Editing Anatolia (section)

===Early Christian period===
{{Main|Christianity as the Roman state religion|Spread of Christianity}}
{{Further|Christianity in late antiquity|Crisis of the Third Century}}

[[File:Roman Empire Trajan 117AD.png|thumb|upright=1.1|{{legend|#b23938|[[Roman Empire]] in 117 CE at its greatest extent, at the time of [[Trajan]]'s death.}} {{legend|#d28989|[[vassal state]]s<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bennett, Julian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qk_tofvS8EsC |title=Trajan: Optimus Princeps : a Life and Times |publisher=Routledge |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-415-16524-2}}. Fig. 1. Regions east of the [[Euphrates]] river were held only in the years 116–117.</ref>}}]]
[[File:Seven churches of asia.svg|thumb|331x331px|The [[Seven churches of Asia]]]]
After the [[first division of the Roman Empire]], Anatolia became part of the [[Byzantine Empire|Eastern Roman Empire]], otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire or [[Byzantium]].<ref name="Niewöhner 2017">{{cite book |author-last=Niewöhner |author-first=Philipp |year=2017 |chapter=Chapter 3: Urbanism – The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cgUmDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 |editor-last=Niewöhner |editor-first=Philipp |title=The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia: From the End of Late Antiquity until the Coming of the Turks |location=[[Oxford]] and New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=39–59 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190610463.003.0004 |isbn=9780190610487}}</ref> In the 1st century CE, Anatolia became [[History of early Christianity|one of the first places where Christianity spread]], so that by the 4th century CE, western and central Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christian and Greek-speaking.<ref name="Niewöhner 2017"/>

Byzantine Anatolia was one of the wealthiest and most densely populated places in the [[Later Roman Empire]]. Anatolia's wealth grew during the 4th and 5th centuries thanks, in part, to the [[Pilgrim's Road]] that ran through the peninsula. Literary evidence about the rural landscape stems from the [[Hagiography|Christian hagiographies]] of the 6th-century [[Nicholas of Sion]] and 7th-century [[Theodore of Sykeon]]. Large and prosperous urban centers of Byzantine Anatolia included [[Assos]], [[Ephesus]], [[Miletus]], [[Nicaea]], [[Pergamum]], [[Priene]], [[Sardis]], and [[Aphrodisias]].<ref name="Niewöhner 2017"/>

From the mid-5th century onwards, urbanism was affected negatively and began to decline, while the rural areas reached unprecedented levels of prosperity in the region.<ref name="Niewöhner 2017"/> Historians and scholars continue to debate the cause of the urban decline in Byzantine Anatolia between the 6th and 7th centuries,<ref name="Niewöhner 2017"/> variously attributing it to the [[Plague of Justinian]] (541), the [[Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628|Byzantine–Sasanian War]] (602–628), and the [[Muslim conquest of the Levant|Arab invasion of the Levant]] (634–638).<ref name=thonemann>{{Cite book| publisher = Oxford University Press| isbn = 978-0198662778| last = Thonemann| first = Peter| title = The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity| volume = 1| chapter = Anatolia| access-date = 6 December 2018| year = 2018| chapter-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001/acref-9780198662778-e-241| doi = 10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001| archive-date = 6 December 2018| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181206102258/http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001/acref-9780198662778-e-241| url-status = live}}</ref>