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Hierokles, which belongs to the early years of Justinian, is the most comprehensive resource of the Early Byzantine administrative division titled Synekdemos (“Passenger Friendly”). [1] Since it does not mention the regulations made with Novel 31, which we discussed in our last article, the possible date should be 535 at the latest. With the law published in 536, two new states named Yukarı Armenia and the Fourth Armenia will be established, Pontos Polemoniakos province will be abolished and join the former first Armenia, the newly established Yukarı Armenia, the recently established Mesopotamia province for the fourth time for a while It will be included in Armenia. We specified these arrangements after Hierokles with the green and orange boundary line on the map.
The work gives the list of ‘cities () in that state for each state. In our map, we mentioned 346 of these cities with a letter code. We did not show around twenty -five insignificant settlements in order not to lead to confluence on the map with the settlements of the unknown place.
We followed a path in the coloring: 1) We colored the district where every settlement included in the state. 2) Even if a settlement name is not mentioned, we have given the same color to the districts where the shortest road between the two settlements, including the state. For example, since Kayseri and Yahyalı were in the province of Kappadokia I, we counted Develi in Kappadokia I, even though the settlement was not mentioned. 3) We left the marginal districts that are outside the network of cities and which are not specified in which state is connected to.
This visual arrangement is interesting in reminding that a large part of Anatolia, even at the summit of the Late Antiquity, is disconnected from urban culture (and possibly from central government).
We added a few places we know that there was a remarkable settlement in the 6th century, although it was not mentioned in Synekdemos for a reason (KO) = Kotyeia.
The full list of the places displayed with the letter code on the map is in the attached Excel table.
[1] Hieroclis Synecdemus, Ed. Aug. Burckhardt, Lipsiae 1893; Ernest Honigmann, le_synecdèmos_d’hiéroclès_et_l’opuscule_géograpaphique_de_georges_de_chypre, Bruxelles 1939. For placements, Ramsay, Honigmann, Barrington_atlas and tabula_ımperii_byzantini.
created: October 8, 2024
updated: November 20, 2024