In one of his presentations for the Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures1, George M.A. Hanfmann began his talk on Roman urban renewal with a light-hearted quotation from Catullus: “Ad claras Asiae volemus urbes (46.6 )/let us fly to the famous cities of Asia”.2 In doing so, like the Latin poet himself, Hanfmann also had in mind the spectacular flourishing cities in the Roman province of Asia like Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus, Pergamum and others. Another great student of Roman architecture in the twentieth century, the British scholar J.B.Ward-Perkins felt no different. According to him, “the cities of southern Asia Minor, though rich in buildings of the Roman period, are architecturally far less important than those of the western coasts and valleys”.3 In this regard, what Ward-Perkins had to say about architecture and cities in Roman Pamphylia was quite short and not very exciting. On the other hand, his opinion about the architecture of Cilicia on the south-east corner of Asia Minor, was even more disparaging. In the absence of excavations, he simply felt “one could be even briefer”4 about the architecture in this region.