IMPERIUM ROMANUM

Provinces · The later eastern provinces

LE-32 Paphlagonia

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.

Paphlagonia’s mountains, inland basins, roads, and access towards the Black Sea shaped a society of towns, villages, agriculture, livestock, and woodland resources. The Roman province used a much older regional name without restoring a pre-Roman political structure unchanged.

Gangra’s civil and ecclesiastical importance helped give the jurisdiction coherence. Christian councils and regional church organization connected local communities to empire-wide religious life. Later changes in provincial combinations and military responsibilities altered its place within government. Its name should therefore be dated rather than treated as proof of identical borders from the Hellenistic period onward.