already receiving there an education in liberal studies-to pave their way (which, for reasons too complex to describe here, they never really took) into the high
aristocracy of the empire. Bibracte declined, not through coercion-for archaeology shows that the site was still inhabited after the foundation of Autun, and declined
progressively-but through sheer inconvenience and the attractions of the new city. In similar fashion, the native settlement of the Magdalensberg in Noricum gave
way to the new town and provincial capital of Virunum (just to the north of Klagenfurt). In the East little new city foundation was called for, nor did the activities of
Hellenistic kings leave much room for it. With certain exceptions such as colonial foundations in areas of uncertain tranquillity like southern Asia Minor, the main
influence in the East was the steadily increasing prosperity made possible by the pax Augusta rather than any particular intervention of the Roman power. The
caravan cities of Palmyra, Gerasa, Bostra, and Damascus gained new prosperity as more settled Roman relations with the East encouraged economic activity and
Roman control of the area became more definite. The spectacular urbanization of Palmyra, though its origins were in the Hellenistic period, was essentially a
product of the Roman Empire, beginning in the time of Tiberius and ending only with the collapse of the Palmyrene empire in the later third century.
Aerial View Of Cuicul (Djemila, m Algeria): a fine example of urbanisation in Numidia during the first and second centuries A.D. In this photograph, taken from the