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The Italian Mission in Gerasa has employed most of the human and financial resources for carrying out the conservation and the restoration of the sanctuary of Artemis, the most important religious complex built in the heart of the ancient town. All conservation work has been preceded by rigorous research aimed at understanding the specific context before any intervention. In the area of the sanctuary of Artemis, archaeological campaigns, surveys and cataloguing have all taken place over almost forty years. As a result, our knowledge of the various parts of the complex has greatly increased, however a wide-ranging study, correlating all the results into one historical narrative has yet to be completed. In this paper, I deal with the problem of the incompleteness of the Antonine temple. This is a riddle often explained by economic issues that, on closer inspection, are not convincing. The new approach undertaken here, therefore, investigates the history of its construction through the study of the building sequence and re-considers the outcome in the broader context of the sanctuary and the rest of the town, using the evidence from several previous, fragmentary investigations. The new picture presented from the archaeological evidence paints a generation of citizens and worshippers who embraced the project for enlarging the sanctuary, nevertheless under unconcealed pressure from the Roman government. We see changing decisions throughout the process and a background of conservatism. 📌 Ask the author (massimobrizzi26@gmail.com) for the complete paper.