Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
AH4 / F394 – Roman History Option 3. Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
Teachers’ notes by Penelope J. Goodman and Zahra Newby
Contents:
1. BOOKS AND RESOURCES
General works
More specialist volumes
2
3
2. INTRODUCTION TO THE SOURCES
Suetonius
Pliny the Younger
LACTOR 8 – Inscriptions of the Roman Empire
LACTOR 15 – Dio: the Julio-Claudians
LACTOR 18 – The High Tide of Empire
6
7
9
10
12
3. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The empire
The emperor and the principate
14
15
4. THEMATIC NOTES
4.1 MECHANISMS OF GOVERNMENT
The emperor and the provinces
Provincial taxation
Senators in government and administration
Equestrians in government and administration
Imperial freedmen in government and administration
Local government
The role of the army
Frontier and defence policies
4.2 PROVINCIAL RESPONSES TO ROMAN RULE
The issue of ‘Romanisation’
Provincial rebellions
Displays of loyalty
4.3 LIFE IN THE PROVINCES
Regional identities
Economics
The image of the emperor
The imperial cult
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27
28
29
31
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34
37
39
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
1. BOOKS AND RESOURCES
Only secondary material is covered here – for primary sources, see Introduction to the
Sources, below p. 6.
General works:
Garnsey P. & Saller, R. The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture
(Duckworth, 1987)
This is a standard study of the workings of the Roman empire, divided into four
sections on administration, the economy, society and religion. It is useful, but the
thinking now seems slightly outdated – the authors place more emphasis on the Roman
state as a dominant and even coercive power in effecting cultural change in the provinces
than most scholars do today. Nonetheless there is some helpful material on the
agricultural basis of the empire’s economy, and the workings of social class in the Roman
world.
This
book
has
an
entry
on
Google
books
(here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uvcBZUzn82QC), but it does not seem to be
possible to read any of it online.
Goodman, M. The Roman World 44BC-AD180 (Routledge, 1997)
A good, solid overview of the Roman empire during the core period covered in
this module. This book is explicitly aimed at new-comers to the subject, and does a good
job of covering the material from the ground up. The emphasis is on the operations of the
Roman state and the individuals involved in the government of the empire, so that it will
mainly be useful for the fourth bullet-point on the module specification – i.e. the
government and administration of the empire, including senators, equestrians and the
army. But it also includes useful chapters on the extent to which the empire was
politically, economically or culturally unified (chs. 13-15), provincial reactions to Roman
rule (ch. 16), case-studies of individual provinces (chs. 20-28) and religion (chs. 29-31).
The thinking on cultural issues is not as sophisticated as Woolf 1998, but it is perfectly
sound and should equip students to perform strongly on this module. Much of the book is
available on Google books here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MZ37ALMZZakC.
Huskinson, J. ed. Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity and Power in the Roman
Empire (Routledge, 2000)
This is an excellent and very accessible book aimed at Open University students.
It is a multi-authored collection of chapters on themes such as Roman and provincial
identities, Romanisation, resistance, religion, urbanism, and elite cultures. The relevance
of the themes covered and the level at which they are treated make it a very useful
secondary text for this module. Quite a lot of it (including a table of contents) is on
Google books, here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6p8H9HUeYrsC. I would
particularly recommend chapter 1 by Janet Huskinson for getting to grips with the
general issue of how the Roman state interacted with the empire and what sort of cultural
exchanges occurred between them in both directions, and chapter 9 by James Rives for
understanding the religious practices of the Roman empire, including the imperial cult.
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
More specialist volumes:
These are likely to be of use primarily to teachers who wish to explore certain aspects of
the topic in more depth.
Romanisation and Cultural change:
Hingley, R. Globalizing Roman Culture: unity, diversity and empire (Routledge: London
and New York, 2005).
A fresh, up-to-date and wide-ranging look at issues of cultural change in the
Roman empire. Hingley reviews past interpretations of cultural change, spells out their
limitations, and draws together current thinking on issues of culture, identity and their
expression in the Roman world. He emphasises the flexible, changing nature of both
Roman and local identities, and considers how we can make sense of both the uniformity
and the diversity visible within the Roman empire. Specific topics addressed include
ways of defining and articulating elite culture, education, cities and pottery.
Woolf, G. Becoming Roman. The Origins of Provincial Civilisation in Gaul (Cambridge
University Press, 1998)
This monograph represents some of the most sophisticated current thinking on the
issue of the relationship between Rome and provincial populations, via the specific casestudy of Gaul. The opening chapter (‘On Romanisation’) is a particularly helpful account
of scholarly debates around the issue of cultural change in the Roman empire, including
discussion of what ‘culture’ actually is, whether we can identify a distinctly ‘Roman’
culture, and how we can go about exploring cultural change. As discussions of such
issues go, it is fairly clear and accessible, but it may still be hard going for A-level
students. Other useful chapters include ‘Urbanising the Gauls’, which discusses the
change from the village culture of pre-Roman Gaul to the urbanised culture which
developed under Rome; ‘Consuming Rome’, which looks at the adoption of new material
goods in Roman Gaul and considers their cultural significance; and ‘Keeping faith?’,
which explores changes in religious practices. Early on in the book, pp. 40-47 address the
specifically economic impact of Roman rule on the region of Gaul (i.e. material which
will be useful for bullet-point 2 on the module specification). Significant parts of this
book are on Google books, here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GjNaT7FMohwC
Scott, S. and Webster, J. eds. Roman Imperialism and Provincial Art (Cambridge
University Press, 2003)
A multi-authored collection of chapters, which together take a very sophisticated
approach to the creation of art in the provinces of the Roman empire, and its cultural
significance. There is plenty of up-to-date scholarly debate here, but it is pitched at an
primarily academic audience, and is likely to be quite difficult for A-level students to get
to grips with. The focus of the volume on art will also mean (as for Macready &
Thompson 1987) that, while it can certainly provide added value for this module, it is not
a top priority. A table of contents and the opening chapter are available here:
http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/05926/sample/9780521805926ws.pdf.
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
Regional Studies:
Alcock, S. E. ed. The Early Roman Empire in the East (Oxbow, 1997)
Like the volume by Blagg and Millett (see below) this is a collection of papers on
various aspects of the cultural life of the eastern Roman empire which is likely to be of
more use to teachers than students.
On issue of ‘Romanisation’ see particularly Woolf’s paper which looks at the
extent to which Roman rule affected the development and role of cities in the east,
following on from Hellenistic developments, and compares this with the urbanisation of
the Western empire under Roman rule.
Issues of identity and tacit resistance to Roman rule are explored in the papers by
Elsner (on religious identities, esp the role of the Ephesian Artemis) and Braund (on
Hellenism in the Black Coast area).
Rose’s paper on imperial portraits is useful for exploring the imperial image in the
east.
Blagg, T. F. C. & Millett, M. eds. The Early Roman Empire in the West (Oxbow, 1990)
This is a multi-authored collection of chapters on the subject of Roman relations
with the western part of the empire. Like most such collections, it includes some strong
chapters and some weak ones; and also some which are very relevant to this module and
some which are not. Most of the material of relevance to this module is aimed very much
at established experts, and may thus be difficult for A-level students to follow. In any
case, it also tends to represent quite out-of-date thinking – particularly the assumption
that there was ever such a thing as a single, static and easily-identifiable ‘Roman’ culture,
whose impact can easily be traced in the provinces (see notes below p. 34 on The issue of
‘Romanisation’ for the problems with this).
The most useful chapters are probably:
12. ‘Urban munificence and the growth of urban consciousness in Spain’. This
discusses the issues involved in using inscriptions as evidence, and focuses on the
experiences of provincials living under Roman rule, and their own reasons for adopting
the Roman practice of paying for urban public buildings. It will be valuable for
countering the common misconception that ‘the Romans’ marched into the provinces and
built cities for the grateful inhabitants.
14. ‘For better or worse? Towards an assessment of the economic and social
consequences of the Roman conquest of Gaul’. This is one of the few works to focus
directly on the social and economic consequences of incorporation into the empire - i.e.
the second bullet-point on the module specification.
Otherwise, though, the rest of this book is probably best left alone.
Macready S. & Thompson, F. H. Roman Architecture in the Greek World (Society of
Antiquaries, London, 1987)
A multi-authored collection with plenty of case-studies of the impact which the
incorporation of Greece and Asia Minor into the Roman empire had on the architecture of
these provinces. Most chapters do provide material relating to the first two bullet-points
on the module specification – particularly the relationship between local and ‘Roman’
identities, and the socio-economic effects of incorporation into the empire – with plenty
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
of concrete examples. The specific focus on architecture, though, may mean that this
material is too tangential to be of great use.
Mitchell, S. Anatolia. Lands Men and Gods in Asia Minor. Vol 1 (Clarendon Press,
1993)
This work, in two volumes, focuses on the history of Asia Minor, modern day
Turkey, from the Hellenistic to the Late Roman periods. Please note that it is volume I,
rather than volume II, which is of greater use for this topic. This contains section II,
entitled ‘The Impact of Roman Rule’. The most useful chapters are probably 7 on new
city foundations in Asia Minor, 8 on the Imperial Cult and 12 on civic life.
Price, S. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge
University Press, 1984)
Another volume which focuses on the imperial province of Asia to explore the
development of the imperial cult in the eastern empire (see further below). Price’s work
has become the standard reference work for the imperial cult in the East and contains a
useful chapter on how the imperial cult developed from Hellenistic ruler cults. He also
contains plenty of examples of how the cult was integrated into civic life and
architecture.
Aphrodisias webpage: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/aphrodisias/index2.html
Aphrodisias is a small town in the imperial province of Caria which flourished
under the Julio-Claudian emperors, having been made a free city by Augustus.
Excavations at the site are ongoing, under the direction of the Institute of Fine Art, New
York University. The website provides information and images on the excavations and
history of the site.
Particularly useful for this topic is the section on the Sebasteion, an imperial cult
complex started during the reign of the emperor Tiberius and completed under Nero. The
sculptures decorating the porticoes which led up to the temple include scenes of the
emperors and provinces with Greek mythological scenes and show how the city of
Aphrodisias represented her place within the Roman world.
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
2. INTRODUCTION TO THE SOURCES
This constitutes a general introduction to some of the main sources relevant to this
module. For detailed treatments of individual sources and passages, see thematic notes in
section 4, p. 20 ff.
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars (aka Lives of the Caesars)
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (born c. AD 69, died after AD 130), was an
equestrian who worked as imperial secretary for the emperors Trajan (AD 98-117) and
Hadrian (AD 117-138). He was a friend and correspondent of Pliny the Younger, who
secured favours for him. Pliny Letters 10.94-95 sees Pliny writing to Trajan to request
the ius trium liberorum (rights granted to parents of three children) for him, to which
Trajan agreed. By comparison with Pliny, Suetonius was both younger and occupied a
lower rung on the political ladder – while Pliny was a senator who rose to the position of
consul, Suetonius was merely an equestrian. Pliny is therefore the ‘senior partner’ in their
relationship, treating Suetonius as a protégé – but they were both very much members of
the educated elite of Rome, and describe each other as friends in their surviving letters.
Suetonius may have served on Pliny’s staff while Pliny was governor in Bithynia,
and certainly worked directly for the emperors Trajan and Hadrian in the AD 110s. The
posts which he held during this period were secretarial ones, involving him in
administrative tasks such as helping to handle the emperor’s correspondence (including
the same kind of letters as Pliny had written to Trajan from Bithynia in the previous
decade). Perhaps the most important consequence of this position for us is that Suetonius
had direct access to the imperial archives, including documents such as personal letters
from the time of Julius Caesar and Augustus. He drew on this material as he began
working on his Lives of the Caesars, sometimes quoting it directly in his biographies.
However, in AD 122, he seems to have been dismissed by Hadrian from the imperial
staff for behaving disrespectfully towards Hadrian’s wife, Sabina. He continued to
publish his Lives, but had now lost his privileged access to the archives, so that from
Nero onwards it is clear that he was restricted to using publicly-available source material.
This material (which he also used in the earlier Lives) would include senatorial decrees,
narrative histories already written by earlier authors and oral reports.
Suetonius is a member of the same generation as Pliny and Tacitus, and all three
very much share a similar perspective on the principate. As young men, they had lived
through the tyrannical reign of Domitian (AD 81-96), who had executed large numbers of
senators, encouraged people to report one another for treason, and generally made the
extent of his power and his willingness to abuse it very clear to the Roman aristocracy.
This means that all three authors were very aware of how the institution of the principate
could be abused. On the other hand, all were born a century after the end of the Republic.
The principate was well-established, and it would not have seemed a realistic or even
desirable option to them to dispense with rule by an emperor. Instead, as adults they are
keen to encourage and collaborate with Trajan in his efforts to create a better relationship
between the emperor and the senators / equestrians, in which the emperor is careful to
show respect for these groups, and to allow them to feel that they are playing a
meaningful role in the running of the empire.
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
In Suetonius’ writing (as in Tacitus’), all this translates into two noticeable traits:
1) a tendency to categorise emperors into ‘good’ sorts (like Trajan) and ‘bad’ sorts (like
Domitian), and 2) a degree to which he is writing his Lives of previous emperors as a sort
of ‘blueprint’ for the current emperor (Trajan) showing how he should and should not
behave. The perspective is very much that of the educated elite, so that emperors who
held treason trials and executed senators / equestrians (Tiberius, Gaius / Caligula,
Claudius, Nero and Domitian) are heavily criticised in all areas of their lives, even if
other evidence suggests that they were popular with the ordinary people, or managed the
provinces successfully. By contrast, those who treated the senatorial and equestrian
orders with respect get a much better deal – e.g. Augustus and Vespasian.
Because Suetonius, Pliny and Tacitus dominate our written record for the
emperors covered on this module, it can be very difficult to escape from their ‘good
emperors, bad emperors’ perspective in order to get a more rounded view. In this module,
students will need to think about provincial perspectives towards the emperors, and need
to be aware that these may have been very different from the attitudes of Suetonius. Some
relevant snippets do make their way into Suetonius’ narrative, though, even if they are
not the main focus of his interest. For example, the final chapter of his Life of Nero (ch.
57) reports that a Parthian king asked for Nero’s memory to be honoured, and that
someone came forth twenty years after Nero’s death claiming to be him (à la Elvis
Presley) – something that would only be worth doing if that person thought that some
people would be receptive to Nero’s re-appearance. Similarly, Domitian 8 credits
Domitian with ensuring exemplary standards of honesty and justice amongst city officials
and provincial governors.
It is also important to be aware that Suetonius is writing biography, not history.
The structure of the Lives is very broadly chronological, in that Suetonius usually begins
with his subject’s early life, and ends with their death. But the bulk of each biography is
usually thematic, grouping the emperor’s activity under headings such as building
activity, administration of justice, sexual activities, attitudes towards the games etc. In the
context of this module, this approach can be useful, since although Suetonius’ main
interest is in events in Rome, it does mean that there are often chapters focussing on an
emperor’s travels in the provinces, approaches to the imperial cult and military
campaigns – all relevant for this topic. Suetonius also places greater emphasis on the
private lives and personalities of the emperors than narrative historians like Tacitus and
Cassius Dio, but often from a very ‘gossipy’ perspective – he is quite happy to draw
freely on scurrilous rumours here, especially when it helps to support his portrayal of a
‘bad’ emperor.
Suetonius’ Lives are available in Penguin translation by Robert Graves, revised in
1979. An early 20th-century Loeb translation is also available online here:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/home.html
Pliny the Younger, Letters Book 10
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (born AD 61, died AD 112), was a successful
lawyer and politician. His uncle, Pliny the Elder (see notes under LACTOR 18, below p.
12), was a prominent equestrian and military commander, as well as a prolific author
(although only his encyclopedia, the Natural History, now survives). Pliny the Younger
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
spent time with his uncle during his boyhood, and witnessed the eruption of Mount
Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii in AD 79 from the naval base at Misenum, where his
uncle was commander. After his uncle’s death in the eruption, Pliny was made his chief
heir and adopted posthumously as his son – it was at this time that he took on the name
‘Plinius’ in addition to his own family name of ‘Caecilius’.
Pliny practised as a lawyer in Rome, and in his twenties made the step up from
the equestrian order (to which his uncle had belonged) into the senatorial order. From this
point onwards his political career was wide-ranging and extremely successful. He
steadily climbed his way through the offices of the cursus honorum (‘path of honour’, or
Roman career ladder), culminating in a consulship in AD 100. His main importance for
this module is as the governor of Bithynia-Pontus (a Greek-speaking province at the
mouth of the Black Sea), a position which he held from AD 110 until his death in 112.
From here, he corresponded regularly with Trajan about local events in his province,
reporting on problems and seeking advice on how to handle them. These letters, collected
in book 10 of Pliny’s Letters, constitute the best surviving evidence for the day-to-day
workings of Roman provincial government available from the imperial period.
It is clear that Pliny intended his Letters for publication, since he refers to the
process of selecting and publishing them in Letters 1.1 at the beginning of the collection.
This means that we are not dealing with a straightforward and un-self-conscious glimpse
into Roman elite life here. We must assume that Pliny has selected, arranged and
probably also polished the letters in order to paint the best possible portrait of himself as
the ideal Roman elite male. As such, the letters provide valuable insights into the
attitudes, priorities and concerns of such a person – but only of such a person as a public
figure, not as a private individual.
Book 10 (the correspondence with Trajan) was presumably compiled and
published by a friend, since the letters come to an abrupt halt when Pliny died, still in
office, in Bithynia-Pontus in AD 112, and he would not have had the opportunity to
publish them himself. Nevertheless, he had already begun publishing his other letters by
this time, so was presumably both writing and preserving his letters to Trajan as he went
along with the assumption that they, too, would be published eventually. Thus, the
impression of Pliny in the letters as a conscientious and fair-minded governor is very
much the product of a self-conscious display – though of course that does not mean that it
was not also true.
Perhaps surprisingly, the collection also includes Trajan’s replies to Pliny, which
would have been written either by the emperor himself or with his approval by an
imperial secretary (of the same kind as Suetonius – see above p. 6). Trajan must have
known that Pliny hoped to publish these, and the publication could only have gone ahead
with his agreement – so, again, the impression of Trajan created by the letters is a
carefully self-crafted one, designed to portray him as a caring, yet firm, emperor.
Pliny’s Letters are probably best accessed through Betty Radice’s translation for
Penguin Classics. They are also available online at http://www.bartleby.com/9/4/ - scroll
down to find the correspondence with Trajan.
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
LACTOR 8: Inscriptions of the Roman Empire
Some general notes about dealing with inscriptions are offered here. Issues arising
from specific inscriptions within this collection are discussed in the thematic notes below.
Uses – inscriptions were used in the Roman empire for a wide variety of purposes
and on a wide variety of materials. ‘Permanent’ inscriptions on stone and bronze tended
to be used for: recording the texts of decrees, edicts or official letters (both those
generated by the local council and those coming from Rome itself); recording religious
rituals or laws; honouring the gods; honouring particular individuals; recording the
construction of buildings; commemorating the dead; milestones on major roads;
recording treaties or other legal arrangements; recording status (e.g. a soldier’s
completion of military service). Painted notices were also used – these do not tend to
survive as well, but are mentioned in literary texts and were found in large numbers at
Pompeii. These might be used for local record-keeping, advertisements, election notices
and shop signs. Personal possessions might be stamped with the name of the craftsman or
manufacturer during production, and might also then have the name of their own
scratched onto them once purchased. Finally, graffiti was also widespread, and again is
particularly well-attested at Pompeii.
The ‘epigraphic habit’ – the practice of inscribing texts on stone, bronze or other
materials – is one which not all cultures share. In Rome, it appears from about the 6 th
century BC onwards, but really takes off in the late Republican and imperial periods,
when there is enough disposable wealth to sustain it and it is being used as a means of
displaying and competing for status. It was established in the Greek-speaking eastern part
of the empire well before these areas were incorporated into the Roman empire, and was
used there in much the same contexts as in Rome. So it is no great surprise to see it
continuing to be used in the Greek-speaking provinces under Roman rule: usually, though
not always, for texts written in the Greek language. In the west, though, the habit of
setting up inscriptions was introduced by the Romans – so western provincials are
aligning themselves with Roman practices when they choose to set up inscriptions
themselves. This is reflected in the fact that the language of inscriptions in the west is
almost always Latin.
Practicalities – inscriptions on any material are expensive and time-consuming to
create. Therefore, the very fact that someone has taken the trouble to have any given text
inscribed instantly alerts us to the fact that it must be of great importance to the person or
people who commissioned it – students should think in these terms when interpreting
inscriptions. Inscriptions may also be incomplete due to damage. Quite often, missing
parts of the text can be reconstructed with reasonable accuracy, because they follow
formulas known from other inscriptions – e.g. the full titles of a particular emperor. This
is usually indicated in printed publications by placing [square brackets] around words
which have been reconstructed via educated guesswork. Students should be aware that
text printed in square brackets is open to interpretation.
Design and context – inscriptions are not just words, but physical objects, and the
arrangement of the text, the sculptural decoration around it (sometimes including images,
especially on religious or funerary inscriptions) and the location where the inscription
was originally set up all add to its meaning. E.g. on building inscriptions, honorific
inscriptions and funerary inscriptions, the name of the person whose life / actions are
being commemorated is usually written in larger letters than the rest of the text for
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
maximum impact (see also issues of literacy, below). Honorific inscriptions often served
as ‘labels’ for statues (now usually lost) set up on plinths, so that readers could associate
the text with an image of the person; similarly funerary inscriptions were often
accompanied by busts of the deceased and sometimes other images reflecting their
interests, profession or family relationships. The locations of honorific inscriptions, too,
were important – much status was attached to having an honorific inscription in a busy,
central location such as the forum or agora. Finally, many inscriptions were actually set
up in such a way that they could not easily be read – e.g. a small text high up a wall or in
a shadowy location. This relates to issues of literacy and the extent to which it mattered
whether inscriptions could be read or not – see below. Ideally, try to track down pictures
of inscriptions and information about their original context when using them, in order to
gain the maximum understanding of how they were originally intended to be seen. This
will not always be possible, though, as many inscriptions have been separated from their
original context either by reuse or by early modern scholars who did not think context
was important. Often the stone itself has also been lost, so that we only have the text as
recorded by those same early modern scholars.
Literacy and power – it always needs to be remembered that the majority of
people living in the Roman empire could not read inscriptions. Estimates of literacy
levels vary – specific levels will have varied in any case between e.g. large cities and
rural villages, and in practice there will be a ‘spectrum’ of literacy between the highlyeducated elite and e.g. tradesmen who could make out a receipt but not read Virgil. But a
ball-park figure of about 10% literacy on average is probably generous. This means that
the specific detail of most inscriptions is aimed above all at the educated elite. But it does
not mean that it had no significance for more ordinary people. Texts which concerned the
whole community, such as imperial edicts, would have been read out by a town official in
the forum or agora before being inscribed, so that the inscription would then serve to
remind people who could not actually read it of what they had heard orally. Those not
present at the original reading might later be prompted by seeing an inscription to ask
others what it meant. Thus, the text continued to be transmitted, even to and by those who
could not actually read it. Furthermore, the very act of being able to inscribe words in a
very permanent form on stone or bronze expresses power and technological
sophistication as well. So provincial populations would feel in awe of local notables or
Roman officials who had inscribed texts set up in their community, while the permanence
of the medium might engender a sense of the strength and stability of the current social
and political hierarchy.
LACTOR 15: Dio: the Julio-Claudians
Cassius Dio (born c. AD 160s, died after AD 229) lived a century after Suetonius
and Pliny. In the context of this module, this means that he was looking back on the core
period with hindsight, rather than living through parts of it as they did. His Roman
History was originally 80 books long, and traced the history of Rome from its foundation
to his own day. The relevant books for this module are 57 (Tiberius) to 69 (Hadrian).
They are not completely intact – books 61-69 in particular survive only as epitomes, i.e.
shortened ‘Reader’s Digest’-style summaries of Dio’s original text, made by Byzantine
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scholars in the 11th and 12th centuries. But they preserve a solid, chronologicallystructured narrative history of our period.
Dio came from a prominent Greek family in the Roman province of BithyniaPontus (i.e. the same one that Pliny had governed a century before). Although ethnically
Greek, he held Roman citizenship, and was thus able to pursue a senatorial career in
Rome. He was a successful politician, who held the consulship twice and also served as a
provincial governor in Africa, Dalmatia and Upper Pannonia during the AD 220s.
Dio appears to have been a careful historian, who read widely amongst the works
of earlier historians who do not now survive to us, and used them as the sources for his
history. However, he was writing between one and two centuries after our core period,
and this sometimes means that he views it anachronistically. For example, he treats the
institution of the principate as though it had been introduced wholesale by Augustus in 27
BC in the form in which he knew it during the AD 190s to 220s, and does not really
recognise that both Augustus and the Julio-Claudian emperors who succeeded him had to
develop and consolidate their powers gradually through a process of negotiation with the
senate, army and people.
Like Suetonius, Tacitus and Pliny, Dio also suffers rather from a ‘good emperors,
bad emperors’ perspective. This is partly something he must have picked up from earlier
written sources, including Tacitus and Suetonius, but also something that was shaped by
his own experience. While Suetonius, Tacitus and Pliny had lived through the tyranny of
Domitian and into the much more measured reign of Trajan, Dio has similarly lived
through the tyranny of Commodus and the Civil Wars which followed it, and into the
much more measured reign of Septimius Severus. Again, then, Dio tends to make strong
black-and-white judgements of previous emperors based on how well or badly they
treated the senatorial aristocracy, and is also writing his Roman History partly with the
agenda of creating a blueprint which will help to guide Septimius and his successors
towards what Dio sees as desirable imperial behaviour.
Dio’s work is also strongly influenced by the fact that he was a trained orator: as
for all senators, making polished speeches was an essential element in his career. He
frequently inserts speeches into his narrative – for example on important occasions in the
senate, or when leaders are addressing their troops before a battle. It is important for
students to understand that these are opportunities for Dio to demonstrate his speechwriting skills, not accurate reports of what was actually said by the characters speaking.
In many cases, it is highly unlikely to Dio would have had access to the text of any such
speech as originally delivered – this applies, for example, to Boudicca’s speeches to her
people in book 62, chapters 3-6 (see notes on Provincial rebellions, below p. 37).
Meanwhile, even when he may have been able to read the original text of a speech (e.g.
one delivered in the senate at Rome), it is clear that he felt free to rework and embellish it
in order to create a highly-polished literary product, reflecting his own attitudes and
interests and giving colour to his history.
The entirety of the surviving text of the Roman History is available online in an
out-of-copyright
Loeb
translation
at
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html
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LACTOR 18: The High Tide of Empire: Emperors and Empire AD 14 - 117
This source-book is a compilation of a variety of different types of primary
evidence arranged by theme, with accompanying commentary. The commentary sets
most entries in context, while the notes above on Cassius Dio (p. 10) and the use of
inscriptions (p. 9) should provide further guidance. Brief notes on some of the other
sources used widely in the book follow below:
Dio of Prusa (also known as either Dio Cocceianus or Dio Chrysostom =
‘golden-tongue’) – a Greek orator of the late first / early second century AD (i.e. a
contemporary of Suetonius and Pliny the Younger). He originated from Prusa in Bithynia
(Pliny’s province), but moved to Rome as a young man. He was then exiled first from
Rome and then from Bithynia for criticising Domitian and his family, so travelled
through Greek-speaking provinces such as Thrace, Mysia and Scythia. On the accession
of Nerva (AD 96), he regained imperial favour, and flourished under Trajan. He then
returned home to Prusa, and involved himself in local politics there – this was during
Pliny’s time as governor of Bithynia, and indeed Pliny Letters 10.81-82 concern a local
dispute about a library and colonnade which Dio had paid for. Dio’s own surviving works
are publications of the political and philosophical speeches which he delivered, and
provide insight into the world of local politics in the Greek-speaking world. He reveals
hotly-contested rivalries, a great deal of pride in local identities, and the need for Greek
elites to negotiate a careful path in their relationship with Roman officials. In literary
terms, he is considered part of the ‘Second Sophistic’ – a flourishing of Greek rhetorical
speaking and writing which peaked in the second century AD, and was used by the
educated Greek elite as a means of revisiting and recalling the glories of their Classical
past (see notes on Regional identities, below p. 42).
Titus Flavius Josephus – a Jewish writer (originally named Joseph ben Matthias)
who wrote in Greek. He was a priest from Jerusalem who fought against the Romans in
the Jewish rebellion of AD 66-73 (see notes on Provincial rebellions, below p. 37), but
was captured by them in 67. In 69 he was released, and then served a role negotiating
between the Romans (led by the future emperor Titus) and the Jewish rebels during the
siege of Jerusalem in AD 70. As a reward for his services, he was granted Roman
citizenship by Titus in AD 71, took the Roman names ‘Titus Flavius’ in honour of his
patron, and moved to Rome where he turned his attention to writing. His two main
surviving works are The Jewish War (written c. AD 75), a history of the Jewish revolt
against Rome in which he had fought, and Jewish Antiquities (written c. AD 93/4), a
history of the world from a Jewish perspective. The Jewish War in particular constitutes
an eye-witness report of a major provincial rebellion – but it also reflects the fact that he
had switched allegiance from the rebels to their conquerors by the time he wrote it. Thus
he has three distinct agendas: 1) to glorify the role of Roman commanders in the war, and
particularly the Flavian emperors who had become his patrons; 2) to counter widespread
hostility towards the Jews by blaming the rebellion on a small minority of fanatical and
corrupt individuals; 3) to excuse and justify his own surrender to the Romans while his
fellow-soldiers had committed suicide in order to avoid it.
Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) – an equestrian from a northern Italian
family who enjoyed a successful military career and was a prolific writer. He was the
uncle of Pliny the Younger, and adopted him as his son in his will. Between his military
duties and later service as a procurator (a provincial official responsible for financial
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administration) he spent time in Germany, Gaul, Spain and north Africa, but he also spent
much time in Rome, particularly under Nero during the AD 60s. In AD 79 he was
commander of the naval fleet stationed at Misenum on the Bay of Naples. From there, he
witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, and died
of asphyxiation after crossing the bay to a friend’s villa at Stabiae and becoming stranded
there. His only surviving work is the Natural History, completed c. AD 77. This is a 37volume encyclopedia, organised by themes (e.g. geography, botany, zoology,
pharmacology, mineralogy). The information in it is digested from Pliny’s voracious
reading (reported by his nephew in Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.5), sometimes
accompanied by authorial comments from Pliny containing his own opinions on the
subject-matter at hand. It preserves a wealth of information about the peoples, customs,
and natural resources of the provinces.
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3. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The empire
During the period covered by this module, the Roman empire reached its greatest
physical extent. Large swathes of new territory had been conquered during the previous
century by Republican generals who were keen to outdo one another in the military arena
in order to secure political power and support in Rome. This behaviour tailed off once the
principate (see below p. 15) was established, but was still going on to some extent
throughout the period covered by the module. Key campaigns include Claudius’ conquest
of Britain (AD 43, followed by further efforts by Vespasian and Domitian to extend
Roman control there) and Trajan’s campaigns in Dacia (modern Rumania, 101-2 and
105-6) and Parthia (modern Iran,114-117). This means that the Romans still think of
themselves as conquering people during this period, and they certainly still idealise the
waging of wars (see further Frontier and defence policies, below p. 32). In practice,
though, the empire’s frontiers are gradually stabilising in this era.
The most important thing to recognise about the Roman empire in this period is
that it was immensely diverse. It was full of communities of people who spoke different
languages from one another, worshipped different gods, followed different customs and
had been incorporated into the empire at different times. Probably the most significant
division was between the Greek-speaking provinces of the east (Greece itself, Thrace,
Asia Minor, the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, Egypt and Cyrene), and the rather
more diverse provinces of the west (Spain, Gaul, Britain, the Alpine and Danubian
provinces, Africa and Mauretania). The eastern provinces were relatively coherently
bound together thanks to a shared history which included Greek colonisation in the 8th to
6th centuries BC, incorporation into the empire founded by Alexander the Great and his
successors, and the consequent spread of the Greek language throughout the area. But
even so they were not homogeneous – e.g. Egypt, which had only been conquered in 30
BC and which still maintained many customs and practices from the time of the
pharaohs, was very different from mainland Greece, which had become part of the
Roman empire in 146 BC and had been the homeland of Classical democracy. In general,
though, provinces in the eastern part of the empire already boasted sophisticated cities,
political structures, literature etc. well before Rome came anywhere near them, and these
traditions were for the most part carefully and indeed proudly maintained under Roman
rule. In particular, Greek remained the predominant language of this part of the empire
throughout the imperial period.
The western provinces were much less unified. North Africa and the
Mediterranean coast of Spain had been colonised by the Phoenicians. Their most
successful foundation had been Carthage, which became Rome’s rival in the Punic wars
(‘Punic’ is just another word for ‘Phoenician), but was finally defeated during the 2nd
century BC. The southern coast of Gaul had also seen some Greek colonisation, and was
incorporated into the Roman empire late in the 2nd cent BC. But inland Spain, Gaul,
Germany and Britain were essentially occupied by tribal peoples before their conquest by
Rome. These people sometimes cooperated together, especially when faced with Roman
armies in their territory, but normally operated in small units led by kings or chieftains.
Their conquest occurred over the course of the first century BC (inland Spain and Gaul)
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or during the first century AD (Britain); Germany saw ongoing efforts throughout this
period, but always remained a military zone. Despite the colonising efforts of the
Phoenicians and Greeks, the western part of the empire lagged far behind the east in
terms of urbanisation, with the European tribal peoples still living for the most part in
villages and hill-forts at the time of their conquest. Since the institution of the city was
essential to Roman methods of government and administration (see Local government,
below p. 29), widespread urbanisation was necessary for the western provinces to
function effectively within the empire. The impetus for this seems to have arisen from a
combination of Roman encouragement and local enthusiasm (see The issue of
‘Romanisation’, below p. 34). The official language of this part of the empire was Latin,
but graffiti, personal names etc, show that local languages still persisted.
Italy, meanwhile, was not a province. Unlike the rest of the empire, no governor
was appointed to govern Italy, and nor were its people expected to pay taxes to Rome.
This reflects the much older relationship which the various communities of Italy had with
Rome. Its peoples had gradually either been conquered or entered into alliances with
Rome over the course of several centuries, until Rome held control of one sort of another
over the entire region. The relationship between Rome and the communities of Italy was
rationalised in the first century BC, when all Italian peoples were granted Roman
citizenship en masse. After this, Italy functioned rather like an extension of Rome itself,
enjoying a privileged status at the centre of the empire which the provinces beyond it did
not share.
Imperial and Senatorial provinces
During the period of the Roman Republic all the provinces were ruled by
governors chosen from among the leading men of the senate. However, in 27 BC the first
emperor, Augustus, was granted command over the provinces of Spain, Gaul, Syria and
Egypt (i.e. those holding the majority of the legions) for 10 years and later (in 23 BC)
was given imperium proconsulare maius (power greater than that of a proconsul) which
gave him the right to intervene in provinces not formally under his authority.
From the time of Augustus onwards (i.e. the entire period covered by this option)
the provinces were divided into senatorial (or ‘public’) and imperial provinces. In
senatorial provinces the governor was appointed from amongst the ex-consuls or expraetors in the senate by lot and ruled as a proconsul (see also Senators in government
and administration, below p. 22). In imperial provinces the emperor would directly
select a legatus to govern on his behalf. Like the proconsuls of the other provinces this
was a man of senatorial rank, either an ex-praetor or ex-consul, depending on the size of
the province. One exception was the province of Egypt which was entrusted instead to a
Prefect of Equestrian rank, apparently because of the necessity of keeping the province in
hands loyal to the emperor, given its importance as Rome’s main source of grain. Both
types of province were subject to the laws passed by the senate and they could equally
appeal to the emperor, as we see from the imperial edicts issued to both types of
provinces. In general imperial provinces were those where the majority of troops were
stationed, giving the emperor more direct control of the army.
There were also some differences in the financial regulation of the two types of
province. In senatorial provinces a quaestor appointed by lot from the senate was in
charge of overseeing the collection of taxes (see further below, p. 21) and payment of the
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troops. In imperial provinces imperial procurators carried out this role, these were usually
men of Equestrian rank or occasionally imperial freedmen.
Client kingdoms
The borders of the Roman Empire were not clear cut and in the east in particular
some provinces were bordered by areas which were tied to Rome by loyalty but were not
directly ruled via governors. These have become known as client kingdoms. Their kings
ruled with the support of Rome and were often chosen directly by the emperor. When a
client king died a new king could be appointed or the area taken into direct rule by Rome.
Sometimes the king was a member of the local ruling dynasty, though a member of a new
family, such as Herod in Judaea, could be appointed if he was seen to be more loyal. The
main requirement was loyalty to Rome and the man or woman chosen was the direct
choice of the emperor. Although many client kingdoms subsequently became part of the
Roman Empire, it was also possible for them to become client states again later (e.g.
Judaea was ruled by a procurator from 6 to 41 AD but then by Herod’s grandson until
AD 44). It is unlikely that client kingdoms paid taxes, but since client kings funded their
own armies a major economic burden of directly-ruled provinces was removed.
Many of the kings appointed to such thrones had already lived much of the lives
at Rome. Allied kings often sent their sons to Rome for education, so that by the time the
successor was confirmed by Rome, he had already taken on Roman customs and
demonstrated his loyalty. Suetonius Augustus 48 describes Augustus’ treatment of such
kingdoms and says that Augustus brought up the children of these kings alongside his
own. Of course, such children could also serve as hostages to ensure the continued
goodwill of their fathers towards the Roman state. Herod I, King of Judaea during the
rule of Augustus sent his sons to Rome for their education and during the reign of
Tiberius a number of Parthian princes were apparently resident at Rome: Tiberius sent
first Phraates and then Tiridates as candidates for the Parthian throne when the ruling
Parthian king began to act against Rome (Cassius Dio, Roman History 58.26.1-4 =
LACTOR 18, no. 46).
The history of Armenia provides a good example of the important role client
kingdoms could play in mediating between the Roman empire and powers outside it.
Armenia lay between the Roman and Parthian empires and each side sought to exert their
authority. Under Nero the Roman general Corbulo was active in the area and had a
number of military successes before a member of the Parthian royal family, Tiridates,
was proclaimed as king and lavishly enthroned in Rome in AD 66 (Cassius Dio, Roman
History 62.19-23 = LACTOR 18, no. 47). A later attempt by the Parthian king to impose
his own nominee to the Armenian throne in AD 113 resulted in Roman intervention
during Trajan’s Parthian War (Cassius Dio, Roman History 68.17-23 = LACTOR 18,
no. 60). Armenia was briefly made a Roman province, though it was soon relinquished
by Hadrian.
The emperor and the principate
Useful reading on this topic: Goodman 1997: 87-92
The system of rule by emperor in Rome is usually called the ‘principate’, based
on the Latin word princeps which the first emperor, Augustus, selected to describe his
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unique position in the state. Princeps means ‘leading man’, with the same sort of nuances
as our phrase ‘first among equals’, and this reveals a great deal about the characteristics
of the position. Although in our period, rule by emperor was firmly established, and not
likely to be challenged in itself, individual emperors still had to be careful to show
respect for the trappings of the Republican system, with its emphasis on the sharing of
power amongst the Roman aristocracy, which they had inherited. Above all, this meant
allowing the senators to feel that they were still playing an active role in the government
of the Roman empire. Emperors who failed to do this laid themselves open to criticism,
and could find that their position in power was challenged.
The senate as a body, though, had relatively little power to take direct action
against an emperor whom they disliked, as they did not have any collective control over
the army. The real basis of the emperors’ power (again going back to Augustus) was his
control over the Roman legions, whose members swore an oath of loyalty to the reigning
emperor when they entered the army and knew perfectly well that their regular pay and
retirement pensions depended on him. Most legions were based in the provinces, and
especially along the frontiers, where their job was to ensure the security of the empire,
deal with any rebellions which might occur, and also assist the provincial governor in
what we would view as ‘civilian’ jobs such as building roads or dealing with criminals.
But one particularly important branch of the army was based in Rome – this was the
Praetorian Guard, who had special responsibility for protecting the emperor in his role as
the ultimate commander of the Roman armies.
Challenges to the power of an individual emperor therefore could be mounted by
anyone able to get a substantial portion of the army on their side – especially the
Praetorian Guard. Such people were typically individual senators who had been given the
responsibility of governing a province, and thus had immediate command over the
legions stationed within it (though always under the overall command of the emperor).
Their method of operating was to get their troops to declare them imperator (which
means ‘commander’ and not ‘emperor’ – that is a false friend), and then use armed force
to support a bid for power, ideally culminating in their official recognition as princeps by
the senate in Rome. But such bids generally only occurred if the challenger perceived that
the reigning emperor had already become seriously unpopular with one or more of the
key social groups whose support he needed: the army itself, the ordinary people of Rome,
the aristocracy of Rome (i.e. the senatorial and equestrian orders) or the population of the
provinces. If this had happened, the usurper knew that he had a reasonable chance of
winning people over to his cause, and thus acquiring the necessary armed support and
recognition from the senate necessary to become princeps. In our period, this happened in
particular at the end of the reign of Nero and several times during the year of Civil Wars
which followed it.
Emperors who made themselves unpopular could also be challenged closer to
home. In our period, Gaius Caligula, Galba and Domitian were all assassinated – the first
two by members of the Praetorian Guard, and the last by members of the palace
household. In all three cases, this was because they had made themselves widely
unpopular, especially with the aristocratic elite who had suffered widespread and often
arbitrary executions at their hands. Conversely, the status of the Praetorian Guard as the
only armed soldiery in Rome meant that their support could also make emperors –
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Claudius was appointed by them after the assassination of Gaius Caligula (Suetonius,
Claudius 10 and Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.1 = LACTOR 15, C1).
A successful emperor therefore needed to work hard at all times to secure the
support of the four key groups: army, people, aristocracy and provincials. Methods of
doing this included:
 For the army – ensuring regular pay, adding cash bonuses whenever possible
and leading victorious military campaigns (always followed by hand-outs of
booty)
 For the ordinary people – generous provision of games, grain, largesse
(handouts of money) and casual labour (mainly in building projects) in Rome.
See e.g. Claudius’ measures to improve the grain supply after rioting during a
food shortage in Rome – Suetonius, Life of Claudius 18-20.
 For the Roman aristocracy – treating them with respect, ensuring that they felt
included in the work of government, demonstrating popularity with the other
key groups, emphasising legitimacy (usually by stressing their connections
with previous emperors).
 For provincial populations – regular travel, preventing corruption in provincial
administration, establishing good infrastructures where necessary (e.g. roads,
aqueducts), funding building projects in provincial cities.
On the other hand, certain behaviour was bound to cause unpopularity. This
included:
 Appearing to be uninterested in or incapable of leading successful military
campaigns. See e.g. Suetonius, Caligula 46 for Gaius’ abortive attempt to
lead a conquest of Britain, and the humiliation suffered by his soldiers as a
result.
 Extravagant spending, especially on the emperor’s personal pleasures rather
than the needs of the people or the state. See e.g. Suetonius, Nero 31 –for
criticism of Nero’s extravagant ‘Golden House’ (Domus Aurea).
 Showing disdain for the senate, and in particular encouraging an atmosphere
of informants and treason trials. See e.g. Suetonius, Tiberius 61 for Tiberius’
treason trials. Behaving like a god also attracted criticism, particularly because
it was too reminiscent of eastern-style kings. See e.g. Suetonius, Caligula 22.
 Allowing the mistreatment of provincial populations: the rebellions of
Boudicca in Britain (AD 60) and the Jewish population in Judaea (AD 66)
were major contributors to Nero’s downfall.
The emperors who reigned during our period break down into four distinct groups
as follows:
The Julio-Claudian emperors (Tiberius, Gaius Caligula, Claudius and Nero).
These emperors were all related in some way or other to the first emperor, Augustus –
this was the basis of their legitimacy, and also their popularity (at least until they had
been around long enough to be judged unworthy of his memory!). The family tree was
complex, and the relationships therefore rather convoluted: Tiberius was Augustus’ stepson; Gaius Caligula was his great-grandson; Claudius was his step-grandson and also his
great-nephew; and Nero was his great-great-grandson.
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The Civil War emperors (Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian). These are
usurpers who took advantage of Nero’s unpopularity to make a series of rival bids for the
principacy. Galba and Vitellius were provincial governors, and hence had control of large
armies, while Vespasian was a military commander sent to deal with the rebellion which
broke out in Judaea in AD 66. These three thus all used their armies to support their bids
for power. The odd one out is Otho, a senatorial candidate appointed after Galba had
been murdered by the Praetorian Guard. However, he had no real support amongst the
army, so did not last long when Vitellius turned up in Rome with troops behind him.
The Flavian dynasty (Vespasian, Titus and Domitian). This group consists of the
last of the Civil War emperors (Vespasian), and his two sons: the elder, but short-lived
Titus and his younger brother Domitian. Vespasian held onto power where his rivals had
failed essentially by doing a better job than they had at securing the favour of all the
important groups (people, army, provincials, aristocracy) when he came to power. It also
helped that he had two sons who were already old enough to be put forward into political
life straight away. This meant that Vespasian could present himself as a guarantor of
stability, since his two sons would be the obvious legitimate heirs to power after his
death, so there would be no need for civil wars to determine who would become emperor
after him.
The senatorial emperors (Nerva and Trajan). The Flavian dynasty came to an end
when Domitian proved himself a tyrant and was assassinated. After this the senate
appointed Nerva as their own favoured candidate – unlike Otho in the Civil War, he was
accepted by the armies, at least after he had adopted a brilliant young military general,
Trajan, as his son and therefore successor. Nerva himself died after two years, allowing
Trajan to succeed smoothly, and go on to do a very good job indeed of making himself
universally popular with all the key groups in the Roman empire
Over the period covered by the module as a whole, a gradual development in the
backgrounds of the emperors can also be traced, and reflects the increasing integration of
the provincial elites into the process of governing the empire. The Julio-Claudians came
from the old Roman aristocracy – i.e. the families who had dominated Roman politics
during the Republican period. But they themselves drew new people into the system of
power by allowing certain wealthy provincials who had been granted Roman citizenship
to enter into the senate. Claudius took a particularly strong step in this direction by
extending the right of senatorial status to Roman citizens from the northern half of Gaul
(see LACTOR 8 no. 34 for an inscribed copy of the speech Claudius made proposing
this measure, set up in gratitude at Lugdunum (modern Lyon)). Vespasian represents a
step away from the old systems of power, as he came from an Italian family with its
origins in Reate, so was not part of the old Roman aristocracy. But Trajan was the
ultimate result of the increasing inclusiveness of the senate, as his family origins were in
Spain.
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4. THEMATIC NOTES
4.1. MECHANISMS OF GOVERNMENT
The emperor and the provinces
NB See separate section at 4.3 on The image of the emperor, p. 46 for the
dissemination of the emperor’s image and provincial responses to the emperor
A key difference between Roman emperors and modern politicians is that their
approach to government was essentially reactive, rather the proactive. In other words,
emperors did not look at the empire and think, “Now, what could I do to make people’s
lives better in Gaul?” Rather, they waited for people to bring problems to their attention,
and then responded to them.
A good text for gaining an insight into the way emperors functioned is Suetonius,
Vespasian 21. This is a description of Vespasian’s daily round, which nicely illustrates
his essentially reactive approach to government. His time is spent responding to letters,
reports, friends who bring business to his attention and members of his household who
request favours of him. In other words, his main prompts to action, whether regarding the
affairs of the provinces or immediate issues in the city of Rome, come in the form of
requests from other people, whether by correspondence or in person. Note also that the
passage reveals a very personal style of government, based on direct interaction with
individuals, many of whom are also friends or members of the household. Vespasian does
not attempt to establish a ‘work-life’ balance – he carries out the business of government
while dressing and over dinner, and does not draw sharp distinctions between friends and
colleagues. Being emperor is a full-time role, not a job. See also Goodman 1997: 87-92
for the way in which they approached the job of government.
The consequence is that most provincial communities would have to approach the
emperor themselves if they wanted his intervention in the problems which they were
facing. If they did not make such an approach, his default assumption would be that they
were getting on perfectly well under the observation of their provincial governor, and did
not need his interference.
The most effective way for a provincial community to get what they wanted from
an emperor would be to send an embassy, since this would mean they could ensure direct
person-to-person contact with the emperor – very much the sort of approach that the
personal style of rule revealed in the Suetonius passage would favour. A good example of
a successful embassy is attested on an inscription at Volubilis in Mauretania (LACTOR
8, no. 32 part b). This inscription was set up to honour a local citizen, Marcus Valerius
Severus, who conducted a successful embassy to the emperor Claudius (‘because of his
services to the state and the success of his mission’). This embassy was conducted in the
wake of a local rebellion, led by a figure named Aedemon, during which the inscription
also reveals that Severus had commanded auxiliary troops fighting against Aedemon – in
other words, he had fought on behalf of Rome to help suppress a rebellion. This, then,
was a man to whom the Roman state owed a favour, and he apparently went to Rome to
call in that favour on behalf of the people of Volubilis. The inscription lays out the
concessions which he secured for the town from Claudius – Roman citizenship, marriage
rights with foreign women (i.e. if those who have just received Roman citizen status
marry non-citizens, their children will still be citizens), tax break for ten years, new
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settlers, and the property of people who had been killed in the rebellion and left no heirs.
These are all very valuable benefits which Severus’ fellow townsfolk would indeed have
been glad of – as we can tell by the fact that they set up and inscription recording their
gratitude. The rulings about tax-breaks and citizenship also represent issues which go
beyond the competence of the local provincial governor to decide upon – hence the need
to send Severus on an embassy all the way to Rome.
Another example is at LACTOR 18, no. 149 – here, Marcus Servilius Draco
Albucianus from Gigthis in Africa twice undertook embassies to Rome in order to
petition for the greater Latin right for the community. This would mean that all
councillors in the city received Roman citizenship (see below p. 21 under Provincial
taxation for the benefits of this), and was eventually granted.
If a community lacked the resources to send an embassy, the next best thing
would be to send a letter to the emperor. For examples of correspondence between
provincial communities and the emperor, see LACTOR 18, no. 231 (discussed under
Provincial taxation, below p. 21).
Provincial taxation
Useful reading on this topic: Goodman 1997: 100-101.
Provincials were subject to two main forms of taxation from Rome: the tributum
soli (land-tax) and the tributum capitis (head-tax, i.e. poll tax). Roman citizens were
exempt from the poll tax – one of the reasons why grants of citizenship were so desirable.
State taxes were collected via a ‘filter-up’ system. Local civic councils had
responsibility for collecting payments from the individuals under their administrative
control, using census records and land-holding records to do so. They then paid the
money to tax-collectors working under contract to the Roman state (publicani). These
people had ‘bought’ the right to collect the taxes from the provincial procurator – a state
official in charge of the finances of the province. The money actually received by Rome
was therefore in the form of direct payments from the publicani, who recouped the
money (plus a profit for carrying out the work) by collecting the actual taxes from the
cities (see e.g. LACTOR 18 no. 117 for some regulations concerning their work at
Ephesus). Inevitably, the publicani were unpopular, the main complaints against them
being that they were collecting more tax than had been authorised and / or using violent
methods to do so (see LACTOR 18 nos. 118 and 132). Corrupt governors might also
turn a blind eye to this in return for bribes (for more on corruption, see Senators in
government and administration, below p. 22).
The levels of state taxation varied from province to province – see e.g. Hyginus at
LACTOR 18 no. 114. Hyginus was a land-surveyor, whose job was to divide up land in
the territory of cities (a process known as centuriation), e.g. for distribution amongst
colonists, and record the size and ownership of the plots (or ‘centuries’). Records of landholdings produced by the surveyors were then used by the cities as a basis for taxation –
this is why Hyginus is interested in taxation practices and recommends different
surveying methods for land which will or will not be subject to taxation.
Issues concerning taxation are frequently the subject of correspondence between
provincial cities and the emperor – e.g. LACTOR 18 no. 231, a letter from Titus to the
local authorities at Munigua (Spain) in response to an appeal made to him by them. The
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city has clearly requested exemption from paying taxes to Sempronius Pollio, a local
publicanus, claiming they are too poor. But Titus points out the former provincial
governor, Sempronius Fuscus (who has only just left office), had passed a judgement
saying that they should pay these taxes and that their appeal was unjustified. He thus
asserts the authority of himself and his governors, but then turns to a more lenient
approach – i.e. one which will smooth things over and ensure a good relationship
between Munigua and Rome. He lets them off fifty thousand sesterces of the payment
and writes to Gallicanus (the new provincial governor) to instruct him to waive the
interest on their payment to Pollio. Thus Titus has not actually agreed to Munigua’s
appeal, but has found a compromise position. From the fact that they set up his letter on
bronze tablets in their town, we can assume that his approach was seen favourably by
them.
Civic councils could also collect their own taxes. These are not as welldocumented as state taxes, since they were a local affair and our sources are focussed
mainly on Rome and the concerns of the Roman state. But we do find occasional
references to them – e.g. LACTOR 18 no. 99, a letter from Vespasian to the community
of Sabora in Spain. Here, Sabora have clearly been granted the right to collect indirect
taxes (e.g. customs duties) in the past by Augustus. Vespasian now confirms this right,
but says that if they want to levy any other taxes, they will have to take this up with the
provincial governor (the proconsul), since Vespasian has not heard any counter-argument
against the proposal, and does not know enough about the local region to make a
judgement on the basis of what the Saborenses alone have said.
Senators in government and administration
Useful reading on this topic: Goodman 1997: 94-98, 101-104 and 107-110.
In our period, senators were the wealthy educated male elite of the empire. In AD
14, most senators were drawn from either long-established Roman families or the Italian
nobility. They had to own property in excess of 1,000,000 sesterces, and membership of
the senate was hereditary – in other words, the sons of senators were expected to become
senators themselves, but others were debarred.
This system was not effective at maintaining numbers in the senate, though, as the
senatorial families did not reproduce reliably enough to fill all gaps left by deaths or
retirements. So two other means created to allow people to enter order. 1) Someone who
did not belong to the senatorial order given right to wear latus clavus (thick purple stripe
denoting senatorial status) by the emperor, which then gave them right to stand for
magistracies and enter senate. 2) Adlection: practice of emperor nominating someone
who has won his favour to automatic membership of senate, without them needing to
hold a magistracy first. These methods might be used to bring members of the equestrian
order (see below p. 27) into the senate, and, increasingly, to bring wealthy provincials
into the senate (see LACTOR 8 no. 34 – Claudius’ speech proposing to allow northern
Gauls to become senators). By AD 117, the senate contained a reasonable cross-section
of members from across the empire.
Senators then had to climb a ‘career ladder’ known as the cursus honorum (‘path
of honour), which consisted of a series of magistracies that could only be held when
previous steps on the ladder had been completed. The stages were as follows:
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Post
Responsibilities
Pre-requisites
Age
Number of officerqualification
holders p.a.
Vigintivir
Junior magistrates Must be sons of 18
20
responsible
for senators
minting
coins,
executing
criminals, judging
legal cases and
overseeing care of
streets
Military
One
of
six Optional
Usually early 6 per legion (of
tribune
assistants to the follow-up
to 20s
which there were
commander of a vigintivirate
normally 28).
legion
Quaestor
Treasurer – often Follow-up
to 24
20
served
in vigintivirate.
provinces
Candidate
enters
senate
proper at this
point
Aedile
In charge of city Optional
After
6
maintenance,
follow-up
to quaestorship
markets
and quaestorship
games in Rome
Tribune of In the Republic, a Optional
After
10
the plebs
defender of the follow-up
to quaestorship
ordinary people; quaestorship
by now largely
ceremonial post
whose
powers
had passed to the
emperor
Praetor
Mainly
Must
have 29
12 under Tiberius;
responsible
for completed
17 or 18 by time of
the administration quaestorship;
Trajan
of justice
ideally
also
aedileship
/
tribunate
Consul
Chief magistrates Must
have 42
2 at any one time,
of Rome in the completed
but 4 per annum
Republic;
now praetorship
(i.e. two pairs)
second only to the
under
Tiberius,
emperor
rising to 8 or 10 by
the end of the first
century AD.
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For a well-documented example of an actual senatorial career, see LACTOR 8
no. 96 (an honorific inscription commemorating Pliny the Younger). This includes
almost all of the posts listed above, along with many other optional offices such as
curator of the Tiber and the city sewers which became available once a senator had
reached praetorian or consular rank. As with many such inscriptions, the offices are listed
in reverse order of how important they were considered to be – i.e. the consulship comes
first, because this was still considered the peak of a senatorial career, while the last office
listed (before the contents of Pliny’s will) is a minor legal administrative position.
In Rome, the senate met once a fortnight, held debates and proposed legislation.
Under the emperors, though, the issues they dealt with tended to be those which were
unlikely to be controversial: e.g. the construction of roads, aqueducts, religious matters.
More important issues, such as taxation, foreign relations, military policy, etc. were now
considered chiefly by the imperial court instead – i.e. the emperor, his household and a
select group of senators. ‘Good’ emperors made a point of showing interest in the debate
and opinions of senators; ‘bad’ emperors did not. The senate also acted as a criminal
court for cases of corruption and adultery committed by people within their own social
class (see below p. 26 for Pliny’s involvement in provincial corruption cases).
Senators as governors
The really important role which senators played within the administration of the
empire, though, was the government of provinces. Naturally they served as the governors
of the senatorial / public provinces. Those who had reached rank of praetor or consul on
the cursus honorum were considered qualified for the post, and were selected from
amongst the qualified candidates by lot. All were given the title of ‘proconsuls’, though.
This literally means someone who had held the office of consul, so wasn’t really true of
those who had only been a praetor; but it helped to lend status to the office.
The emperor also delegated the job of governing most of the individual imperial
provinces to senators (though see below p. 27 for some exceptions where equestrians
were used instead). These governors were again drawn from the pool of individuals who
had reached the rank of praetor or consul, but were directly appointed by the emperor.
This means that they owed their position to his favour, so is one of many reasons why
senators would have been keen to curry this favour in our period. Their title was legatus
Augusti propraetore (roughly, ‘pro-praetorian imperial deputy’) – this was applied even
if they had reached the rank of a consul, and therefore had the right to be called a
‘proconsul’. When placed beside the actual title of proconsul given to the governors of
the senatorial provinces, it conveys the notion that the governors of imperial provinces
were of a slightly lower status than the senatorial governors: propraetorian governors
rather than proconsular governors, as well as being explicitly described as deputies.
All governors would be provided with a small staff. Their most important
assistant was their financial officer, known as a procurator in an imperial province, or a
quaestor in a senatorial / public province. This person was also a senator, though at an
earlier stage in his career than the governor, and would do most of the work involved in
overseeing the collection of taxes in the province. The governor would also be provided
with a small number of legati (legates) to whom he would delegate some of the work
involved in commanding any legions stationed in the province and carrying out the
administration of justice. See LACTOR 18 no. 110 for an inscription honouring a man
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who served as iuridicus (legate responsible for the administration of the law) on the staff
of the governor of Britain.
The numbers of official assistants provided was clearly inadequate, however, so
most governors made up the shortfall by taking friends along to assist them in their work.
Typically, these would be young men at the beginning of their political career who got
the position in return for favours which their fathers had done the governor. The
opportunity gave them political experience; in return, the more senior governor would
expect them to become his life-long supporters in the senate.
The governor’s job included:
 ensuring harmony between his province and Rome, including putting down
any rebellions or (if applicable) defending its borders if necessary.
 ensuring (via his procurator or quaestor) the efficient collection of taxes from
the province and their transfer to Rome: see Provincial taxation, above p. 21.
 overseeing the affairs of the cities in the province and intervening to resolve
problems and disputes
 maintaining internal peace within the province, e.g. dealing with bandits
 hearing legal cases, particularly those which could not be resolved
satisfactorily at a local level, or which involved Roman citizens.
Pliny in Bithynia
The best evidence we have for the activities of a provincial governor is book 10 of
Pliny’s Letters, which preserve his correspondence with Trajan from his governorship in
Bithynia in AD 110-112 (see above p. 7 for the general source-issues surrounding these
letters). The letters report on the state of the province and the problems which, as
governor, were brought to Pliny’s attention. These were probably raised largely by the
leading citizens of the province (people such as Dio of Prusa – see p. 12 for details), but
there are some cases where Pliny appears to have been a bit more pro-active in his
approach to governorship (see examples below). Pliny then reports the issues on to
Trajan, taking every opportunity to show himself as a capable governor, but also to show
deference to Trajan’s status and opinions, while Trajan replies offering a mixture of
guidance, help and encouragements for Pliny to solve issues of his own accord. All of
this well illustrates the limited resources of the Roman state – neither Trajan nor Pliny are
in a position to formulate or enforce policies of provincial government, but rather they
rely on local people to report problems, and react accordingly.
Enormous mileage can be got out of these letters, but some particularly
illuminating examples for this module include:
Pliny, Letters 10.17a, 17b and 18 – arrival at Bithynia. Pliny reports details of his
journey to his province to Trajan, and informs him that he arrived in time to celebrate the
emperor’s birthday – an example of the role of religion in encouraging loyalty to the
state, since Pliny presumably led the local population in these celebrations. He then states
that he has begun examining the accounts of the local city of Prusa and follows up by
asking for a land surveyor to help prevent corruption and save money in public building
works. This shows Pliny taking his job seriously, and working pro-actively to ensure that
the local people feel the weight of his authority, but also the benefit of his involvement.
Trajan replies supporting this general aim, but refusing the request for a surveyor on the
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grounds that he does not have enough available – a good example of the limited resources
of the Roman administrative system.
Pliny, Letters 10.37 and 38 – aqueduct at Nicomedia. This is an example of local
affairs attracting the attention of first the governor and then the emperor when they go
wrong. The people of Nicomedia have twice tried to build aqueduct. Project has failed
both times, lot of money wasted. Pliny has obviously been notified (probably by
disgruntled locals). Before writing to Trajan, he has already been to city to have a look at
situation, visited spring which could be used as source for water; looked at what was built
of previous aqueducts; decided project should be completed. Then writes to emperor to
ask for resources – engineer or architect. Trajan replies, agreeing that the aqueduct should
be built (this is all part of appearing to be a beneficial ruling power). But feels there is
more Pliny could do as governor in response to the problem – wants P to investigate the
finances at Nicomedia and find out what’s going on and whether there’s corruption
behind it.
Pliny, Letters 77 and 78 – garrison at Byzantium. Pliny, noting Trajan’s decision
to send a small garrison to Byzantium to help preserve order there, asks for a similar
service to be extended to another city, Juliopolis. This reflects the lack of proper policing
services in the Roman empire, and the need to use soldiers on occasion to fill the gap.
Trajan’s refusal to grant the request again indicates the limitations of the state’s resources
– he does not have enough soldiers at his disposal to do this for every city, so does not
wish to establish a precedent.
Pliny, Letters 81 and 82 – the case of Dio of Prusa. Pliny is asked to intervene in
a rather heated legal affair in Prusa. Dio (see notes for LACTOR 18, p. 12) is accused by
Claudius Eumolpus of possible corruption and erecting a statue of Trajan in the same
building where the bodies of his wife and son are buried (i.e. showing disrespect for the
emperor). It is clear from letter 81 that the case has arisen largely out of spite against Dio
– Pliny seems to think that there is little substance to it, and the accuser, Eumolpus, does
not seem to be putting together a very effective case. Pliny takes it seriously, though, as
another means of demonstrating his authority as governor. Trajan in his reply is keen to
quash the accusation of disrespect, as previous emperors had attracted hostility for
abusing their power through treason trials, and, like Pliny, is quite ready to acquit Dio if
he can produce accounts showing that his accounting has not been corrupt.
Corruption
Corruption on the part of the governors was clearly a problem from time to time,
and usually involved governors extorting money from their provinces. This was done by
accepting bribes from local individuals in return for illegal actions on the part of the
governor – e.g. turning a blind eye to the corruption of tax-collectors, passing preordained legal judgements (a good way for people to rid themselves of their enemies),
putting particular individuals into positions of power, etc. (see LACTOR 18 no. 124 for
a general view).
Provinces could complain about ill-treatment from their governors, and in the
imperial era their complaints were generally taken seriously by emperors who knew that
the stability of their own position could be threatened if there was sufficient unrest in the
provinces. Cases were handled in the senate, and two letters of Pliny the Younger provide
a detailed account his own role in prosecuting corrupt governors:
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
Pliny the Younger, Letters 2.11. This reports Pliny’s role in prosecuting the
governor of Africa, Marius Priscus, who was accused of taking bribes in return for
sentencing innocent people, sometimes to death. The case here seems to have involved a
lot of circling around legal technicalities, such as whether the senate had the right to
pursue the prosecution, and whether Priscus could be condemned if one of the people
accused of bribing him (Flavius Marcianus) was present in court but Priscus was not.
Priscus’ guilt does not seem to have been in doubt, however, and the case ended with
Priscus being compelled to pay the sums he had extorted into the state treasury and to go
into exile (i.e. the proposal of the consul-elect, Cornutus Tertullus, was carried). Note that
Pliny was assisted in his role as prosecutor in this case by Cornelius Tacitus, author of the
Annals and the Histories.
Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.9. This reports Pliny’s role in prosecuting the
governor of Hispania Baetica (southern Spain), Caecilius Classicus, for corruption on
behalf of the province. The basis of the case rests on letters in Classicus’ handwriting
referring to bribes which he has received in connection with business transactions and
legal cases to the tune of 4,000,000 sestertii. The outcome was that the property owned
by Classicus before his extortion in Baetica was handed over to his daughter, and the rest
returned to his victims. Classicus himself escaped penalty by dying before the trial began.
Equestrians in government and administration
Useful reading on this topic: Goodman 1997: 172-4.
The equestrian order (ordo equester) is very much part of the ruling elite of the
empire, but is distinct from and slightly less prestigious than the senatorial order. It has
its roots in the Republic, when equestrians were essentially wealthy citizens who were
not politically active. They were not members of the senate, and tended to involve
themselves in trade and tax collection instead. They were also closely involved in the
army – initially they had literally been ‘knights’ in the sense of cavalry, but by the late
Republic were serving instead as army officers. Six military tribunes of equestrian status
were appointed to each legion every year, where their role was to assist the commander
of the legion as a whole (a senator).
From the Augustan period onwards, their role in both military and civilian
administration increased. They were used to command the ‘lesser’ branches of the
Roman army – particularly auxiliary troops made up of provincials who did not possess
Roman citizenship, including the navy and cavalry. A series of administrative positions
known as prefectures and procuratorships were created for them. Broadly, the prefectures
involve commanding troops of men (e.g. Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Prefect of the
Night Watch (vigiles)), while procuratorships involve financial administration (e.g. a
provincial procurator, who has responsibility for tax collection in a province). Some
equestrians functioned as the actual governors of minor provinces, such as Judaea, but
generally governors themselves were drawn from the senatorial order. The major
exception is Egypt, which was governed by an equestrian Prefect.
Equestrians were distinguished from the senatorial order partly by wealth – the
property qualification to be an equestrian was 400,000 sestertii, as compared to 1 million
for a senator. Even if they acquired the necessary wealth, they could not enter the
senatorial order without special dispensation from the emperor, as senatorial status was
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
hereditary – i.e. you could only become a senator if your father had been one. Entry into
the equestrian order was much more open, though – all that was needed was the 400,000
sestertii and ‘good morals’, i.e. adherence to the Roman state and its values. This meant
that members of local civic elites in Italy and the provinces could readily achieve
equestrian status. Membership carried with it visible privileges (as for the senatorial
order) – e.g. the angustus clavus (narrow purple stripe on the tunic and toga) and seats in
the front rows in the theatre and amphitheatre. In the period covered by this module, all
emperors came from the senatorial order – so another important distinction between
senators and equestrians is that senators could potentially set themselves up as rivals to
the reigning emperors, but equestrians could not.
As for senators, there was a distinct career ladder for equestrians to climb –
generally they tended to hold procuratorships first and then move on prefectures, but
individuals varied, with plenty clearly choosing to specialise in military posts only.
Typical careers are preserved by honorific and funerary inscriptions – examples can be
seen at LACTOR 8, nos. 21-23 (Tiberian period), 37 (Nero’s Praetorian Prefect, Burrus)
70 (Flavian period) and 82-83 (Trajanic period).
Reasons for the increasing use of equestrians during the imperial period are
debated. Some argue that emperors preferred to entrust sensitive positions (e.g. the
command of the Praetorian Guard or the governorship of Egypt, which supplied much of
Rome’s grain), to them because senators appointed to these positions might potentially
use them as leverage in order to mount a challenge to the emperor’s power. But this isn’t
entirely consistent – senators also commanded the legions and governed most of the
provinces, and could (and did) usurp power on the basis of the military control which this
gave them. The alternative argument is that equestrians were used because the emperors
simply needed a) the political support of the order and b) their military and financial
experience to help them in the vast task of governing the empire.
Imperial freedmen in government and administration
Useful reading on this topic: Goodman 1997: 87-92.
Despite the availability of senators and equestrians to help with the running of the
empire, most emperors also made use of more personal assistants, including members of
their family and their own slaves and freedmen. This seems to have been largely because
these people’s support was simply necessary due to the scale of the task, but some
emperors also appear to have used freedmen for official business because their
relationship with the senate was weak and they could trust their freedmen not to try to
undermine or oppose them. Since the authors of our sources are usually male senators
and equestrians, they are generally hostile towards the political role played by freedmen
and / or female relatives, and tend to emphasise their use as a characteristic of ‘bad’
emperors.
We know that Augustus, the first emperor, made use of slaves and freedmen in his
administration. He left names of those familiar with the distribution of the armies and
financial resources at his death (see Suetonius, Augustus 101.4 – the very last sentence of
this Life), and one freedman named Gaius Julius Gelos was honoured by the civic council
of the Italian city of Veii for the help which he had given them (see LACTOR 8 no. 24).
But Claudius, who had been raised to power by the Praetorian Guard against the will of
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
the senate, is the classic example of really widespread use of freedmen. An overview of
his use of them, with typical elite hostility, is at Suetonius Claudius 28-29. Pliny the
Younger, Letters 7.29 and 8.6 also reports, again with great hostility, on the tombstone
of one of Claudius’ most prominent freedmen, Pallas, and the honours and privileges
which he had received.
Typical roles played by freedmen included handling the emperor’s
correspondence, managing his archives, writing speeches, and managing his finances.
However, they also occur in other roles. Nero caused offence in the aftermath of
Boudicca’s revolt in Britain (see Provincial rebellions, below p. 37) by sending a
freedman, Polyclitus, to deal with disagreements between the provincial governor who
had defeated her, Suetonius Paulinus, and his recently-appointed procurator, Julius
Classicianus (Tacitus Annals 14.38-9).
Local government
Though the Roman state and its agents (senators, equestrians, etc.) oversaw the
government of the provinces, the day to day administration of ordinary people’s lives was
very much left to the local provincial elites. Rome simply did not have the manpower to
intervene in the fine details of provincial life, so preferred to establish profitable
relationships with the established local nobility, encouraging them to continue in their
roles as leaders of the community in exchange for Roman support and favour.
With the exception of the militarised frontier zones and some large imperial
estates, the entire territory of the Roman empire was divided up into civic communities,
each consisting of a group of people located within a particular unit of territory, whose
lives centred around a dominant city somewhere within that territory. From the point of
view of Rome, communities of this type offered an ideal mechanism of indirect rule,
since as long as the Roman state had established a mutually-supportive relationship with
the leaders of these communities, they could then leave the leaders to carry out everyday
local administration on their behalf.
In some parts of the empire (e.g. Italy and the Greek east), civic communities had
already existed in a developed form before they came under Roman domination. In others
(e.g. Spain, Gaul, Britain, Africa), tribal communities with their chieftains were an
embryonic version of the same thing. The Roman state simply encouraged their leaders to
develop a more formalised urban centre within their tribal territory, to use as a centre for
local administration. The precise status of the civic communities varied according to
which part of the empire they were located in, and the circumstances under which they
had been established. The main types were as follows:
 Polis – a civic community in the Greek world which had been absorbed into
the Roman empire
 Municipium – a civic community in Italy which had come under Roman
control; later an honorific title given to some western cities
 Colonia – a civic community established on conquered land by the Roman
state, and usually settled in the first instance by veteran soldiers. Also became
an honorific title for some cities in the western provinces.
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117

Civitas – a civic community established by locals in the western provinces
under Roman encouragement; usually the continuation of a pre-Roman tribal
community but now with a city at its centre
For each type of community, the territory which it occupied was its main means
of economic support, while the dominant city within the territory functioned as a centre
for communal activities such as religious worship, markets and local government. The
relationship was rather like a cell (the territory) with a nucleus (the city) to control it. The
local elite formed the basis of a civic council based in the city. They were directly
answerable to the provincial governor, and would report any problems in their
community to him (see letters to Pliny the Younger concerning affairs at Nicomedia,
Byzantium and Prusa in Bithynia in the section Senators in government and
administration, above p. 22, for examples). Meanwhile, they oversaw matters such as
tax collection, the administration of justice, the construction and maintenance of public
buildings and the religious activities of their local community. Thus, the administrative
hierarchy of the empire as a whole may be envisaged as follows:
Emperor / senators
Provincial governor
Provincial governor
Local civic councils
Individuals
Provincial governor
Local civic councils
Individuals
Individuals
Individuals
The manner by which each community governed itself varied from place to place,
reflecting the enormous social diversity of the empire as a whole. But speaking in general
terms, the civic council tended to consist of about 100 wealthy adult males. They were
not paid for service on the council, but had to support themselves, much like senators in
Rome. Membership of the council was usually determined by the existing council
members – when one member died, they would work together to select a replacement.
Usually this person would come from the same social class as the existing councillors
(i.e. be a member of the wealthy local elite), and have prior experience of serving as a
magistrate in the city. See e.g. LACTOR 18 no. 247 for an inscription from Ostia
honouring Gnaeus Sentius Felix, who was ‘co-opted’ onto the local council, apparently at
the same time as he began his first magisterial office as quaestor of the city treasury.
Magistrates were usually elected by the members of the local community. In western
cities, they included duoviri (‘two men’, the local equivalents of consuls), aediles and
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Teachers’ notes: Ruling the Roman Empire AD 14-117
quaestors, much on the model of magistracies in Rome. In eastern cities, they included
figures such as archontes and strategoi, types of magistrates which had already existed in
the pre-Roman period.
From some municipia and coloniae, surviving charters of local law survive,
giving some insight into how the local community was organised. Examples include:
LACTOR 8 no. 67 – extract from the charter of the municipium of Salpensa in
Spain, recording who will be eligible to receive Roman citizenship within the
community, what they need to do to get it, what rights it will convey and what oaths are
to be sworn by the local magistrates.
LACTOR 8 no. 68 – extract from the charter of the municipium of Malaca in
Spain, recording procedures for the nomination of candidates for local office, their
eligibility, the voting procedure and measures for the protection of the urban fabric.
LACTOR 18 no. 107 – extract from the charter of the municipium of Irni (or
Irnium) in Spain, which describes how local people may obtain Roman citizenship.
LACTOR 18 no. 150 – a longer selection of extracts from the same charter,
outlining the duties of magistrates, measures for the maintenance of the urban fabric,
restrictions on illegal gatherings, measures to prevent profiteering, the duties of local
citizens, and the requirements for compliance with Roman law.
These charters were all granted to the communities concerned by Rome, but we
must assume that similar local collections of laws would also be found in poleis in the
Greek east and civitates in the west. Although none survive, it is most likely that civic
communities were able to apply and enforce whatever local laws they saw fit, subject to
the scrutiny and approval of the provincial governor.
The role of the army
Useful reading on this topic: Goodman 1997: 81-86 and 113-122 (includes quite
a lot of useful / relevant primary material).
The Roman army consisted of two main branches – legionary soldiers, who held
Roman citizenship, and auxiliary soldiers who did not. Augustus had established regular
terms of pay and conditions for both groups, and in so doing created for the first time a
standing state army. Soldiers swore loyalty to the emperor, and the army was the main
basis of his power – see LACTOR 18 no. 84 for an anecdote which makes it clear that
the power of the armies was a reason for deferring to the emperor. One method of
challenging that power was to win over the support of a portion of the army, e.g. the
Praetorian Guard or the legions stationed in a particular province (see The emperor and
the principate, above p. 15).
The legions were regarded as more prestigious than the auxiliary cohorts. Each
legion consisted of c. 5000 men, who generally fought on foot – this was considered
more noble than fighting on horseback. Ordinary soldiers could rise through the ranks to
become e.g. a centurion (leader of a ‘century’ of c. 100 men within the legion) or a
primus pilus (the most senior of the 60 centurions in each legion). See LACTOR 18 no.
77 for the stellar military career of Gaius Arrius Clemens – the positions and honours
held by this man appear to be listed in chronological order, and take him from being an
ordinary member of the Praetorian Guard to an assistant to the military tribune and then
leading centurion (primus pilus) in a legion, after which he retired into civilian life at
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Matilica in north Italy, and became one of the leading men of the town. Legionaries
received a substantial cash pension or grant of land after completing their service (20
years at the start of our period, raised to 25 by the Flavian emperors).
Auxiliary soldiers served in smaller units known as cohorts, each consisting of
500 or (after the Neronian period) 1000 men. Some of these were infantry troops, like the
legions, but auxiliary cohorts also provided the army with cavalry, archers and a navy.
Once an auxiliary soldier had completed 25 years’ service, he was granted Roman
citizenship and the right to marry and bear citizen children. These rights were guaranteed
by their certificate of discharge, which usually took the form of a pair of bronze tablets
bearing a decree from the emperor stating that they had completed their term of service
and granting them the rights which came with it, along with the names of witnesses. An
example is at LACTOR 18 no. 80.
This system meant that the auxiliary units of the Roman army played a major role
in drawing provincial populations into the cultural world of Rome. Provincials who
signed up to join auxiliary cohorts would swear an oath to the emperor, and spend the
next 25 years functioning within an institutional setting which was shaped by the needs of
the Roman state. They spoke and wrote Latin, fought on behalf of the state, participated
in Roman religious festivals and, particularly from the Flavian period onwards, were
usually stationed in parts of the empire other than the one where they had grown up. See
LACTOR 18 no. 79 and 131 for military report produced by an auxiliary unit stationed
at Vindolanda on Hadrian’s wall, both originally written in Latin on wooden tablets and
typical of the organised, literate milieu of the army. By the end of this process, auxiliary
soldiers must have become very cosmopolitan in outlook, with the award of Roman
citizenship constituting the final confirmation of their membership of an empire-wide
community.
Military life could potentially include actual combat, especially during times of
civil wars or provincial uprisings. But in practice legionary soldiers in particular spent
relatively little time on active service. Instead, they were kept busy with tasks such as
building and maintaining their own camps, routine patrolling, providing labour for largescale works such as road-building (e.g. LACTOR 18 no. 74) and helping to keep order in
the provinces where they were stationed. During the course of all this they usually came
into contact with local provincial populations on quite an extensive scale, providing
another context in which Roman and local cultures came face to face with and influenced
one another. Soldiers were not allowed to marry, but it was clearly common practice to
forge unofficial marriages and raise children with local women – these are often
mentioned in military discharge certificates, e.g. LACTOR 18 no. 80. These women and
children, along with traders keen to take advantage of the spending power which soldiers
derived from their regular pay, frequently lived in civilian settlements immediately
outside permanent army camps. These are usually known as vici (roughly ‘village’)
outside auxiliary fortress and canabae (‘huts’) outside legionary fortresses.
Frontier and defence policies
Useful reading on this topic: Goodman 1997: 104-107.
Warfare was very much at the centre of the Roman mentality. They knew that it
was through warfare that they had acquired such a vast empire, and were keen to
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perpetuate their success by instilling values of bravery and military virtue into each
subsequent generation. Arguably this was one of the functions of gladiatorial games; it
certainly lay behind the advanced system of triumphs and decorations with which
military achievements were rewarded, and behind the religious cult paid to war-deities
such as Mars, Minerva, Bellona and Victoria. For an example of the award of military
decorations, see LACTOR 18 no. 34 – an honorific inscription to an equestrian who was
awarded the untipped lance, banner and mural crown in Trajan’s Dacian wars. For an
example of a triumph, see LACTOR 15 no. C.11, pp. 98-99 (= Dio 60.23.1-6) –
Claudius’ triumphal procession and festival to celebrate the conquest of Britain.
Actual frontier policy was fairly ad hoc, though, and usually shaped by the
individual needs of particular emperors. One important factor shaping military policy
may simply have been the need to keep the soldiers busy once a permanent army had
been established (see above p. 31, The role of the army). Augustus left a document to
Tiberius on his death which laid out the current state of the military units, and supposedly
advised Tiberius not to attempt to expand the empire any further (Tacitus Annals 1.11 –
not in any of the recommended module reading, but available here:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/tacitus/TacitusAnnals01.html). This may or may not
have been real advice, since the document was produced and read out by Tiberius
himself, so he could have altered the contents. But in practice military activity was indeed
limited to defence and the putting down of unrest from AD 14 until the campaigns of
Claudius in Britain in AD 43 (see LACTOR 15 no. C.11).
Claudius’ campaign is an excellent example of the influence of individuals on
imperial policy. Britain was an obvious choice for expansion – there had been increasing
contact between this region and Rome since Caesar’s exploratory campaigns there in the
50s BC (see Goodman 1997: 208-211) and the island was considered likely to yield
revenues in taxes and minerals. A pretext for action was also provided by the expulsion
of a local chieftain called Bericus from the island, who came to Claudius for help in
seeking redress (LACTOR 15 no. C.11, p. 96). However, the launching of the campaign
only 2 years after Claudius’ succession makes it fairly obvious that the real reason for the
conquest was his need to establish a glorious military reputation in order to consolidate
his rather weak political position. He had been side-lined by the imperial family for most
of his life and then brought to power by the Praetorian Guard, against the will of the
senate (see LACTOR 15 no. C1 and Suetonius, Life of Claudius 1-10), so his legitimacy
as emperor was more readily open to question than that of his predecessors. The conquest
of Britain allowed him to boast of completing something which Julius Caesar had only
managed to begin, and to return to Rome in glorious triumph, greatly stabilising his
political position.
Nero satisfied himself with minor campaigns in Armenia, and the Flavian
emperors were kept busy suppressing rebellion in Judaea and expanding Roman holdings
in Britain. The next major aggressive foreign campaigns were those of Trajan in Dacia
(modern Rumania, 101-2 and 105-6; see Goodman 1997: 226-9) and Parthia (modern
Iran,114-117; see Goodman 1997: 244-6). Again, these should probably be seen as
having been undertaken chiefly for the sake of prestige and popularity, rather than being
guided by any overall intention of establishing new spheres of economic influence or
strategically defensible frontiers for the empire.
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4.2 PROVINCIAL RESPONSES TO ROMAN RULE
The issue of 'Romanisation'
Useful reading on this issue – Goodman 1997: 149-56; Woolf 1998; Huskinson
2000 – chapter 1 by Huskinson; Scott and Webster 2003; Hingley 2005.
The character of the cultural interaction between Rome and the provinces has
been much debated. It is certainly true that in all the regions which were incorporated into
the Roman empire, we can detect signs of a shared, empire-wide culture: components
include common architectural forms (e.g. temples), art-forms (e.g. mosaics), language
(Latin / Greek), pottery (e.g. terra sigillata – see Economics, below p. 44) or religion
(e.g. worshipping the emperor). Yet at the same time, the culture of each province, and
indeed of different regions within each province, was also distinctly localised. For
example, the people of Roman Egypt continued to mummify their dead under Roman
rule, just as they had done before their incorporation into the empire, though now using
painted portraits instead of masks to represent the dead (see Goodman 1997: 153 for an
example). Similarly, the people of Britain and Gaul continued to worship gods with
distinctly Celtic names, and in temples of a design not encountered elsewhere in the
empire (see p. 34, Regional identities – The western provinces, for further details).
Some of the questions raised by this situation include:
 Did the Roman state actively encourage its subjects to adopt an identifiably
‘Roman’ culture? Why / why not?
 Did provincials have their own reasons for wanting to adopt what they
perceived as Roman culture? If so, what were they?
 Does the persistence of local traditions represent resistance to Roman rule and
/ or Roman culture?
The traditional view of the issue, formulated in the early 20th century and
distinctly shaped by British ideas about their own imperialism, is that Rome actively
encouraged cultural homogenisation, and did so partly in order to make provincial
populations easier to control, but also in response to a ‘beneficial ideology’ – i.e. a belief
that it was their duty to improve the lot of ‘backwards’ provincial peoples by introducing
them to the benefits of Roman culture. The traditional perspective assumes that cultural
change occurred above all as a result of conscious, deliberate efforts on the part of the
Roman state and its official agents. The term usually used by proponents of this theory to
describe the process of cultural change is ‘Romanisation’. Note that the etymology of this
term implies that the main type of change at stake is a process whereby cultures which
had previously not been ‘Roman’ became more closely aligned to Roman culture (see
below for whether this was really all that was going on within the Roman empire).
A key text cited in support of the ‘Romanisation’ view is Tacitus Agricola 21
(LACTOR 18 no. 102), describing the activities of Tacitus’ father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius
Agricola, governor of Britain in the Flavian period. Tacitus appears to be outlining a
process whereby Agricola went about actively encouraging the brutish Britons to adopt
the trappings of Roman culture – temples, togas, Latin, etc. The Agricola as a whole
seeks to show what an excellent and honourable man Agricola was, so the tone of the
passage is above all one of praise for his approach to governance. T’s Roman readers
were supposed to recognise and admire Agricola’s behaviour as typical of a ‘good’
governor (whether he actually behaved like this or it is simply part of Tacitus’ flattering
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portrayal of him is another question). A note of cynicism is present in the last line – T
recognises that for all the apparent benefits of the changes described, they also functioned
as a tool for ensuring British submission to Roman control. In other words, educated
Romans such as Tacitus were capable of seeing their behaviour towards provincial
populations from more than one angle – essentially beneficial, but at the price of local
autonomy.
Even the Tacitus passage, though, is open to more than one interpretation. It
suggests that the British people are not merely passively acquiescent in the process of
cultural change, but are actively eager to participate – see especially the comment that
they ‘were spurred on by rivalry for marks of his esteem’. This opens up a new way of
understanding the process of cultural change – that it may not all have been a one-way
process emanating from Rome, but may also have involved local elites (in particular)
actively choosing to adopt Roman culture for their own reasons. Indeed, stepping beyond
the Tacitus passage there is remarkably little evidence for any other agents of the Roman
state besides Agricola actively setting out to ‘Romanise’ provincial populations. It would
be hard, in fact, to understand why they might consider it worthwhile to do so, given the
lack of manpower and resources available to them – especially in places where the local
population had in any case already peacefully submitted to Roman rule (see 4.1
MECHANISMS OF GOVERNMENT, p. 20 ff. on this).
By contrast, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that local provincial elites
did choose to put their own time and money into adopting customs and practices which
they perceived as ‘Roman’. Participation in the imperial cult is an obvious example of
this, and in the majority of cases the initiative for this appears to have come from
provincial peoples, not the emperors – see The imperial cult, below, p. 48 for more.
Building activity is another. Building inscriptions from across the empire attest that
members of local wealthy elites across the empire chose to pay for the construction of
buildings similar to those found in Rome and Italy. Indeed, even the practice of
commemorating their activity by setting up an inscription may be seen as a local adoption
of a Roman practice, since in the western empire in particular building inscriptions were
not used before these areas had been conquered by Rome. For reading and examples, see:
 Goodman 1997: 150-152 – general discussion of the issue, including an
inscription commemorating extensive gifts and construction work paid for by
Lucius Iulius Agrippa at Apamea in Syria.
 Goodman 1997: 282-3 – honorific inscription recording the acts of Gaius
Flavius Pudens in Sabratha, North Africa, which include the construction of
an aqueduct, fountains and statues, as well as the funding of gladiatorial
games.
 LACTOR 8 no. 25 – inscription commemorating the paving of the forum and
construction of arches, temples and altars at Thugga, North Africa, by Lucius
Postumius Chius and his sons.
 Blagg and Millett 1990: chapter 12 by Mackie – discussion of inscriptions
commemorating benefactions of public buildings in Spain.
These examples raise the question of what was in it for the benefactors? Going
back to the Tacitus passage, the implicit explanation here would simply be that the
Britons recognised Roman culture as ‘better’ than their own, and were thus eager to adopt
it. This may well have been part of the issue, but it is still a view shaped by notions of
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cultural superiority (again associated with the experience of British imperialism), and
does not leave much room for the possibility that local people were perfectly happy with
their own culture. Other explanations have been sought in the status which could be
acquired by being seen to cooperate with a dominant ruling power. Those people whose
names appear in building inscriptions, for example, have usually also managed to acquire
Roman citizenship (hence their very Roman-looking names), and tend to hold prominent
positions within their local community such as priesthoods and magistracies. This has
usually been interpreted as a sign that they were able to flourish personally and politically
under Roman rule as a result of the loyalty which they displayed towards the Roman
state, and the rewards which Roman officials (e.g. provincial governors) conferred on
them in return – i.e. their motivation for adopting markers of Roman culture was a
pragmatic one.
Provincials may have had their own part to play in cultural change, then – but we
are still looking primarily at the adoption of ‘Roman’ culture by non-Roman peoples,
even if we no longer need to assume that the process was driven entirely by Rome. More
recently, increasing numbers of scholars have pointed out that this picture is still overly
simplistic. The main problems are as follows:
1. ‘Roman’ culture was not in itself a static and unchanging entity. It had been
changing and developing for centuries, and by our period had become extremely
cosmopolitan. The obvious example of this is the impact of Greek culture, which had had
a profound influence on the literature, art, architecture, philosophy and religion of Rome.
But other provinces made contributions to the culture of the empire’s capital as well. For
example, the Celtic horse-goddess, Epona (see http://www.epona.net/ for more
information), was originally worshipped in NE Gaul. Once this region was conquered by
Rome, however, her worship spread to other provinces like Dacia, Macedonia and Spain,
while a calendar from Guidizzolo, N Italy, shows that she had an official festival on 18th
December in the imperial period. See also the final paragraph of LACTOR 18 no. 73
(Arrian), which describes the way in which military practices in particular have been
absorbed by the Romans and even come to be called ‘Roman’, despite the fact that they
actually originated in other cultures.
2. We do not really know how provincials perceived the new customs and
practices which they adopted under Roman rule. How did people in Macedonia see
Epona, for example? Did they think of her as Roman? Or Celtic? Or simply part of a new
empire-wide culture which had been forged from elements of both (plus many others)?
And did they see themselves as identifying with either of those cultures when they
worshipped her – or were they simply concerned with her ability to protect their horses?
In other words, we should be wary of assuming that e.g. speaking Latin automatically
meant that the person doing so was seeking to establish or project a ‘Roman’ cultural
identity – any more than a person drinking a can of Coke today is necessarily seeking to
identify themselves with American culture.
Scholarly thinking today, therefore, aims to adopt a much more nuanced and
flexible understanding of the many forms of cultural change observable within the
Roman empire than the old imperialising paradigm of ‘Romanisation’. Indeed, that term
is now largely eschewed, and other terms for describing cultural change such as
‘globalisation’ or ‘cultural fusion’ are being formulated. Up-to-date thinking on the issue
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is available in Woolf 1998, Huskinson 2000, Scott and Webster 2003 and Hingley
2005.
Provincial rebellions
General reading on this issue – Goodman 1997: 211-2; Huskinson 2000 –
chapter 10 by James.
The most obviously negative form of response to Roman rule was violent
rebellion. But we should be wary of assuming that the main cause of rebellion was
always necessarily cultural resistance to the Romans. Often the details make it clear that
financial issues and personal grudges or ambitions were the real catalyst, so that it is
arguable that the rebellions really constitute resistance to bad government, rather than
specifically to Roman government.
Britain
Boudicca’s rebellion in Britain in AD 60-1 was sparked off by financial
difficulties and the bad treatment of Boudicca herself. After her husband, Prasutagus,
died she expected to succeed him as queen of the Iceni, but instead Roman administrators
seized the kingdom, recalled loans made to the leading tribesmen, flogged Boudicca and
raped her daughters. This event appears to have brought existing resentment about
taxation, unfair treatment by creditors and the construction of a large and expensive
temple to Claudius at Camulodunum (Colchester) to a head, so that not only the Iceni but
also the neighbouring tribe of the Trinobantes rebelled. They sacked the cities of
Camulodunum (Colchester), Verulamium (St. Alban’s) and Londinium (London) and
imposed heavy losses on the Romans before being brought under control by the
provincial governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus.
The events of the rebellion are reported in detail by Cassius Dio (LACTOR 18
no. 130) as well as in Tacitus, Annals 14.29-39 (not in any of the recommended module
reading, but available here: http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/tacitus.html). The
difficulty with these sources is that they give only the Roman perspective – we cannot
know for sure what the motivations or aims of the rebels were, since we cannot hear their
own account of what they were doing. We also do not know how much of a role
Boudicca herself really played. She is portrayed here very much as a stereotype of a wild,
barbarian woman, and in particular as a sort of ‘noble savage’ who can be contrasted with
the decadence of the Roman emperor at the time, Nero. Thus her character and role may
both have been largely invented by the Roman historians in order to emphasise the shame
involved in Nero’s inability to keep his subjects under control. We should be particularly
suspicious of the speeches which Tacitus and Dio both put into the mouth of Boudicca.
Even if she made any speech of encouragement to her supporters, it is highly unlikely
that anyone wrote it down, or would have passed it on to Roman writers if they had. So
these speeches in fact represent Dio and Tacitus’ ideas about what such a person might
have said in such circumstances – i.e. they are a piece of creative literary craftsmanship,
not accurate accounts of Boudicca’s views.
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Judaea
Judaea was an area that switched back and forth between direct Roman rule and
control via a client king and saw a number of episodes of unrest before the Jewish
Rebellion of AD 66-73. From 37-4 BC it was ruled by Herod I (Herod the Great), who
owed his position to Roman support and showed considerable loyalty to the Romans. He
also embellished his kingdom with a variety of building projects, including rebuilding the
Great Temple in Jerusalem. However, Herod was not a native of Judaea and seems to
have been unpopular with many Jews. He did not come from a priestly family and
therefore could not act as High Priest, choosing instead to nominate men from
insignificant families to this position, which would have made him unpopular with some
of the religious elite. After his death in 4 BC, governance of Judaea was divided by
Augustus between his sons, and later, in AD 6, put into the direct rule of a praefectus of
equestrian rank (Pontius Pilate held this rank between AD 26-c. 36). There was another
brief period of rule by a client king, Herod’s descendent Agrippa I, in AD 41-44 before
the province was returned to rule by a Roman governor (now with the title procurator).
There seem to have been a number of minor disturbances in the first part of the
first century AD. In particular, the unrest which greeted Caligula’s desire to have his
statue set up inside the Temple at Jerusalem (LACTOR 18, No. 169) shows the need for
a sensitive accommodation of Jewish religious beliefs within Roman expectations of
signs of provincial loyalty. However, the great revolt of AD 66-73 was on a much larger
scale. Much of our evidence for the war comes from the Jewish writer Josephus (see
Introduction to the Sources, p. 12) who was captured by the Romans in AD 67 and
subsequently acted as a mediator for the Roman general (and later emperor) Titus. His
account therefore needs to be handled with caution but does provide a great deal of detail.
The revolt began in the Temple with the cessation of the sacrifices on behalf of
the emperor (a traditional sign of Judaea’s loyalty to the emperor) and the burning of the
debt records in Jerusalem. The causes behind the revolt are complex. Josephus clearly
lays the blame with lower class Jews, especially the so-called ‘sicarii’ (knife-carriers)
[thus excusing his own class] and incompetent and extortionate Roman governors. In
Jewish War 2.277-9 (LACTOR 18, No. 137) he especially blames the procurator Gessius
Florus for his overzealous collection of taxes. Florus had apparently seized unpaid tribute
directly from the Temple treasury, an act of sacrilege.
Josephus’ suggestion that the poor were the primary agents may have some truth
in it, though some members of the ruling class (indeed, Josephus himself at first) were
clearly involved, probably because of a lack of support and respect from the Roman
procurator who seems to have held them responsible for disturbances among the lower
classes. Indeed, Josephus (Jewish War 2.301-8) tells us that Florus even crucified a
number of equites among the Jerusalem elite, for failing to hand over trouble-makers
among the population. There also seem to have been elements of class tension between
different sectors of Jewish society, and between different religious groups, with factional
in-fighting taking place (LACTOR 18, No. 138).
The independent Jewish state lasted for four years and was centred on the Great
Temple in Jerusalem, minting its own coinage. The city was finally recaptured by the
Romans in AD 70, when the Temple was destroyed by fire (see Josephus, Jewish War
6.249-53 = LACTOR 18, No. 139, noting how his account distances his patron Titus
from responsibility for the firing of the Temple). This was celebrated as the end of the
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war, commemorated by the triumph held in Rome in AD 71 during which the treasures of
the Temple were paraded though the streets of Rome. The scene was vividly repeated on
the Arch of Titus, set up by his brother Domitian after Titus’s death in AD81. The
interior passageway of the arch shows scenes of the triumph, including Jewish treasures
such as the menorah being carried through the streets of Rome (close ups can be seen at
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/titus/titus.html). The Temple was never rebuilt, and
a Roman legion was stationed in Jerusalem.
While Jerusalem was recaptured in 70, the last pocket of Jewish resistance was
not defeated until AD 73 (or 74) when the fortress of Masada finally fell to the Romans
with an episode of mass suicide, the defenders preferring death at their own hands to
capture (and later death or enslavement) by Rome. The history of the Jewish revolt shows
the implacability of the Romans when a challenge was made to their authority. After a
later rebellion in AD 132-135 the province of Judaea was renamed Syria Palestine, and
Jews forbidden to live in the area of Jerusalem, which became a Roman colony. In
contrast to the usual Roman tolerance of native religious customs (and their acceptance of
Judaism in other communities around the empire) this suggests that in some cases
religion and religious sites could serve as focal points for resistance or insurrection. Yet
in common with Britain, we also see that a common spur to revolt was excessive or
extortionate taxation and a lack of respect for the provincial elites, who expected their
traditional loyalty to Rome to be recognised and respected by governors.
Displays of loyalty
At the most basic level provincial loyalty to Rome can be seen in the absence of
active resistance or revolt. However, there were also a range of areas in which more
active loyalty could be expressed by particular communities or groups. While these often
appear on a civic or provincial level, they were instigated and carried out by local
magistrates, i.e. the elite. They should be considered alongside other elite expressions of
identification with Roman power, such as the gradual extension of Roman citizenship to
provincial elites, and their adoption of Roman customs and growing involvement in
politics at Rome as well as in their home communities.
The Eastern Provinces
One of the key examples of loyalty to Rome and the emperor was the Imperial
cult, discussed further below (p. 48). In the East this developed out of Hellenistic ruler
cult, in which cities made sense of their relationship with distant kings through religious
honours. Many of the other expressions of provincial loyalty which we find in the eastern
provinces also develop from the practices of the Hellenistic period, with Roman emperors
taking the place of Hellenistic monarchs. In general, the imperial family came to be
omni-present in provincial life, in the physical form of statues or inscriptions featuring
their names and titles; in the celebration of their birthdays and anniversaries in local
calendars and in the celebration of events at Rome in monuments set up in the provinces.
Here I will give just a few examples of each type:
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Honorific Statues etc.
One of the commonest forms of expressing loyalty to the emperor was through
the erection of a statue in public, funded by a city or a rich individual. These statue
dedications can be seen as one half of a relationship with the emperor, which was
balanced on the other side by imperial benefactions to a particular city or community (see
further below p. 47). Many inscriptions come from statue bases, though the statues
themselves have usually been lost.
A related trend was the commissioning of buildings or institution of festivals
named in honour of the emperor. Pliny, Letters 10.75 deals with a case where a rich
citizen left a will requesting that his estate be used either to erect public buildings
dedicated in honour of the emperor or to fund a festival to be called after Trajan. In either
case the benefactions would benefit the man’s chosen cities (Heraclea and Tium) through
the provision of entertainment or amenities, at the same time as it celebrated his loyalty to
the emperor and memorialised his own wealth and generosity.
Celebration of Imperial Anniversaries, etc:
Pliny, Letters 10.52-3 (celebrating date of Trajan’s accession)
LACTOR 8, No. 5: dedication of statue and temple to ‘Tiberius the God’ on 16th
anniversary (presumably of his accession) – see also Imperial Cult, below p. 48.
Pliny, Letters 10.43-4 refers to an annual embassy sent by Byzantium to pay their
respects to Trajan, which Pliny reduces to a written letter in order to save them the cost of
the embassy – this reveals the potential cost of expressions of loyalty, and suggests some
ambivalence from the authorities.
There are also examples of local coinage minted to celebrate visits of an emperor.
Celebration of Imperial achievements
One of the most interesting examples of the ways that provinces and communities
saw their place in the empire is in the celebration of military achievements elsewhere
around the empire. This suggests that these communities were keen to align themselves
with the ruling power, with little sympathy for the conquered province.
LACTOR 18, No. 38: A triumphal arch set up at Cyzicus in Asia Minor
celebrating Claudius’ conquering of Britain
See also the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias in Caria, discussed below p. 50.
The Western Provinces
The western provinces did not have the same background as the eastern ones of
having been ruled before their incorporation into the Roman empire by Hellenistic kings.
This means that western communities did not have an established tradition of rulerworship, or experience of deferring to the authority of a remote individual. Nevertheless,
the western elites appear to have been quick in recognising the benefits of establishing a
good relationship with Rome, and in particular the emperor as representative of Rome.
Some examples of explicit displays of loyalty from the western provinces are as follows:
Oaths of loyalty
LACTOR 8 no. 26 = LACTOR 18 no. 182 – bronze tablet recording an oath of
loyalty sworn to the new emperor (Gaius Caesar Germanicus, i.e. Caligula) in AD 37 by
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the people of Aritium, a community in Lusitania (modern Portugal). Such oaths had been
introduced initially by Augustus, who had strongly encouraged the entire populations of
both Italy and the western provinces to swear an oath of loyalty to him while preparing to
face Antony at the battle of Actium. They were then renewed when a new emperor took
power, apparently on a community-by-community basis – in other words, the inscription
records an oath taken communally by the entire people of Aritium, not by each individual
within that community.
The text as printed in LACTOR 18 includes a preamble stating that the oathtaking at Aritium occurred under the legatus propraetore (i.e. provincial governor of
Lusitania), suggesting that he had initiated the process. But the names of those described
as ‘officers in charge’ at the bottom of the inscription (Vegethus son of Tallicus and
[…]ibius son of […]arionus) suggest local people who did not possess Roman
citizenship. This indicates that some provincials at least were willing to become actively
involved in leading this display of loyalty.
Lending military support to Rome
LACTOR 8, no. 32 part b – this inscribed tablet honours a citizen of Volubilis in
Mauretania, Marcus Valerius Severus, who had commanded auxiliary troops on behalf of
Rome during a local rebellion led by a figure named Aedemon. Such loyalty was
typically recognised and rewarded by Rome – see under The emperor and the
provinces, p. 20 for the embassy to Claudius which Severus conducted later on, and
which resulted in the benefits recorded in the same text. Part a in the same section of the
LACTOR is a separate tablet set up to thank Claudius for the benefits and concessions
granted as a result of Severus’ embassy.
Dedicating benefactions in the name of the emperor
LACTOR 18 no. 99, a letter from Vespasian to the community of Sabora in
Spain. This community have clearly asked Vespasian for the right to build and dedicate a
town centre (i.e. a forum) in his name. This forum will benefit the community in itself by
providing facilities for local government and communal activities such as markets and
religious ceremonies, but the dedication to Vespasian will ensure that it also attracts
imperial favour. See under Provincial taxation, above p. 21, for Vesp’s comments in the
same letter about how the money for the forum will be raised from local taxation.
LACTOR 8 no. 25 – inscription commemorating the paving of the forum and
construction of arches, temples and altars at Thugga, North Africa, by Lucius Postumius
Chius and his sons. This work can be seen as a display of loyalty in its own right, since it
constitutes an active attempt by a wealthy local citizen to embellish the city of Thugga
with buildings, roads and temples that were in keeping with Roman architectural models
and practices (see notes on The issue of 'Romanisation', above p. 34). But the
expression of loyalty to Rome which this entails is underlined by dedicating the entire
project to the reigning emperor, Tiberius.
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4.3 LIFE IN THE PROVINCES
Regional identities
Huskinson ed. 2000, ch. 1 provides useful discussion on this. See also Alcock
1997, Scott and Webster 2003, Blagg and Millett 1990 for specific examples.
While the advent of Roman rule brought a number of significant changes to
provincial life (as explored above p. 34 in The issue of ‘Romanisation’), there is also
evidence of the importance of preserving, or even creating new regional identities.
Investigation of senses of identity can be complex. Any one elite individual could have a
range of identities based for example on their ethnic background, their possession of
Roman citizenship, and their public life – perhaps as a serving magistrate in their own
city as well as having a senatorial or equestrian career at Rome. Cities too could proudly
assert their involvement in the imperial cult while at the same time asserting the antiquity
of their local religious practices.
The Eastern Provinces:
In the Eastern provinces exploration of Roman and local identities also needs to
be looked at alongside the diffusion of Greek culture which had occurred here since the
Hellenistic period. This meant that Greek was the common language of the East,
replacing Latin here as the language of government, though some inscriptions in honour
of Roman emperors or governors could be set up in both Greek and Latin. From the
Republican period elite Romans were thoroughly educated in Greek language and
literature and Greek culture was highly regarded. Some even undertook periods of
education in cultural centres such as Athens. Roman attitudes towards the Greekspeaking provinces, and particularly mainland Greece, were thus influenced by their
respect for Greek traditions. This was particularly true of the philhellenic emperors Nero
and Hadrian and was manifested in acts such as Nero’s ‘Freeing of Greece’, whereby the
province of Achaea was remitted from taxation, though Vespasian soon renounced the
measure due to financial constraints (LACTOR 8, No. 46; see also LACTOR 18,
section 5.2).
At the same time, the later first century and second centuries AD witnessed the
cultural phenomenon known as the ‘Second Sophistic’. This manifested itself primarily in
the explosion of performance oratory and literature in perfect Attic Greek (a form no
longer commonly spoken in the period of the roman empire) on themes taken from the
periods of Greece’s heyday in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, such as the Persian wars,
or campaigns of Alexander. Some scholars have seen this tendency as a response to
empire – a desire to escape the reality of Greece’s subjugation in the present by dwelling
on her past greatness. Yet cities could also use their achievements in the past as a means
to achieve power and prestige in the present, as we see in the arguments used by cities in
Asia seeking the prestige of erecting the provincial Temple of the Imperial Cult (Tacitus
Annals 4.55-56, cited and discussed in The Imperial Cult below p. 48). When these
claims were used as factors in inter-city rivalries, however, there was also the potential
for disturbances, something that both Dio of Prusa and Plutarch caution against
(LACTOR 18, nos. 155, 157-8)
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While for some writers, elements of Roman culture such as the gladiatorial games
celebrated as part of the imperial cult were at odds with traditional Greek culture
(LACTOR 18, no. 104, the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana’s rejection of gladiatorial
games at Athens), they seem to have been in the minority. In general, Roman imports
such as gladiatorial games or the culture of the public baths were added onto, rather than
replacing, traditional Greek culture. Local and international festivals (such as the
Olympic Games) continued to thrive, and Roman bathing culture was accommodated
alongside the traditional activities of the Greek gymnasium.
It also seems clear that most cities and individuals did not see a tension between
respect for their own traditions and membership in the Roman empire. This can be seen
especially in civic religious life. Inscriptions commonly dedicate buildings to the local
deity and the imperial family, and emperors were incorporated into existing festival
culture either by the renaming of festivals to honour the imperial family, or through their
presence in statue form in processions and civic imagery. Some religious practices from
the provinces could also be exported around the empire. Statues of the goddess Artemis
of Ephesus have been found around the Roman world, suggesting that the cult was
replicated away from her home city (see Elsner in Alcock 1997). Religions such as the
worship of Isis, Mithraism and Christianity are also examples of cults which spread from
their original contexts in the East throughout the entirety of the Roman world (for some
examples see LACTOR 18, section 5.3).
The western provinces – religious practices
Useful reading: Woolf 1998 chapter 8, Blagg and Millett 1990 chapter 15 by
King, and Scott and Webster chapter 8 by Woolf. Huskinson ed. 2000 ch. 9 by Rives is
also useful for a general framework, but discusses religion across the empire generally
rather than just in the west.
In the western provinces, one area often discussed in the context of local identities
is religious activity. The names of the gods worshipped in Gaul and Britain, the temples
built for them and the religious images used to represent them were often recognisably
different from those found in Rome. This appears to reflect the persistence of local
names, iconography and temple architecture, but we should still be wary of talking in
terms of simple ‘continuity’ from the pre-Roman period in these areas. For example, the
practice of representing gods in visual form at all (e.g. in clay statuettes or relief
sculpture) was almost unknown in Gaul and Britain before these regions became part of
the Roman empire. So representing these gods in a localised form constitutes a fusion of
the Roman practice of creating religious images and local ideas about what the gods
should look like.
Meanwhile, in spite of these differences, much of the religious practice which is
attested in Britain and Gaul appears to have been very similar to that known at Rome.
Activities include building temples, conducting religious processions and animal
sacrifices, making and fulfilling vows to the gods, making small offerings (e.g. statuettes,
jewellery, coins) and setting up altars and other permanent monuments to commemorate
religious devotion. Examples include LACTOR 8 no. 45, a Jupiter column set up by
civilians at Mainz (Moguntiacum), a military fortress on the Rhine frontier in Germany,
and LACTOR 18 no. 176, a temple to Neptune and Minerva set up Cogidubnus, a
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British client king (see further under The imperial cult – Local initiative in the west, p.
52 for the way in which both examples link in with emperor worship).
In addition to gods known by indigenous names, gods with Roman names and
gods with joint, ‘hybrid’ names are widely attested in Britain and Gaul. This suggests that
people in these provinces were drawing from a wide cultural pool when expressing their
religious beliefs. A good example is the temple complex at Bath (Aquae Sulis) in Britain,
dedicated to the worship of a ‘hybrid’ goddess known as Sul (or Sulis) Minerva. This
would appear to represent a fusion of a local goddess already connected with the hot
spring which emerges naturally at Bath, and the Roman goddess Minerva who was
associated with healing. We do not know whose initiative lay behind the decision to
‘merge’ the two goddesses, but in the absence of any direct evidence for the involvement
of the Roman state, we must assume that the complex was developed largely at local
initiative. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence for indigenous people using the temple
complex and leaving behind either lead ‘curse tablets’ (prayers for the aid of the goddess
thrown into the spring) or stone altars. There is a good range of information about this
site
available
at
http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/
and
http://www.romanbritain.org/places/aquae_sulis.htm
In general, neither Romans nor provincials in the west appear to have felt any
significant sense of tension between their religious systems or practices. Although GalloRoman and Romano-British religion was recognisably different from that encountered in
Rome, the differences do not appear to have been made into a focus of resistance or
opposition to Rome. It was in any case normal in the ancient world for religious practices
to appear highly localised in character – throughout the Mediterranean, every civic
community had its own favoured local deities, which were often either entirely unique to
the area or localised variants on deities found elsewhere (see e.g. comments above p. 42
under ‘The Eastern Provinces’ on the localised version of Artemis worshipped at
Ephesus). This meant that there was a great deal of flexibility of practice around religion
in the Roman world, and the attitude of the Roman state appears to have been to assume
that local peoples would continue with their established practices, while at the same time
introducing them to Roman gods which were often enthusiastically adopted by
provincials. The major exception to all this in the west is the suppression of the Druids in
Gaul and Britain which was initiated by Claudius (Suetonius, Claudius 25.5). This,
however, appears to have been done primarily because they were fomenting political
resistance to Rome, rather than for straightforwardly religious reasons.
Economics
Useful reading on this topic – Goodman 1997: 142-148; Garnsey and Saller
1987: chapters 3-5; Blagg and Millett, eds. 1990: chapter by Drinkwater; Huskinson,
ed. 2000: chapter 7 by Perkins.
The ancient economy rested above all on agricultural production. The majority of
ordinary individuals supported themselves by farming at little more than subsistence
level, either on small family-owned plots or as dependent tenants. But even these farmers
were capable of generating a small surplus, which when collected together at local
markets could add up to a sufficient level of production to support long-distance trading.
The Roman elite considered agriculture to be the only sound and honourable basis for the
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wealth necessary to support their educated and sophisticated lifestyle, and owned large
slave-run estates for the purpose (see Garnsey and Saller 1987: 66-71 and Perkins in
Huskinson 2000: 186-193). These could generate substantial quantities of goods such as
grain, wine and olive oil, which were again traded for profit.
Large-scale investment industry of the type we are familiar with today did not
exist, but small-scale craftsmen flourished in cities, small towns and villages, sometimes
on a substantial scale. Like most farmers, they probably worked above all simply to
support themselves by selling to local consumers, but in some places they found
themselves able to supply longer-distance markets, and some clearly became wealthy
enough to afford fine funerary monuments – see e.g. LACTOR 18 no. 241 for an
inscription commemorating a glass-blower and Perkins in Huskinson 2000: 206-7 for
illustrations of tomb reliefs illustrating economic activity.
Mechanisms for the trading of both agricultural and manufactured goods included
local markets, which took place in cities and small towns on a rotational basis. These
were linked by the road network and by shipping routes along rivers and around the
Mediterranean. See LACTOR 18 no. 242 for Trajan’s improvements to the roads in
Italy, and no. 244 for an inscription honouring a shipper who had been active on the
Rhône in Gaul (France). Since both the construction of an empire-wide road network (see
e.g. LACTOR 8 no. 64) and the control of piracy in the Mediterranean were policies
pursued actively and consciously by the Roman state, there is a fairly strong argument
here for saying that one of the consequences of integration into the Roman empire for
provincial populations was access to a better trading infrastructure. Other factors such as
standardised coinage and the spread of Latin and Greek should also have made trading
easier.
A significant proportion of large-scale, long-distance trade, particularly in staple
foods, was driven by the needs of the state. The city of Rome had outgrown the ability of
its immediate hinterland to support the food needs of its population in the Republican era.
The shortfall was made up by asking provinces such as Sicily, Africa and Egypt to pay
their taxes to Rome in the form of grain; part of this was then made available to Roman
citizens in the form of a grain dole (the annona; see Perkins in Huskinson 2000: 19799). Emperors knew that the support of the ordinary people in Rome was essential to their
position in power, and that they would quickly lose that support when famine threatened.
Therefore, in addition to asking for some taxes to be paid in kind, they also put a great
deal of effort into stimulating the free-market grain trade – see e.g. Suetonius, Claudius
18-20, and also below on Ostia. Similarly, they were also careful to ensure good supply
lines to areas where legions were permanently stationed, especially the Rhine frontier in
Germany. These state-led activities appear to have stimulated economic growth and the
development of trade routes across the empire in general.
Literary sources tend to focus on state-driven trade and imports of exotic highvalue goods prized by the elite – see e.g. LACTOR 18 no. 245 (Pliny the Elder on
imports from Arabia, India and China). But long-distance trade resulting from private
enterprise can also be ‘seen’ archaeologically by looking at the find-spots of ceramics,
since these survive well in the archaeological record and in some cases can be traced to
particular places of production (see Perkins in Huskinson 2000: 198-9 and 201-204).
Amphorae (large jars used mainly for wine and olive oil) and terra sigillata (aka both
‘Samian ware’ and ‘Arretine ware’, a shiny red pottery used as good tableware) are good
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examples. The scale and organisation of the terra sigillata industry, which was based
mainly in Gaul in our period, is attested by lists scratched onto plates which appear to
record how many pots and of which types had been placed into communal kilns by
individual potters – see LACTOR 18 no. 243 for an example. The find-spots of this
pottery show that its manufacturers were reaching consumers across a large portion of the
western Roman empire, and sometimes parts of the eastern empire too (see Woolf 1998:
187-205).
Some port towns clearly became busy and flourishing centres thanks to trading
activity. One of the best-documented examples is Ostia, which lay at the mouth of the
Tiber, and thus handled most of the sea-borne trade destined for Rome, 15 miles inland.
Its facilities were improved by first Claudius (see LACTOR 15 no. C.7 = Cassius Dio
60 11.1-5) and then Trajan (see LACTOR 18 no. 246, a commemorative inscription),
who built harbour-basins about a mile NW of Ostia, mainly with an eye to improving the
reliability of the grain trade which fed the ordinary people of Rome. But grain was far
from being the only product traded through Ostia. LACTOR 18 no. 247 gives a good
insight into the range of activities which went on there. It honours a local figure, Gnaeus
Sentius Felix, who has become a member of the civic council, but was also involved with
a long list of different merchants, traders, dealers and producers active in the city. Note
that most of these people are grouped into associations or corporations, of which Gnaeus
Sentius Felix has served as a patron. Such groups helped to link together large numbers
of small traders or artisans, enabling them to cooperate with one another on economic
pursuits, and helping them to build effective relationships with the wealthy elite. But they
also had a strong social and religious aspect – for these reasons they are not quite the
equivalents of medieval guilds, which were more directly focussed on economic issues.
The Image of the Emperor
For the provincials, the centre of the empire was not Rome so much as the
emperor himself. It was to him that embassies were sent requesting various concessions
(sometimes filtered via the governor, as we see in Pliny’s letters), and for his safety that
prayers were directed. The figure of the emperor embodied the power of the Roman
empire, and loyalty to him also translated into loyalty to Rome. For this reason it was
vital that people in the provinces should be able to envisage the emperor, and have access
to him (whether through letters and embassies, or in the form of divine honours), to make
his presence felt even when he was physically absent.
Travel
One of the most obvious ways that the emperor could communicate with his
subjects was via travel in the provinces. However, most emperors (at least until Trajan’s
successor Hadrian, who spent much of his reign travelling) spent the majority of their
time in Rome, and when they did travel it was primarily for military purposes (e.g.
Claudius’ invasion of Britain). There were good reasons for an emperor not to spent too
long away from Rome – in his absence plots might be formed, and the senate and people
begin to feel bereft of strong leadership (as in the emperor Tiberius’ long absences in
Capreae in the last decade of his rule – see Tacitus, Annals 4.67). But emperors did
travel abroad, and seem to have been warmly welcomed by the provincials they
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encountered. One of the best examples is Nero who travelled to Greece in AD 67, visiting
cultural sites and attending the Panhellenic festivals (the Olympic Games were
deliberately rescheduled to allow him to perform). Reaction to this in the Roman literary
sources is hostile, seeing his activities as a waste of time (see Suetonius, Nero 18-19, 2224), but the response to him in Greece, especially after he freed Achaea from tribute,
seems to have been warm (LACTOR 8, No. 46). The ‘false Nero’ who appeared decades
after Nero’s death also gained a particular following in the East (Suetonius, Nero 57).
Junior members of the imperial family could be warmly received by provincials,
as we see in the reception of Germanicus in Alexandria (LACTOR 18, No. 167).
However, the hype surrounding imperial visits could provide opportunities for abuse, as
shown in LACTOR 8, no. 7 where Germanicus reacts against the requisitioning of boats,
animals and lodgings, allegedly on his behalf. The extent to which visits by members of
the imperial family were welcomed can be seen through the fact that they were often
commemorated on provincial coinage.
Benefactions
Emperors could also make their presence felt in the provinces through various
benefactions. Tiberius responded to pleas by the cities of Asia after the earthquake of AD
17 and gave money to rebuild the cities, an act of generosity recorded on a Roman
sestertius (LACTOR 8, no. 10). The freeing of provinces or individual cities from
taxation, as recognition of their past services or cultural prestige (as in Nero’s ‘liberation’
of Greece) was another form of benefaction.
Other acts of benefaction included the institution of festivals and construction of
public buildings. It is not always easy to tell whether a particular festival or building was
paid for by an emperor or simply bore his name (see Pliny, Letters 10.75). However there
is clear evidence that a concern for adequate public amenities was a proper concern of the
emperor – as we see in Trajan’s responses to Pliny regarding the need for an aqueduct at
Nicomedia (Pliny, Letters 10.37-8).
Acts of benefaction left a physical record in the form of inscriptions – letters and
edicts of the emperors granting particular benefits to a city were proudly inscribed in the
public spaces of the city and buildings were inscribed with the emperor’s name.
Portraiture and coinage
Perhaps the most dominant form in which the emperor’s image spread throughout
the empire was in the form of his portrait on coins and in statues. Statues were set up to
the emperor by cities and individuals. They were displayed in public spaces such as
theatres, libraries and baths, as well as in temples and shrines. There was hardly any area
of public life in which the emperor was not physically present through his statue, and
images of the imperial family have even been found in private homes.
These statues were the result of dedications by individuals or cities, rather than
being imposed from above, though they do usually follow portrait types which were first
created at Rome and presumably represented the emperor in his chosen form. However,
in dress and attributes, portraits from the provinces could give the emperor a more local
spin. Naked statues of emperors are rare in the west but more common in the east, where
Hellenistic rulers had traditionally been shown in heroic nudity, conversely images of the
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emperor as a citizen wearing the Roman toga are less common in the east. Thus statues
represented the emperor as these particular subjects wished to imagine him.
For the significance attributed to statues of the emperor by local people, see
Pliny, Letters 10.74, in which he reports that a man named Callidromus had taken refuge
at a statue of Trajan after being forcibly detained by his employers, two bakers called
Maximus and Dionysius. This reveals that the statue stood symbolically for the system of
justice in the empire – indeed, it literally granted Callidromus access to that system, since
his actions caused his case to be brought to the attention of a soldier named Appuleius,
who then reported it to Pliny and subsequently to Trajan himself.
Portraits of the emperor also appeared on coinage, both that issued by the mint at
Rome, and on local provincial coins (mainly issued by poleis in the Greek-speaking east).
Both circulated throughout the empire, particularly in trade and the payment of the
military. While coins minted at Rome could assert aspects of imperial policy and
ideology, civic coinages often featured the emperor’s image on the obverse and
something of local resonance on the reverse, such as a wreath naming a local festival; the
image of a civic god or a legendary founder.
The Imperial Cult
For a useful discussion, see M. Beard, J. North & S. Price, Religions of Rome
(Cambridge, 1998) I: 348-363.
‘The imperial cult’ is a modern term given to a whole range of religious rituals
and practices focussed on the person of the emperor. It was practised differently in the
Eastern and Western provinces of the empire, and could encompass both the worship of
the current emperor with divine honours, and also the deification of deceased emperors.
The honours offered to emperors included temples and alters, prayers, sacrifices and
festivals, such as those offered to the gods; however, the terminology used also suggests
subtle distinctions between the emperor and the gods, as when prayers of sacrifices are
offered ‘on behalf of the emperor’ as opposed to ‘to the emperor’.
It may be tempting to see the imperial cult as a cynical means of control by the
emperor or a sign of Roman domination. The literary texts sometime support this view by
their reference to the desire of ‘bad’ emperors like Caligula and Domitian to be seen as
gods and to insist on their own worship (see LACTOR 18, Nos. 169-70). However, these
comments should be seen in the context of the writers’ own agendas. There is certainly
evidence of the top-down introduction of the imperial cult into recently conquered
provinces, particularly in the west where the tradition of ruler cult did not exist as it had
in the east. Sometimes this could form a focal point for resistance as in the burning of the
Temple of Claudius at Camulodunum in the Boudiccan revolt (Tacitus, Annals 14.31:
‘The Temple erected to the divine Claudius was a blatant stronghold of alien rule’. See
further discussion below p. 52). However, more often the impetus seems to have come
from provincial elites themselves, as a way of aligning themselves with the central
power. The worship of the emperor with divine honours can be seen as a way of
conceptualising the new power structures of the empire. It should also be noted that for
the vast majority of the empire’s population, to whom the emperor was omnipresent in
statues and inscriptions but rarely seen in person, he must have seemed very close to a
god.
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The Imperial cult in the East
The key modern discussion of this is Price 1984, focussed on the province of
Asia.
Since Alexander the Great, cities in the Greek east had been used to worshipping
rulers and kings as if they were divine and continued this tradition into their relationships
with Rome. As Roman influence spread into the Eastern Mediterranean in the third and
second centuries BC, we begin to find temples and festivals dedicated to the goddess
Roma (e.g. in Smyrna, mentioned in Tacitus, Annals 4.55, cited below), and later divine
honours offered to Roman generals or governors (e.g. the Roman general Titus Flaminius
after his ‘liberation’ of Greece in 196 BC). After the defeat of Antony at Actium in 31
BC many cities in Greece and Asia (most of which had been aligned with Antony) now
wished to assert their loyalty to the new victor Octavian (later Augustus). Cult offered a
means of doing so and we find a number of references to Temples of Augustus or Roma
and Augustus. In addition to individual cities setting up temples or festivals to the
emperor, the imperial cult was also run on a province-wide basis with a central temple
and festival to which all the member cities sent representatives. Because of the prestige
which accrued to the city hosting the cult, and to its priests, the emperors (and sometimes
the senate, as below) were heavily involved in granting permission for the cult and in
choosing the city to host it.
Cassius Dio (Roman History 51.20.6 = LACTOR 18, no. 174) tells us that
Augustus permitted the institution of province-wide cults to himself at Pergamum in Asia
and Nicomedia in Bithynia. Under Tiberius we find the Province of Asia requesting
permission to set up another cult temple, this time to Tiberius, his mother Livia, and the
senate. Tacitus (Annals 4.15) suggests that they were motivated by gratitude to Tiberius
for his support in allowing the prosecution of the imperial procurator Lucilius Capito for
extortion. Tacitus gives a long account of the senatorial hearing in which the city which
was to host the temple was chosen (Annals 4.55-56). The arguments made by the eleven
competing cities show the importance of the variety of factors, including the antiquity
and prestige of the city and a tradition of loyalty to Rome, but also the desire of the
emperor and senate to preserve the balance of power among the leading cities of the
province. The full text can be found on-line, abbreviated here (trans. A. J. Church & W.
J. Brodribb, available via www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper):
Tiberius … gave an audience of several days to embassies from Asia on a disputed question
as to the city in which the temple before mentioned should be erected. Eleven cities were
rivals for the honour, of which they were all equally ambitious, though they differed widely
in resources. With little variation they dwelt on antiquity of race and loyalty to Rome
throughout her wars with Perseus, Aristonicus, and other kings. But the people of Hypæpa,
Tralles, Laodicæa, and Magnesia were passed over as too insignificant; even Ilium, though it
boasted that Troy was the cradle of Rome, was strong only in the glory of its antiquity. There
was a little hesitation about Halicarnassus, as its inhabitants affirmed that for twelve hundred
years their homes had not been shaken by an earthquake and that the foundations of their
temple were on the living rock. Pergamon, it was thought, had been sufficiently honoured by
having a temple of Augustus in the city, on which very fact they relied. The Ephesians and
Milesians had, it seemed, wholly devoted their respective towns to the worships of Apollo
and Diana. And so the question lay between Sardis and Smyrna. The envoys from Sardis read
a decree of the Etrurians, with whom they claimed kindred…They spoke too of letters from
Roman generals, of treaties concluded with us during the Macedonian war, and of their
copious rivers, of their climate, and the rich countries round them.
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The envoys from Smyrna, after tracing their city's antiquity back to such founders as
either Tantalus, the son of Jupiter, or Theseus, also of divine origin, or one of the Amazons,
passed on to that on which they chiefly relied, their services to the Roman people, whom they
had helped with naval armaments, not only in wars abroad, but in those under which we
struggled in Italy. They had also been the first, they said, to build a temple in honour of
Roma, during the consulship of Marcus Porcius Cato…They appealed too to the testimony of
Lucius Sulla, whose army was once in terrible jeopardy from a severe winter and want of
clothing, and this having been announced at Smyrna in a public assembly, all who were
present stripped their clothes off their backs and sent them to our legions.
And so the Senate, when the question was put, gave the preference to Smyrna
While we see here the emperor and the senate regulating the provincial imperial
cult, the impetus seems to come from the provincials themselves, who were keen to gain
the honour of an imperial temple. The permission to build a provincial cult temple was a
particular honour for a city, and was proudly acclaimed on coins and inscriptions.
Divine honours were also offered by individual cities. Much of the inscriptional
evidence concerns honours voted by particular cities, and the response of the emperor. A
good example is the city of Gytheum in Sparta (LACTOR 8, No. 3 = LACTOR 18. no.
166) where Tiberius writes in response to limit the honours granted to himself, though
approving those to his deified father Augustus (for another example of honours to
‘Tiberius the god’ at Cyprus, see LACTOR 8, No. 5). For these cities the imperial cult
was a tangible way of proving their loyalty to Rome and the emperor.
In addition to temples dedicated solely to a particular emperor, the imperial
family was also accommodated and worshipped alongside the civic gods. Sometimes
existing temples were adapted to accommodate cult images of the emperors, at other
times statues of the imperial family were set up in public basilicas and stoas. The
provincial imperial cult involved festivals in which Roman-style gladiatorial games were
held, but the emperors could also be incorporated into traditional civic festivals, which
were sometimes renamed in their honour. It is not possible, then, to distinguish clearly
between ‘the imperial cult’ and the widespread incorporation of the imperial family into
all areas of civic life (see above). A whole range of activities from prayers, vows, and
sacrifices (see Pliny, Letters 10.35-6) to temples and dedicated festivals make up part of
what we call ‘the imperial cult’.
The Sebasteion at Aphrodisias in Caria (c. AD 20-60)
The key publications are two articles by R. R. R. Smith in Journal of Roman Studies 77
(1987) and 78 (1988). See also http://www.nyu.edu/projects/aphrodisias/index2.html
A good example of the ways that the imperial cult, expressions of loyalty to the
imperial family and statements of imperial, regional and civic identities could all be
intermingled is provided by the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias in Caria.
Aphrodisias was a small city with a long tradition of loyalty to Rome, based
partly on the identification of its patron goddess Aphrodite with Venus Genetrix, the
ancestress, through her son Aeneas and his son Iulus, of the Julian race (including Julius
Caesar and Augustus).
The Sebasteion (which means a building dedicated to the emperors (sebastoi in
Greek)) was dedicated by two leading families of Aphrodisias to the Julio-Claudian
imperial family. It was begun in the reign of Tiberius, and completed under Nero. It
comprised of a Roman-style Corinthian temple linked by two parallel porticoes to a
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propylon (gate). The Temple was dedicated jointly to the civic deity Aphrodisias and the
imperial family. The gate was decorated with a series of imperial statues, including
relatively minor members of the Julio-Claudian family, as well as statues of Aphrodite
and Aeneas.
The porticoes which linked the gate to the temple were decorated with a series of
relief panels. These included personifications of the peoples and provinces conquered by
Augustus. This suggests that Aphrodisias was clearly situating herself alongside Roman
power, sharing in the glory of conquest. There were also a series of reliefs showing
various emperors, including scenes of Nero subjugating Armenia, and Claudius
conquering Britain (click on the ‘Sebasteion Sculpture’ link on the website for an image).
While these reliefs suggest Aphrodisias was proud to identify herself as part of the
Roman empire, and aligned herself with Roman military might, another series of reliefs
showed Greek mythological scenes (featuring gods and heroes such as Heracles, Achilles
and Apollo), stressing their Greek cultural credentials. Overall the decoration of the
complex suggests that both Greek and Roman identities were important to the families
who commissioned this monument, as well as the city’s long tradition of loyalty to Rome.
As the decoration of a religious monument, the imperial panels also act like a hymn in
stone, praising the emperors’ achievements.
The Imperial cult in the west
The western provinces did not have the same established tradition of rulerworship as those in the east, so that provincial populations in the west did not feel the
same impetus to transfer their existing religious allegiances to the representatives of the
Roman state. If the emperors of Rome had been strongly committed to the idea of using
the imperial cult as a method of fostering loyalty and exercising control over their
empire, we might expect that they would have made wholesale efforts to establish its
practice in the west, in order to match the situation in the east. In practice, though, state
encouragement for the imperial cult was patchy even in the west, and appears to have
occurred only on an ad hoc basis in response to particular local circumstances. The bulk
of the impetus for emperor worship in the west in fact appears to have come from local
elites, just as it did in the east.
State initiatives in the west
An early example of state initiative for the establishment of emperor-worship in
the west concerns the altar of Roma (i.e. the goddess who personified Rome) and
Augustus at Lyon (Lugdunum) in Gaul. This appears to have been established by
Augustus’ step-son (and Claudius’ father) Drusus in 12 BC, when he was serving as
governor of the province (Cassius Dio 54.32; Suetonius, Claudius 2). The context here is
one of unrest in Gaul following a census and the introduction of taxation, and Dio states
explicitly that Drusus sought to calm the unrest by calling the leading citizens of the
tribes concerned to Lyon in order to participate in the worship of the emperor at the new
altar.
The cult itself, though, was quickly embraced by the Gallic elite. Throughout our
period, the civic communities of the three northerly Gallic provinces (Aquitania, Belgica
and Lugdunensis) sent representatives to participate in annual ceremonies conducted at
the altar in Lyon, while the position of the high priest who led these representatives
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became one of the most coveted in the province. Surviving regulations concerning the
high priest of a similar cult established at Narbonne (Narbo), the provincial capital of the
southern Gallic province of Narbonensis, are at LACTOR 18 no. 175. These show the
prestige attached to the office, and thus presumably part of the attraction of holding it.
While in office, the high priest had his own attendants, enjoyed special prominence at the
provincial council and public games, and also attracted special privileges for his wife.
Afterwards, he was allowed to set up a statue of himself in a precinct next to the temple
of the imperial cult at Narbonne, and continued to enjoy special prominence in his own
local civic council and the provincial council based at Narbonne.
Within our period, the temple of Claudius at Colchester (Camulodunum) also
appears to have been established at state initiative. This is not stated explicitly by any of
our sources, but the fact that it was built in a colonia populated by veteran Roman
soldiers, and on land which had previously formed part of an annex to a legionary fort,
makes it highly likely that the initiative behind its construction came from the state –
perhaps specifically from the provincial governor. In this case, the construction appears
to have prompted some resentment from indigenous locals. Tacitus, Annals 14.31
(available at http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/tacitus.html) includes the temple and
its associated expenses amongst causes for the Boudiccan revolt in AD 60:
“The temple built in honour of Claudius was another cause of discontent. In the
eye of the Britons it seemed the citadel of eternal slavery. The priests, appointed to
officiate at the altars, with a pretended zeal for religion, devoured the whole substance of
the country.”
The difficulty with this statement, though, is that it was written by a Roman
author, not by one of the people who participated in the rebellion. While Tacitus may be
correct that the temple had caused resentment and helped to spur the rebellion, then, we
cannot be certain that it really ‘seemed the citadel of eternal slavery’ from a British
perspective. Tacitus may in fact be projecting elite Roman suspicion of emperors who
encouraged religious devotion onto the Britons.
Local initiative in the west
Other examples clearly attest provincial initiatives for the establishment of
emperor-worship. Dedications directly to emperors, either living or dead, are fairly rare,
but dedications of altars or temples to other deities on behalf of the emperor(s) attest a
desire to incorporate the imperial household into local religious activities. Some
examples include:
LACTOR 8 no. 45 – civilians at Mainz (Moguntiacum), a military fortress on the
Rhine frontier in Germany set up a column in honour of Jupiter, and dedicated it ‘for the
safety of Nero’. (Note that after Nero’s disgrace and suicide a few years later, his name
was erased from the inscription. This is an example of damnatio memoriae or
‘condemnation of memory’, under which the images and records of a disgraced emperor
were literally wiped out. The official order for such condemnation was usually given out
by the senate under the subsequent regime, so the erasure of the name represents the
attempts of the civilians at Mainz to keep up with changes at the centre of the empire.)
LACTOR 18 no. 176 – an inscription set up Cogidubnus, a client king who was
allowed to rule over parts of south-western Britain during the first few decades after the
conquest in AD 43. The inscription commemorates the establishment of a temple to
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Neptune and Minerva ‘for the welfare of the Divine House (domus divina)’ – i.e. the
reigning emperor (Claudius) as well as his living relatives and deified ancestors.
Where such dedications were made by individuals or communities, it is clear that
the state not only did not desire to interfere, but probably could not have done so even if
it had wanted to. Allowing such activity was an important way of ensuring loyalty and
stability in the provinces, while the state lacked the resources to police it – either to
ensure that it was evenly distributed amongst provincial communities or to control its
character. Thus the extent of emperor-worship in the west must always have been heavily
dependent on the interests of individual local communities.
Cults established on behalf of an entire province (as at Lyon and Narbonne in
Gaul – see above p. 51, ‘State initiatives in the west’) appears to have been more
carefully scrutinised. As explained above, in some cases province-wide cults were
established at the initiative of the state, as at Lyon. Elsewhere, provincials knew that they
needed to seek imperial permission before establishing province-wide worship on their
own initiative. The eagerness of the people of Baetica (southern Spain) to do this in the
reign of Tiberius after observing the example of Asia (see ‘The Imperial cult in the East’,
above p. 49) stands in contrast with the attitude to Tiberius, who refused their request:
Tacitus, Annals 4.37-8 (AD 25) – About the same time Further Spain sent a deputation to
the Senate, with a request to be allowed, after the example of Asia, to erect a temple to Tiberius and his
mother. On this occasion, the emperor, who had generally a strong contempt for honours, and now thought
it right to reply to the rumour which reproached him with having yielded to vanity, delivered the following
speech:
“I am aware, Senators, that many deplore my want of firmness in not having opposed a similar
recent petition from the cities of Asia. I will therefore both explain the grounds of my previous silence and
my intentions for the future. Inasmuch as the Divine Augustus did not forbid the founding of a temple at
Pergamos to himself and to the city of Rome, I who respect as law all his actions and sayings, have the
more readily followed a precedent once approved, seeing that with the worship of myself was linked an
expression of reverence towards the Senate. But though it may be pardonable to have allowed this once, it
would be a vain and arrogant thing to receive the sacred honour of images representing the divine
throughout all the provinces, and the homage paid to Augustus will disappear if it is vulgarised by
indiscriminate flattery.
“For myself, Senators, I am mortal and limited to the functions of humanity, content if I can
adequately fill the highest place; of this I solemnly assure you, and would have posterity remember it. They
will more than sufficiently honour my memory by believing me to have been worthy of my ancestry,
watchful over your interests, courageous in danger, fearless of enmity, when the State required it. These
sentiments of your hearts are my temples, these my most glorious and abiding monuments. Those built of
stone are despised as mere tombs, if the judgment of posterity passes into hatred. And therefore this is my
prayer to our allies, our citizens, and to heaven itself; to the last, that, to my life’s close, it grant me a
tranquil mind, which can discern alike human and divine claims; to the first, that, when I die, they honour
my career and the reputation of my name with praise and kindly remembrance.”
Here, Tiberius’ motive for refusing the dedication of the temple appears to have
been a desire to show himself to the Roman senate as moderate and restrained. The
opening sentences of his speech suggest that he had received criticism for allowing the
construction of a temple in his honour in Asia, and wished to be seen to oppose a further
example of the same behaviour. He excuses the original decision on the grounds that he
was following the precedent of Augustus – always a sound political move, since
Augustus had been widely popular. It also seems to have made a difference that the cult
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in Asia was to celebrate Tiberius, Livia and the senate, whereas the proposed temple in
Spain would honour only Tiberius and Livia, and thus might provoke senatorial
resentment at being sidelined in favour of the imperial household.
In making his decision, Tiberius was presumably aware that he risked arousing
resentment in Baetica, where he might be seen as displaying ingratitude in the face of the
provincials’ desire to display their loyalty to him. His decision to accept this risk must
reflect a sense of priority between his various sources of power – it was more important
to ensure the continuing support of the senate than that of a province, and particularly one
which was long-pacified, unlikely to rebel, and had no armies stationed within it.
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