The Busy Periphery: Urban Systems of the Balkan and Danube Provinces (2nd – 3rd c. AD) considers the reconstruction of the urban geography of the Balkan and Danube provinces at the time of the Severan dynasty. Four basic parameters governed the focus of research: the origin and socio-economic character of the settlements, their size, micro-location, and the size of their administrative territories. The principal goal was to map the variable developments of the urban network, both between and within the sub-regions that constituted this part of the Roman Empire. This line of inquiry helped in bridging the gap between the regional and the general. In the process of explaining the apparent gaps in the urban map of the study-region or the differential growth of the individual towns and settlements, we were inevitably faced with the question of the role of towns in Roman provincial society and in the economy in general, and with the interpretation of the basic prerequisites for their emergence and prosperity.