ABSTRACT
Such highly charged descriptions with their overt racism use the Roman buildings to reinforce cultural prejudice, and are unfashionable now (although Rose Macaulay's book remains a popular one). But the sentiments are still alive,2 and even in academic studies, Roman architecture is often viewed as part of a single, overall pattern because of its superficial homogeneity. It is seen almost as if there was an 'official' Roman architecture suborned to traditions emanating from Rome and Greece, that minimises regionality.3 One recent study of eastern Roman architecture emphasises the international, 'imperial' style and universality of Roman architecture, drawing upon Greek prototypes but deliberately designed to be a single theme throughout the empire, so that an integrated 'common cultural basis' can be created. Architecture is seen as a manifestation - almost a tool - of Rome consolidating its power over subject nations by a common, imposed vocabulary that was the same in every city of the empire. The only regional differences perceived were in minor decorative details and some construction techniques, otherwise regionality was non-existent.4 Another recent academic study, when discussing Near Eastern temples, writes that 'the expression given to this cult in architectural form belongs, as always, to the Roman Empire' and' ... the Near Eastern Greek city of the Imperial period (is) marked above all by its monumental public buildings', i.e., defined in GraecoRoman terms by the architecture imposed on it. 5 The architecture appears entirely - almost overwhelmingly - Roman (or 'Greek'); a foreign transplant that has more in common with Italy or Greece than with the ancient Near East where the buildings are found. In other words, a symbol of ruler and ruled, an attitude that is merely better disguised than 'them' and 'us' or 'superior' and 'inferior', but not substantially different.
