Proconsular Asia
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Provincia Asia ἐπαρχία Ἀσίας |
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| Province of the Roman Empire | |||||
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| Capital | Ephesus | ||||
| Historical era | Classical Antiquity | ||||
| • | Conquest of Pergamon | 133 BC | |||
| • | Division by Diocletian | c. 293 | |||
| • | Anatolic Theme established | 7th century | |||
| Today part of |
 Turkey Greece
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The Roman province of Asia or Asiana (Greek: Ἀσία or Ἀσιανή), in Byzantine times called Phrygia, was an administrative unit added to the late Republic. It was a Senatorial province governed by a proconsul. The arrangement was unchanged in the reorganization of the Roman Empire in 211.
The word "Asia" comes from the Greek word, Ἀσία, originally only applied to the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea, known to the Lydians who occupied it as Assuwa. It came to be used by the Greeks for all of Lydia (the northwestern part of what is today Turkey), that shore being the closest part of Lydia to Greece. The Roman province of Asia occupied almost exactly the area of that Lydian kingdom. As time went on, the word came to be used by the far West to refer to an ever-more-vague area east of them, until it was used generically for the whole continent.
Antiochus III the Great had to give up Asia when the Romans crushed his army at the historic battle of Magnesia, in 190 BC. After the Treaty of Apamea (188 BC), the entire territory was surrendered to Rome and placed under the control of a client king at Pergamum.
Asia province originally consisted of Mysia, the Troad, Aeolis, Lydia, Ionia, Caria, and the land corridor through Pisidia to Pamphylia. Aegean islands except Crete, were part of the Insulae (province) of Asiana. Part of Phrygia was given to Mithridates V Euergetes before it was reclaimed as part of the province in 116 BC. Lycaonia was added before 100 BC while the area around Cibyra was added in 82 BC. The southeast region of Asia province was later reassigned to the province of Cilicia. During, the empire, Asia province was bounded by Bithynia to the north, Lycia to the south, and Galatia to the east.
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