IMPERIUM ROMANUM

Provinces · The later eastern provinces

LE-52 Cilicia Prima

The later Balkan provincial landscape. Dacia south of the Danube, the two Epiri…
The later Balkan provincial landscape. Dacia south of the Danube, the two Epiri, Thessaly, Macedonia, Achaia, and the Thracian districts illustrate the replacement of large commands by smaller jurisdictions. The river network helps relate frontier districts to the Adriatic, Aegean, and imperial straits.

Tarsus retained educational, civic, commercial, and ecclesiastical importance within a smaller jurisdiction. Farming, ports, roads through the Taurus, river valleys, and urban production sustained the province. Its setting made it a critical connection between Anatolia and Syria.

The separation of Cilicia Secunda gave neighbouring Anazarbus a distinct provincial role. Later religious competition and administrative reforms altered relationships again. Persian warfare and the seventh-century frontier transformation eventually changed the lowland system. Cilicia Prima’s history belongs to this specific late jurisdiction, not every earlier Republican command bearing the Cilician name.