IMPERIUM ROMANUM

Provinces · The later eastern provinces

LE-29 Lycaonia

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.

Lycaonia’s plains, settlements, pastoral resources, and road connections gave it a distinct regional character. Its territories had previously belonged to changing larger jurisdictions. Creating a separate province placed civil administration closer to these inland communities and their economic networks.

Iconium’s urban and Christian institutions served as a principal regional focus, while villages and smaller towns sustained farming and local exchange. Movement between the plateau, Taurus approaches, and neighbouring provinces remained important. The late province should not be projected backwards onto every earlier mention of Lycaonia, particularly in accounts of travel through the larger early imperial Galatian world.