ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some potential messages that late antique representations of cities—cityscapes and personifications or cities—conveyed to the beholder. In the case of the profuse assemblage of cityscapes depicted on the mosaic pavement of Saint Stephen at Kastron Mefaa (modern Umm ar-Rasas, Jordan), in Provincia Arabia, eschatological ideas of salvation were associated with pilgrimage networks. The sacred sites in the Holy Land were visually connected on the Madaba mosaic map with the “order” and “economy,” two key concepts of Byzantine political thought, ensuring a good life for the inhabitants and safe pilgrimage routes for the faithful. The notion of good administration, contributing to social well-being, also appeared in association with city personifications. The combination of their images in numerous artifacts, including the model of the—probably—Carolingian ivory diptych with Roma and Constantinopolis in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, also highlights Byzantium's political ideology of ecumenicity and Constantinople's civilizing mission in the age of Justinian.
