with Mesopotamia, Iran, the Levant, and the Caucasus. This chapter shows how some traces of the past served to substantiate different, conflicting, and even contradictory historical narratives at local, regional, and transregional scales. The conclusions to this chapter summarize my opinions on archaeophilia as it is attested specifically in Roman Anatolia.

For the Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet, writing in 1930s, the peninsular geography of Asia Minor – or what its modern inhabitants call Anatolia, or Turkey – evoked the image of a stallion’s head galloping to the Mediterranean from the depths of central Asia. From the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries, that was the direction, east to west, that most Turkic peoples entered Asia Minor controlled mainly by a weakening Byzantine Empire. For most of its earlier history, however, Anatolia served as a land bridge between Asia and Europe facilitating passage and settlement of a great many peoples and races in both directions.

The assassination of Commodus in 193 ce initiated the transition from the Antonines to the Severans. Septimius Severus, the military governor of Pannonia (Hungary), was the first to march and reach Rome among several contenders to the throne, each proclaimed emperor by the armies they commanded. This was not the first time the making of an emperor was based on military power rather than approval by the ranks of Roman aristocracy and the Senate, but it firmly established the questionable system that continued into the third century and contributed to, if not caused, the long period of civic and economic instability that characterized the Late Empire.

Creating and dedicating temples to the gods was always a pious act in ancient society; it was often a moral and civic duty, and almost always a shrewd and popular political expedient. Archaeological remains provide ample evidence the building of many Republican-period temples in and outside of Rome. Many more that have disappeared without leaving any physical trace are known from inscriptions and ancient literary sources. Temples – either as single structures, or as a part of a group of other religious buildings in a sanctuary – were the most common of all architectural types in the Roman world. But, who built them and who paid for them?