{"id":{"repo_id":"exeter","oai_identifier":"oai:figshare.com:article/29813441"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/exeter/oai:figshare.com:article/29813441","repository":{"repo_id":"exeter","name":"University of Exeter","base_url":"https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai"},"display":{"title":"The networked polis: Unravelling Magnesia's place in the Hellenistic world through the digital reconstruction of journeys.","abstract":"In the late third century BC, the Greek city of Magnesia-on-the-Maeander in western Anatolia embarked on a monumental building programme and dispatched religious envoys (theoroi) to more than 200 cities to inaugurate a panhellenic festival. A body of inscriptions reveals a series of journeys as far afield as Sicily and the Persian Gulf. I investigate the factors that led to Magnesia’s decision to raise its profile at this time. An important consideration is Magnesia’s location and access to the network of Greek cities. Using a computational network I explore travel and connectivity through journey simulations, using as inputs ancient toponyms and a high-resolution topographic dataset. A minimum total cost methodology is used to construct a network of least cost paths linking 2,600 nodes across the Greek world, calibrated with the Peutinger Table and Delphic theorodokoi list. The network is applied to solving the travelling salesman problem under constraints consistent with the limited historical knowledge of the Magnesian journeys, yielding plausible itineraries and timings. I demonstrate that relatively simple quantitative journey planning techniques could have produced highly efficient routes for these ancient travellers. Magnesia is found to have an unusually high betweenness centrality for wide spatial outreach. It is conjectured this may have fostered Magnesia’s prosperity and cosmopolitan outlook. The network also brings to light interesting results about the centrality of other cities. The centrality metric is applied to a subset of cities, whose importance is inferred from the presence of proxenoi, appointed by decree to host visitors. These are shown to have statistically significant high centrality as a group, validating the metric and its real-world significance. This research suggests that connectivity measured by the integrated result of millions of possible journeys through the physical landscape allows quantitative attribution of a city’s standing to its location in the network.<p></p>","abstract_html":"In the late third century BC, the Greek city of Magnesia-on-the-Maeander in western Anatolia embarked on a monumental building programme and dispatched religious envoys (theoroi) to more than 200 cities to inaugurate a panhellenic festival. A body of inscriptions reveals a series of journeys as far afield as Sicily and the Persian Gulf. I investigate the factors that led to Magnesia’s decision to raise its profile at this time. An important consideration is Magnesia’s location and access to the network of Greek cities. Using a computational network I explore travel and connectivity through journey simulations, using as inputs ancient toponyms and a high-resolution topographic dataset. A minimum total cost methodology is used to construct a network of least cost paths linking 2,600 nodes across the Greek world, calibrated with the Peutinger Table and Delphic theorodokoi list. The network is applied to solving the travelling salesman problem under constraints consistent with the limited historical knowledge of the Magnesian journeys, yielding plausible itineraries and timings. I demonstrate that relatively simple quantitative journey planning techniques could have produced highly efficient routes for these ancient travellers. Magnesia is found to have an unusually high betweenness centrality for wide spatial outreach. It is conjectured this may have fostered Magnesia’s prosperity and cosmopolitan outlook. The network also brings to light interesting results about the centrality of other cities. The centrality metric is applied to a subset of cities, whose importance is inferred from the presence of proxenoi, appointed by decree to host visitors. These are shown to have statistically significant high centrality as a group, validating the metric and its real-world significance. This research suggests that connectivity measured by the integrated result of millions of possible journeys through the physical landscape allows quantitative attribution of a city’s standing to its location in the network.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["F Carroll (18085831)"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-03-03T00:00:00Z","date_published":"2025-03-03T00:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:34:56Z","subjects":["Centrality","Least cost paths","Magnesia-on-the-Maeander","Networks","Travel"],"languages":[],"rights":["All rights reserved"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["10871/140603"],"render_values":[{"text":"10871/140603","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":null,"outbound_label":null,"outbound_source":null},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["F Carroll (18085831)"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2025-03-03T00:00:00Z"]},{"key":"dc:relation","label":"Dc Relation","values":["https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/The_networked_polis_Unravelling_Magnesia_s_place_in_the_Hellenistic_world_through_the_digital_reconstruction_of_journeys_/29813441"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Text","Thesis"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Centrality","Least cost paths","Magnesia-on-the-Maeander","Networks","Travel"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["All rights reserved"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["10871/140603"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["In the late third century BC, the Greek city of Magnesia-on-the-Maeander in western Anatolia embarked on a monumental building programme and dispatched religious envoys (theoroi) to more than 200 cities to inaugurate a panhellenic festival. A body of inscriptions reveals a series of journeys as far afield as Sicily and the Persian Gulf. I investigate the factors that led to Magnesia’s decision to raise its profile at this time. An important consideration is Magnesia’s location and access to the network of Greek cities. Using a computational network I explore travel and connectivity through journey simulations, using as inputs ancient toponyms and a high-resolution topographic dataset. A minimum total cost methodology is used to construct a network of least cost paths linking 2,600 nodes across the Greek world, calibrated with the Peutinger Table and Delphic theorodokoi list. The network is applied to solving the travelling salesman problem under constraints consistent with the limited historical knowledge of the Magnesian journeys, yielding plausible itineraries and timings. I demonstrate that relatively simple quantitative journey planning techniques could have produced highly efficient routes for these ancient travellers. Magnesia is found to have an unusually high betweenness centrality for wide spatial outreach. It is conjectured this may have fostered Magnesia’s prosperity and cosmopolitan outlook. The network also brings to light interesting results about the centrality of other cities. The centrality metric is applied to a subset of cities, whose importance is inferred from the presence of proxenoi, appointed by decree to host visitors. These are shown to have statistically significant high centrality as a group, validating the metric and its real-world significance. This research suggests that connectivity measured by the integrated result of millions of possible journeys through the physical landscape allows quantitative attribution of a city’s standing to its location in the network.<p></p>"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The networked polis: Unravelling Magnesia's place in the Hellenistic world through the digital reconstruction of journeys."]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["F Carroll (18085831)"],"dc:date":["2025-03-03T00:00:00Z"],"dc:description":["In the late third century BC, the Greek city of Magnesia-on-the-Maeander in western Anatolia embarked on a monumental building programme and dispatched religious envoys (theoroi) to more than 200 cities to inaugurate a panhellenic festival. A body of inscriptions reveals a series of journeys as far afield as Sicily and the Persian Gulf. I investigate the factors that led to Magnesia’s decision to raise its profile at this time. An important consideration is Magnesia’s location and access to the network of Greek cities. Using a computational network I explore travel and connectivity through journey simulations, using as inputs ancient toponyms and a high-resolution topographic dataset. A minimum total cost methodology is used to construct a network of least cost paths linking 2,600 nodes across the Greek world, calibrated with the Peutinger Table and Delphic theorodokoi list. The network is applied to solving the travelling salesman problem under constraints consistent with the limited historical knowledge of the Magnesian journeys, yielding plausible itineraries and timings. I demonstrate that relatively simple quantitative journey planning techniques could have produced highly efficient routes for these ancient travellers. Magnesia is found to have an unusually high betweenness centrality for wide spatial outreach. It is conjectured this may have fostered Magnesia’s prosperity and cosmopolitan outlook. The network also brings to light interesting results about the centrality of other cities. The centrality metric is applied to a subset of cities, whose importance is inferred from the presence of proxenoi, appointed by decree to host visitors. These are shown to have statistically significant high centrality as a group, validating the metric and its real-world significance. This research suggests that connectivity measured by the integrated result of millions of possible journeys through the physical landscape allows quantitative attribution of a city’s standing to its location in the network.<p></p>"],"dc:identifier":["10871/140603"],"dc:relation":["https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/The_networked_polis_Unravelling_Magnesia_s_place_in_the_Hellenistic_world_through_the_digital_reconstruction_of_journeys_/29813441"],"dc:rights":["All rights reserved"],"dc:subject":["Centrality","Least cost paths","Magnesia-on-the-Maeander","Networks","Travel"],"dc:title":["The networked polis: Unravelling Magnesia's place in the Hellenistic world through the digital reconstruction of journeys."],"dc:type":["Text","Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:34:56Z"}