ABSTRACT
A governor's arrival (adventus) was orchestrated by the host city's leading notables to present a carefully constructed image of the community and its place in the Empire. This chapter's case studies reference different bodies of theory to highlight ways the built environment was integrated into the civic presentation. The first case study draws on the urban planning concepts of “paths” and “nodes” to explain how a colonnaded avenue and theater organized the crowds that welcomed a governor into Ephesus. The second describes the references to local myth and history that greeted a newly-arrived governor in Miletus as “cues” – elements of a built environment intended to prompt an automatic response from culturally literate viewers. The final case study uses Michel de Certeau's contrast between designer strategies and user tactics to consider how governors responded to the model of authority implicit in the honorific statues around the site of their inaugural sacrifice at Pergamum.
