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Authors: Timothy H. Parsons
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and Roman conquerors freely borrowed from subject cultures. They unashamedly worshipped a host
of cults from Germany, Syria, Egypt, and Persia alongside their own
Greco-Roman gods and the divine emperor himself. These syncretic
practices allowed subject elites to embrace an imperial identity without
entirely abandoning their own cultures. Emperor Caracalla’s decision
to make every free resident of the empire a citizen in the early third
century a.d. was most likely a tacit admission that the assimilative
process had gone so far that the formal distinction between citizen
and subject underpinning the crudest forms of imperial exploitation
had become largely meaningless.
Historians of empire often equated this romanization with the
twentieth-century concepts of modernization and westernization on
the assumption that it entailed the progression from barbarism to
civilization. At the elite level Rome’s subjects learned Latin, adopted
Roman manners, copied Greco-Roman architecture, and purchased
Roman products. Yet romanization did not mean the domination
of one culture over another. Imperial society was never uniform
at the grassroots, and the term really meant only an acceptance of
Roman authority. Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians never became Romans,
although to varying degrees they acknowledged Roman rule. If there
was a common imperial identity at the heart of the romanization process, it emerged through cultural exchanges with the subject peoples
of the empire. Romanization thus described the spread of a hybrid
culture that emerged as Romans adopted local norms to govern conquered populations and conquered populations encountered Roman
functionaries, celebrations, monuments, and commerce.
The scope of romanization was relatively limited in the wealthy
and culturally coherent eastern provinces where Alexander the
Great’s empire left a Hellenic counterweight to Roman culture. It had
a greater impact in the west, where less coherent tribal communities
were more open to Rome’s ideas and material culture. Spaniards and
Gauls became senators, but romanization and token citizenship after
Caracalla’s decree probably meant relatively little beyond the provincial level. The evidence is scanty, but it appears that there were no British senators and few auxiliary commanders in the fi rst century a.d.
This convenient lacuna allowed later generations to bend the
Roman imperial record to suit their needs. Debates over the scope
38 THE RULE OF EMPIRES
and infl uence of romanization predictably refl ected the national,
class, and methodological biases of the observer. Insisting that preconquest identities survived under Roman rule, nationalistic British
historians and archaeologists point to the survival of popular Celtic
forms in jewelry and religious shrines in arguing that romanization
infl uenced only a thin layer of Roman British society.15 Alternatively,
just as apologists for the empires of the twentieth century adopted a
balance sheet standard in counting railways, hospitals, and schools as
imperial achievements, those who imagined a civilizing Rome paid
the most attention to roads, aqueducts, villas, art, and literature. By
their reckoning, the high material culture of the empire suggested
that Roman rule was benevolent and uplifting. Depicting preconquest
Britain as affl icted with Hobbesian “endemic warfare,” one sympathetic scholar credited Roman rule with giving Britons the “freedom
to live the good life.”16
This may have been true for the civitas rulers who became imperial
gentlemen, but the initial stages of Roman rule brought signifi cant
hardship for subject majorities. Roman conquerors plundered and
disrupted local economies, seized land, and requisitioned labor. As
with most imperial projects, the real wealth of the Roman Empire
came from the exploitation of its subjects. Monumental construction
projects and the enormous surpluses needed to sustain the
of cults from Germany, Syria, Egypt, and Persia alongside their own
Greco-Roman gods and the divine emperor himself. These syncretic
practices allowed subject elites to embrace an imperial identity without
entirely abandoning their own cultures. Emperor Caracalla’s decision
to make every free resident of the empire a citizen in the early third
century a.d. was most likely a tacit admission that the assimilative
process had gone so far that the formal distinction between citizen
and subject underpinning the crudest forms of imperial exploitation
had become largely meaningless.
Historians of empire often equated this romanization with the
twentieth-century concepts of modernization and westernization on
the assumption that it entailed the progression from barbarism to
civilization. At the elite level Rome’s subjects learned Latin, adopted
Roman manners, copied Greco-Roman architecture, and purchased
Roman products. Yet romanization did not mean the domination
of one culture over another. Imperial society was never uniform
at the grassroots, and the term really meant only an acceptance of
Roman authority. Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians never became Romans,
although to varying degrees they acknowledged Roman rule. If there
was a common imperial identity at the heart of the romanization process, it emerged through cultural exchanges with the subject peoples
of the empire. Romanization thus described the spread of a hybrid
culture that emerged as Romans adopted local norms to govern conquered populations and conquered populations encountered Roman
functionaries, celebrations, monuments, and commerce.
The scope of romanization was relatively limited in the wealthy
and culturally coherent eastern provinces where Alexander the
Great’s empire left a Hellenic counterweight to Roman culture. It had
a greater impact in the west, where less coherent tribal communities
were more open to Rome’s ideas and material culture. Spaniards and
Gauls became senators, but romanization and token citizenship after
Caracalla’s decree probably meant relatively little beyond the provincial level. The evidence is scanty, but it appears that there were no British senators and few auxiliary commanders in the fi rst century a.d.
This convenient lacuna allowed later generations to bend the
Roman imperial record to suit their needs. Debates over the scope
38 THE RULE OF EMPIRES
and infl uence of romanization predictably refl ected the national,
class, and methodological biases of the observer. Insisting that preconquest identities survived under Roman rule, nationalistic British
historians and archaeologists point to the survival of popular Celtic
forms in jewelry and religious shrines in arguing that romanization
infl uenced only a thin layer of Roman British society.15 Alternatively,
just as apologists for the empires of the twentieth century adopted a
balance sheet standard in counting railways, hospitals, and schools as
imperial achievements, those who imagined a civilizing Rome paid
the most attention to roads, aqueducts, villas, art, and literature. By
their reckoning, the high material culture of the empire suggested
that Roman rule was benevolent and uplifting. Depicting preconquest
Britain as affl icted with Hobbesian “endemic warfare,” one sympathetic scholar credited Roman rule with giving Britons the “freedom
to live the good life.”16
This may have been true for the civitas rulers who became imperial
gentlemen, but the initial stages of Roman rule brought signifi cant
hardship for subject majorities. Roman conquerors plundered and
disrupted local economies, seized land, and requisitioned labor. As
with most imperial projects, the real wealth of the Roman Empire
came from the exploitation of its subjects. Monumental construction
projects and the enormous surpluses needed to sustain the
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