This dissertation presents a framework for interpreting healing sites in the Roman provinces as vehicles for the adaptation, transmission and reception of Roman material culture. Using a wide range of interdisciplinary methods, this dissertation is the first to consider the important role of Hercules at the intersection of healing, landscape, and imperial expansion dynamics. It addresses a number of case studies of naturally occurring thermal mineral healing sites in the provinces with primary associations to the hero-god Hercules, located in Numidia, Gaul and Greece, and Dacia, while examining a wide range of material, including sculpture, numismatics, inscriptions, and small finds. Important for understanding the formation of Roman identity, Ad Mediam -- an ancient curative sanctuary of thermal springs located thirty miles from Trajan's bridge into Dacia (roughly modern day Romania), like other healing sites, supported transprovincial networks and served as important arena of cultural, social, religious, and political transmission in the Roman Empire.

Through an analysis of space, dedicatory activity, representation strategies, and the natural environment, past interpretations regarding the significance of material culture in the context of healing sites are here reconsidered. Engaging with later historiography, this dissertation strives to integrate a variety of objects and material culture more typically treated separately in the specialized literature in order to challenge assumptions about the homogeneity of Roman "provincial" material culture and to explore the importance of stylistic variety, objects' use values, and the importance of the natural and built landscape in the formation of Roman identity.