Kos : the official language of the Imperial architecture

The city of Kos was founded in Late Classical period and its urban layout, typical of the period, retained its overall organisation during Imperial times. Besides the language of the official architecture, now perfectly in line with the main Imperial monumental realizations of Asia Minor, visible especially in the refurbishing of the agora and of the main plateia, transformed into a colonnaded street, the main novelties pertain to the building of several thermal baths, in some cases in close relationship with existing Hellenistic gymnasia. Although they seem to reflect a growing adhesion to a Roman way of life, however some aspects of the previous gymnasium are still alive, such as the presence of the palaestra. These buildings were conceived, between 1st and 2nd cent. AD, based on a scheme widespread in Asia Minor and seen at cities like Miletus and Ephesos. This leads to the hypothesis of the existence of a common model, displaying a higher degree of complexity than the bath buildings attested in Rome in the same period. Later transformations, in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, on the other hand find comparisons in North African bath buildings. This is also noticeable in some edifices in Asia Minor, attesting to the increasing cultural and artistic importance in that period of the great North African urban centres.