A group of essays that trace the development of Roman influence in the eastern parts of the empire. Contents include: Urbanization ( Greg Woolf ); Roman colonies in the province of Achaia ( A Rizakis ); Syrian desert ( M Gawlikowski ); The Syrian countryside ( G Tate ); Jewish rural settlement ( Y Hirschfield ); Roman relations with the Persicus sinus ( D T Potts ); The Imperial image ( C B Rose ); The Black Sea region ( David Braund ); Funerary monuments in Asia Minor ( Sarah Cormack ); Tomb architecture at Palmyra ( A Schmidt-Colinet ); Pilgrimage, religion and visual culture in the East ( Jas Elsner ).