Insulae (Roman province)

Insulae (Latin for "islands"; in Greek: νήσοι; fully Provincia Insularum and ἐπαρχία νήσων, "province of the islands") was a Late Roman province consisting of some islands in the Aegean, now part of Greece.

It should not be confused with the Roman province Insulae Baleares, which consists of the (now Spanish) Balearic islands.

History

In Late Antiquity, the province was part of the Diocese of Asia of the Praetorian prefecture of the East, until subordinated to the quaestura exercitus by Emperor Justinian I.

Rhodes was the capital of the province, whose governor had the modest rank of praeses (hegemon in Greek). It encompassed many Aegean islands. According to the Synecdemus of Hierocles, the province included twenty cities : Rhodes, Amorgos, Andros, Astypalaia, Chios, Ios, Kos, Melos, Methymna, Mytilene, Naxos, Paros, Petelos, Proselene, Samos, Siphnos, Tenedos, Tenos and Thera.

Rhodes' homonymous capital was also the see of the metropolitan archbishopric of the ecclesiastical province covering the Cyclades, with eleven suffragan sees including Astypalaia, Ios and in the Dodekanesos Nisyrus (Nisyros island).