Roman Asia & Anatolia

The province Rome acquired by inheritance rather than conquest, and the richest prize in the republic's gift. Attalus III of Pergamon died in 133 BC and left his kingdom to the Roman people in his will - an arrangement with no precedent, probably intended to prevent a succession war, and one Rome accepted after suppressing a revolt. The province covered western Anatolia and was already densely urbanised, with Ephesus, Pergamon, Miletus, Sardis and Smyrna among dozens of Greek cities that had been self-governing for centuries. It was governed by a proconsul without an army and taxed by private contractors, whose extortion became a scandal in Rome and a reason for provincial hatred. That hatred surfaced in 88 BC when Mithridates of Pontus overran the province and had tens of thousands of Romans and Italians killed in a single coordinated massacre. Rome retook it and the tax system was eventually reformed. Under the empire Asia was the most prestigious governorship available to a senator. Its cities competed for imperial temples and titles, and the remains at Ephesus, including the library of Celsus and a theatre seating 25 thousand, are among the best preserved anywhere. All seven churches addressed in Revelation were in this province. Paul spent years at Ephesus. Diocletian broke the province into several smaller ones. Ephesus is a World Heritage site and one of the most visited archaeological sites in Turkey. Pergamon's library was said to rival Alexandria's. The province was the wealthiest in the empire by tax yield. Parchment takes its name from Pergamon.

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