Aphrodisias, located in western Asia Minor, was founded in the second century BC and developed as a free city through the Roman period. In the third century AD, the city, which had not previously been fortified, became the capital of a Roman province. The City Wall, built in the later 350s to 360s AD, was the first large-scale project sponsored by the imperial governors and is emblematic of the city's change in status. The construction of the Wall---3.50 km long, 2.45-3.60 m thick, and 10 m high, with 11 gates and 23 towers---was the result of a single major campaign. The interior face is built of newly quarried smaller stones, while the exterior is composed of large recycled blocks, which are carefully arranged in a pattern reminiscent of "pseudo-isodomic" ashlar masonry of the late Classical period.

Close examination of the Wall has shown that, to acquire the large blocks, the extramural cemeteries were almost completely dismantled, an order that probably came from the governor. Extraneous material from other building projects and damaged minor monuments of the city center also went into the Wall, including many of the honorific portrait statues that the Aphrodisians had erected over the previous centuries. The Wall is intimately linked to the city and countryside; it relates to the existing street system, and many gates are located at points that had long marked the border between polis and chora. The construction of the Wall around the city and the erasure of the cemeteries and portraits permanently changed the face of Aphrodisias.

The governors of late Roman Caria, in building the Wall out of existing material and following a historical pattern, were able to combine practical military necessity with a traditional visual language to create a civic ornament that projected an image of security and strength. The City Wall serves as an index of the relative prosperity of this period, as a sign of increased stability, not of threat and crisis. The study of this fourth-century wall provides a context within which to discuss numerous other less well-documented late Roman fortifications.