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Asia (province))
The Roman province of Asia was the administrative unit added to the late Republic, a Senatorial province governed by a proconsul who was an ex-consul, an honor granted only to Asia and the other rich province of Africa. The arrangement was unchanged in the reorganization of the Roman Empire of 211 CE.
"Asia" in the books of the Maccabees refers to Asia Minor, which Antiochus III (the Great) had to give up when the Romans, under Manius Glabrio crushed his army in 191 BCE at the historic battle site of Thermopylae. After the battle of Magnesia, 188 BC, the entire territory would be surrendered to Rome and placed under the control of a clkient king at Pergamum.
In 133 BC, Attalus III, king of Pergamon, having no heirs to succeed him, bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, and after some hesitation the Roman province of Asia Proconsularis was formed, embracing the regions of Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and Phrygia.
For usage of "Asia" in the New Testament, see Romans 16:5; 2 Timothy 1:15; Acts 1:4, etc.. Its great cities, like Ephesus and Pergamum were among the greatest metropolis of the Empire.
After 326 AD, when the Emperor Constantine I moved the capital to Byzantium, which he refounded, the province of Asia was more centrally situated than ever, and remained a center of Roman and Hellenistic culture in the east for centuries, and the territory remained part of the Byzantine Empire until the 15th century.
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