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ASPECTS OF ROMAN HISTORY, AD 14-117
Aspects of Roman History, AD 14—117 charts the history of the Roman Imperial period, from the establishment of the Augustan principate to the reign of Trajan, providing a basic chronological framework of the main events and introductory outlines of the major issues of the period. The first half of the book outlines the linear development of the Roman Empire, emperor by emperor, accenting the military and political events. The second half of the book concentrates on important themes which apply to the period as a whole, such as the religious, economic and social functioning of the Roman Empire. The book includes: ¢ a discussion of the primary sources for Roman imperial history; ¢ clearly laid out chapters on different themes in the Roman Empire, such as patronage, religion, the role of the senate, the army and the position of women and slaves, designed for easy cross-referencing with the chronological outline of events; * maps, charts and illustrations; * a guide to further reading.
Richard Alston’s highly accessible book is designed specifically for students with little previous experience of studying ancient/ Roman history. Aspects of Roman History provides an invaluable introduction to Roman Imperial history, which will allow students to gain an overview of the period and will be an indispensable aid to note-taking, essay preparation and examination revision.
Richard Alston is a Lecturer in Roman History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has also been a senior examiner in ancient history at A-level. He is the author of Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt: A Social History (Routledge).
PREFACE
This book has been written very quickly and with very modest aims. It has been a task additional to other research work and has been very largely written in the evenings of the last year. I have accumulated various debts in the writing of this text. I give thanks to The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies and to Dr John Patterson for permission to use his maps of Rome. | thank Kate Gilliver who has read a large proportion of this and commented constructively on it. Most of all, I thank Sara, my wife, whose support and understanding are essential to everything. Sara has also cast her ‘lay-person’s eye’ over this and I am very grateful for her comments. She has also put up with (or perhaps enjoyed) the many evenings I have spent with this text.
Sam has suffered his father’s eccentricities and provided entertainment and commentary as only a three-year-old can, but I dedicate this book to his brother, Joshua, whose arrival in the middle of the reign of Nero has given immense pleasure, though it delayed the delivery of the manuscript. It almost goes without saying that all mistakes and errors of fact and judgement remain my own.
INTRODUCTION
AIMS
This book is an introduction to the period AD 14-117 aimed at those with little or no previous experience of ancient history. The book’s aims are modest. It is intended to provide a basic chronological framework for study of the main events of the period and to give brief introductory outlines of the major issues. In the first section of the book, I consider the major political and military events of the period. The discussion is arranged mainly by emperor. In the second section, I turn to themes which will tend to apply to the whole of the period. There will be times when issues which arise in considering individual reigns are discussed thematically and reference will be made to these discussions. The book need not be treated as a linear account and students are encouraged to switch between chapters as the need arises.
I do not provide lengthy quotations from source material in this book. Most of the major sources are easily available in modern translations and there are also several good collections of documentary material. This work is intended to supplement the study of original sources and expose some of the problems in studying this material. In the sections that follow, I will examine some of these problems and also establish the political and constitutional background of the Principate (as this period is called).
SOURCES: PROBLEMS AND METHODS
Using historians and biographers
The distinctive nature of ancient history lies in our dependence on a relatively small number of mainly literary sources, though we can supplement our knowledge by studying inscriptions, papyri and archaeological material. Historians often express considerable doubts as to the historical value of their sources. There are good reasons to take a sceptical line. Most of the ancient historians and biographers on whom we rely appear to have been interested in historical truth but, of course, there are various levels of historical truth: there is what we know happened and what we think happened. Modern historians are not always careful to make clear such distinctions. Ancient historians are rarely explicit about the nature of their evidence for particular events or whether they are relying on facts or suppositions. Worse, since nearly all our major narrative sources wrote long after the events they describe, our sources are often themselves second-hand. They rely on earlier writers’ accounts, the accuracy of which cannot easily be assessed. Even when a story comes to us from several different sources, it may have originated from a single fraudulent source now lost. In addition, material which may have originated in scandalous gossip, especially when dealing with the sex lives of emperors, has reached our sources. The veracity of this material is almost impossible to assess.
Ancient historians judged their work not just by its veracity but also by its literary qualities: they dramatised the past for their audience and in so doing allowed themselves a certain artistic discretion. Many were also politically active and presented their own political agendas through the recounting of events. Ancient historians, like most other historians, reshaped the past to suit their various aims. Although we might be able to take account of the prejudices and methods of our major sources, the methodology of their sources must remain mysterious.
Truth, slander, dramatised accounts and historical speculation are blended in our sources, and there is no obvious way of distinguishing between the various elements. A historian could take the reasonable decision that much of our material is untrustworthy and that no conventional history of the period can be written. Nevertheless, I have not adopted this view here. Although each anecdote must be considered on its merits, I have tended to accept much of the ancient material. There are several grounds for such optimism. It is difficult not to accept the basic honesty of many of our major sources. It was normal for historians from the earliest times to claim to be writing an accurate account of past events, and historians such as Tacitus lay claim to objectivity (Tac., Hist. I 1). Although we cannot sensibly reconstruct what sources our sources relied on (except in certain rare cases), it is clear that there was a considerable amount of written material available for them to consult, such as decrees of the senate, memoirs of key figures, the works of other historians, texts of famous speeches, and documents preserved in official archives. Some of our sources may not have bothered to consult this material, but the material was there and provided a basis for the historical compositions of the period. A historian who wrote blatant untruths would have laid himself open to ridicule. When we can check our literary sources against the documentary material, on the whole, our sources do not appear to be misleading.
Of course, the material that cannot be checked—for instance, the material that relates to the inner workings of Nero’s government (pp. 109-10) or which is scandalous and scurrilous—is exactly the material over which there is the most doubt and which is so often used by our sources to give an overall impression of the regime. The material that appears in the documentary record is so often uncontroversial and less open to serious doubt. One must take care, often extreme care, and beware the inventiveness of the tradition and Roman political gossip. All historians working on this period are faced with the same fundamental problem. The grounds for dismissing certain accounts and accepting others are normally subjective, based on individual perceptions of the ancient sources. This is why all ancient historians must return time and again to their sources. Others reading the ancient material will undoubtedly reach different decisions to those I have arrived at in this book. The discipline of ancient history involves a continual rereading and reinterpretation of the ancient sources from which all our research ultimately begins.
Historians and biographers: biographical notes
Tacitus
Cornelius Tacitus is perhaps the major historical source for the period (see also pp. 24-6). His origins are uncertain though his family may have resided in Southern Gaul. He married the daughter of Agricola, a prominent general who conquered much of Northern Britain. He embarked on a political career and was consul in AD 97 and governor of Asia c.112-116. He was a prominent orator and spoke at important trials and his first literary work, the Dialogus, concerned the history of oratory. Most of his writing dates to after the death of the emperor Domitian. Although Tacitus’ political career progressed under Domitian, Tacitus was hostile to the emperor. The Agricola, the biography of his fatherin-law, was published soon after Domitian s death and expresses this hostility, partly by contrasting the moral qualities of that emperor with the many virtues of Agricola. Tacitus’ Histories recount the events from the death of Nero to that of Domitian (AD 68— 96). Only the first four books and part of the fifth, the books which dealt with the civil wars of 69-70, survived the Middle Ages. Tacitus then turned to the earlier period. The Annales covered the period from AD 14-68, but much of this work has also been lost although we have most of his account of the years AD 14—29, 32-37 and 47-66.
Dio Cassius
Sometimes known as Cassius Dio, Dio was a Greek born in the province of Bithynia, part of Asia Minor, in the mid-second century AD. He started a successful political career in the late second century and became consul. He was prominent in Rome at the start of the political traumas which evolved into what some have called the ‘third-century crisis’. Imperial rule had long been established in Rome when Dio was writing and, in spite of the fact that the emperors of the period seem to have become increasingly despotic, there was little opposition to the idea of monarchy. Dio’s history was a careful work of scholarship and he spent many years gathering material. His history eventually filled eighty books and covered the period from the foundation of Rome by Romulus to his own day. Much of this is, however, only partially preserved. The best preserved sections cover the years from 68 BC to AD 46. In addition to this, we have excerpts and summaries (epitomes) made by Byzantine scholars for most other years. He is a major source for the reign of Augustus and for the early part of our period, and is particularly important for those years for which we do not have Tacitus’ account.
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was born c. AD 70, the son of a Roman equestrian. He was friendly with the younger Pliny (Ep. I 18, 1 24, V 10, IX 34), who secured him a military posting (Ep. III 8) (which Suetonius eventually transferred to a relative) and a grant of certain privileges from Trajan (Ep. X 94). His major patron seems to have been Septicius Clarus who was prefect of the praetorian guard under Hadrian (emperor, AD 117-38). This man may have secured Suetonius his post as ab epistulis, one of the major administrative officials in the imperial government (see p. 248). When Clarus and Suetonius became involved in a scandal concerning Hadrian’s wife, both were removed from office (HA, Vita Hadriani 11.3). Suetonius probably lived in retirement after this date. He wrote many scholarly works, biographies, natural histories, works on grammar, literary studies and on the customs of the Romans. His most famous works are his biographies of the Caesars, starting with Julius Caesar and ending with Domitian. Although the biographies contain brief accounts of the major events in the lives of his subjects, his interest seems to have been mainly in moral character. Suetonius’ style is very formulaic and many of the biographies have a very similar structure. He is often accused of merely compiling material without application of critical discretion, and many have dismissed much of Suetonius’ more scandalous material as gossip. These accusations, however, are unfair. Suetonius both shapes his material to leave a definite impression and, though he recounts fantastic stories, often makes it clear that he believes gossip to be incorrect. His ‘matter-of-fact’ presentation of material allows the reader to make independent political and moral judgements, though Suetonius’ own views are often implied. Unlike many other ancient biographers and historians, Suetonius quotes from original documents to which he may have gained access during his time in the imperial administration. He makes less use of archive material in the biographies of emperors after Nero, which might suggest that these were less thoroughly researched.
Josephus
Josephus was a Jewish historian and aristocrat. He was given a rebel command during the Jewish war of AD 66-70, but was defeated and captured by Vespasian (see pp. 156—7). He was jailed, but prophesied that Vespasian would become emperor, and was released when Vespasian made his bid for the throne. He then acted as spokesman for the Romans in their attempt to win over Jewish rebels and was present at Jerusalem when the city was sacked. Following the end of the war, Josephus moved to Rome where he composed a history of the war (Bellum Judaicum). He was forced to defend his position against those who thought his activities during the war somewhat disreputable and produced an extended autobiography (Vita) and a defence of the Jewish people (Contra Apionem) against anti-Semitic pamphlets published by an Alexandrian Egyptian named Apion. His previous major work was a history of the Jewish people, originally written in Aramaic and subsequently translated into Greek (Antiquitates Judaicae).
Velleius Paterculus
Velleius was a military officer who served under Augustus and Tiberius. He wrote a summary history of Rome, a guide to a proposed much larger work, which concentrated on the reigns of Augustus and the early years of the reign of Tiberius. He presents a picture of Tiberius as a military hero. Some have seen him either as a propagandist for Tiberius or as seeking to win the favour and patronage of that emperor and Sejanus, his praetorian prefect.
Plutarch
Plutarch was born in the 40s AD and was still active in the 120s. Although he visited Rome and was interested in Roman themes, most of his writings were on topics unrelated to contemporary political events in Rome. His main works were a series of essays known as the Moralia and a number of ‘parallel lives’ in which Greek and Roman historical figures were compared. The Moralia essays deal with a range of topics, though religion is an important theme. Some are academic discussions of philosophical works while others are more ‘morally improving’ exhortations. The biographies are more commonly used by historians. For our period, the two most interesting are the lives of Galba and Otho.
Using poetry and fiction for social history
Another oddity of ancient history is that historians often use poetry and sometimes prose fiction as source material, normally more often for social than political history.
Many of the poets of the period wrote in the first person and, in so doing, appear to describe their own attitudes and experiences. The autobiographical appearance of much of the poetry has encouraged historians to use these texts. Unfortunately, these poems are less straightforward than sometimes appears. Several writers of this period make it clear that they adopt a ‘voice’ for their poetry, and that they may have different ‘voices’ which might say contradictory things in their various poems. For instance, the poet Ovid, who produced several erotic poems and guides to seduction, later claimed that these were the products of his ‘character’ and that his ‘life’ was chaste (Ovid, Tristia II 353—4. Compare Catullus, 16. 5-6; Apuleius, Apol. 11). The credibility of these claims is impossible to substantiate. Writers used ‘voices’ in order to create characters much in the same way that modern comedians write sketches in which their characters might say things that the author would never support or say in his own ‘voice’. Some ancient writing, like modern comedy, may be funny simply because its vision of society is far from the truth and yet, as modern readers, we have little way of getting the joke.
In addition, one of the major concerns of poets was literature itself. All the poets, and indeed all other writers from this period, were very familiar with a body of Greek and Latin literature. The culture was so refined that poets could quote, or even slightly misquote, a line of another’s work and expect it to be recognised by the audience even if the line had been written a century or more previously. Literary works imitated and parodied earlier works and worked in a sequence of imitation and literary creation that went back to the earliest Greek literature. Very often, the works imitated are lost and we can only guess how much was a writer’s own invention and how much borrowed. We may then be presented with an unreal literary world with elements of contemporary culture blended with elements from previous centuries and elements from Greek culture, of which some parts might have been almost pure invention.
Nevertheless, the historian should not despair. The fictional and poetic writing of the period was liberally laced with contemporary references and some of the attitudes expressed find parallels in other types of writing. One might also argue that interest in literature would have rapidly waned if all literature referred to a never-never land. The historian must, however, be warned and pick his or her way through this minefield with extreme care, avoiding placing too much trust on individual stories or attitudes as evidence for Roman society.
Major poets and fiction writers: biographical notes
Juvenal
Very little is known about Juvenal’s life and it is unclear whether his various ancient biographers had any more information than we have. He may have been related to a Junius Juvenalis, an equestrian (see p. 215) attested in an inscription from Aquinum, south of Rome. His historical references date him to the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian. He is alleged to have been exiled during the reign of Domitian (possibly to Egypt which he says he visited). His surviving literary output post-dates that emperor and he was still writing after AD 127. His work consists of sixteen vitriolic Satires, mostly directed at aspects of life in Rome.
Martial
Born in Spain, Martial came to Rome in the reign of Nero and worked there for over thirty years. He does not appear to have held any official posts but earned his living from poetry. He wrote a very large number of very short poems, many of which are obscene. These Epigrams cover most aspects of Roman social life, including notably the relationship between patrons and clients and the games in Rome.
Petronius
Tacitus tells us that C.Petronius was consul and governor of Bithynia, probably in the early part of the reign of Nero. Nero, however, brought him back to Rome where he became a member of the emperor’s intimate circle. He was appointed as ‘judge of taste’ (arbiter elegentiae) and showed considerable erudition and skill in adding to the luxury of Nero’s court. His influence made him enemies and Tigellinus, fearing that Petronius’ greater knowledge of sensual pleasures would lead to him supplanting Tigellinus in Nero’s affections, arranged his fall (Tac., Ann. XVI 18-19). He was probably the author of a novel, Satyricon, the surviving parts of which tell of the disreputable adventures of two characters in the Greek towns of Italy. The most famous episode is a particularly luxurious and tasteless dinner party held by the freedman Trimalchio.
Other literary sources
The Younger Pliny
Pliny was born in c.AD 61 to a family prominent in the north Italian town of Comum. The most notable member of his family was his maternal uncle, Pliny the Elder, who not only wrote an encyclopaedia, but also commanded the fleet at Misenum on the Bay of Naples. When Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, the elder Pliny sailed to the rescue of the fleeing populations of Pompeii and Herculaneum. He was, however, overcome by fumes and died. In his will, he adopted his nephew who became Gaius Plinius (son of Lucius) Caecilius Secundus. Pliny inherited his uncle’s estates and probably also his political connections, both of which aided his subsequent political career. He started as a lawyer (Ep. V 8) and then served briefly in the army in Syria, where he seems to have managed the military accounts (Ep. VII 31). He held several offices during the reign of Domitian, but his political prospects, and indeed his personal safety, may have become much less secure as Domitian became more tyrannical. After Domitian’s assassination, Pliny’s political standing improved and his skill as an orator led to him taking part in many of the most prominent trials of the period. In AD 100, Trajan rewarded him with a consulship and in 111 appointed him to deal with something of a political and financial crisis in Bithynia, in which post Pliny died. Pliny was one of the leading literary figures of his day and dabbled in many areas. He wrote poetry which he tells us was recited to some acclaim (Ep. VII 4), though the fragments which have survived suggest that a two-day recital of his poetry was more of a tribute to the kindness and perseverance of his friends than the quality of his verse (Ep. VII 21). He and Tacitus were the leading orators of the day and Pliny published or circulated many of his works. His only surviving speech is the Panegyricus, a revised version of a speech thanking Trajan for his consulship, in which he contrasted Domitian and Trajan and lavished praise on the latter. His most famous works are his letters. These were published in ten books and offer a remarkable insight into the life of a leading senator of the period. They must, however, be treated with caution. Unlike Cicero’s letters, these were mainly selected by Pliny for publication and may have been substantially revised. The image of Pliny and his friends is carefully contrived to emphasise their achievements and their political and moral integrity. Book Ten is a little different since this contains his correspondence with Trajan and, as such, offers valuable insights into the role of a governor and the relationship between emperor and governor in the early second century AD.
Strabo
Strabo was a geographer who wrote during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. He described the whole of the known world, using the works of earlier geographers and visiting many places himself. He wrote in Greek.
Philo
Philo was a Jewish theologian living and working in Alexandria in the 30s AD. Little is known of his life. He was a very prominent member of the Jewish community and represented that community on an embassy to Rome to obtain civic rights. Most of his work, written in Greek, interprets biblical texts through a complex method of analogy and literal interpretation, owing much to Greek traditions. Historians chiefly consult two of his works, the Legatio ad Gaium (Embassy to Gaius) and the In Flaccum (On Flaccus). In the latter, he describes the activities of a governor of Egypt and, in the former, recounts the story of his visit to Rome to petition the emperor.
Documentary sources
There are two major types of documentary sources: papyri and inscriptions. Papyri, ancient texts written on paper made from the papyrus reed, are preserved in desert regions in Egypt and the Near East. The texts are preserved either as archives, a collection of documents which someone thought worth keeping, or as stray finds, often from rubbish heaps. The texts are very varied in nature. Most deal with official business, though there are some private letters.
Inscriptions on stone or bronze are more central to the topics that we will be covering in this book. Most of the individuals we know of from the ancient world are only attested by their tombstones. These were often displayed prominently by the major roads and provide more than just a marker for a grave. The words, and sometimes the pictures, send a message to those passing about the status of the individual and his heirs. Devotional inscriptions (erected following the completion of a vow) were also ‘public’ in that they displayed the religious loyalties of the individuals concerned, as well as thanking the deity for the normally unspecified help.
Communities also erected inscriptions. The subject matter of these varied. They might thank an individual for services rendered and summarise her or his claims to virtue and status. Some of these inscriptions come from statue bases, the statue for which has often disappeared. Letters from the emperor, or from provincial governors, or important decrees of local councils might also be displayed. Some civic constitutions were engraved on bronze tablets.
All inscriptions were public monuments and although many read as matter-of-fact statements, they tend to give an ‘official view’ of individuals and events. Tombstones, for instance, might give legal status, possibly profession and age at death, but are not likely to tell us what an individual was really like. Inscriptions erected by communities are even less likely to give us anything other than an official line on events.
Attempts to use inscriptions as sources for social history are hampered by peculiar patterns in the evidence. The majority of our inscriptions are in Latin or Greek, yet a majority of the population of the empire spoke languages other than Latin or Greek. Certain provinces have produced very few inscriptions, or the inscriptions that have been published tend to come from specific areas and date to specific times where and when it was somehow fashionable to put up inscriptions. Some groups, especially the poor and the provincials, may not have wished or been able to afford to put up tombstones or devotional inscriptions. Some communities may have commemorated their gods and their dead on wooden plaques rather than on stone. Inscriptions are, therefore, a very imperfect reflection of ancient society.
POLITICAL LIFE: FROM THE REPUBLICAN TO THE AUGUSTAN CONSTITUTION
The main features of Republican government were the mix of democratic and aristocratic institutions. Much of this arrangement was carried over into the Augustan period and is summarised in Table 1.1. The most potentially powerful Republican assembly was the comitia tributa. This assembly elected the tribunes and passed laws. As the tribunes had the right to veto any governmental action and could imprison even senior magistrates, they could paralyse the Roman state. More positively, they called the assembly and could propose legislation to it. These powers could be used to force through reforms unpopular with the aristocracy or to break a political wrangle when no consensus had emerged among the magistrates or in the senate. Legislation seems to have been used sparingly in the early Republic and it was only after 133 BC that serious attempts were made to realise the potential power of the tribunes, many of these attempts ending in violence.
The most powerful offices were those of the consuls and praetors. These magistrates held imperium, power. This enabled the magistrates to control the administrative and legal machinery of the state, to instruct junior magistrates, to command troops, and to employ limited powers of coercion. Initially, the tribunate was founded to restrain the powers of these magistrates and to protect the people from tyrannical consuls. The people were extremely suspicious of any consul who used these powers against Roman citizens without recourse to public trial. Their power was also checked by the collegiality of office. The two consuls held equal powers and it was not unusual for consuls to be political rivals.
All magistracies were normally held for a single year. The brief tenure of office made it difficult for any magistrate to use his post as a basis for lasting power. After that year, the magistrate would be answerable in the courts for his actions and would become an ordinary senator once again, dependent on the political support of the plebs and fellow senators (see below). This knowledge restrained the magistrates.
The Republican senate was the advisory council of the consuls who chaired its meetings. The decisions it reached were published in the form of advice but this advice was not legally binding either on the consuls or on other persons or states. Its power lay in its personnel. All the magistrates and former magistrates of Rome sat in the senate. Collectively, the senators had vast political experience and immense political power. To oppose the stated wishes of the senate was, therefore, to stand against the political class of Rome, and, in normal circumstances, the consuls, other magistrates and, indeed, the rest of the population of the empire abided by decisions of the senate. In effect, the senate became the governing council of the Republic.
The power of the political establishment was enhanced by the nature of Roman political contests. There were no parties as such seeking the support of different groups in Roman society. Some individual politicians were able to build up considerable personal political followings, either due to their success as military leaders or to their support for popular causes. Many relied on their clientes (dependants) and the support of their friends and their clients to mobilise popular support at elections (see pp. 219-22 for a discussion of the nature of this relationship). Aspiring politicians needed to attract the patronage of senior figures who would lend the support of their often more extensive network of friends and clients. Thus, most Roman political figures were dependent for their political power on a network of political alliances and friendships. Some were born into this network, but others had to establish themselves from scratch, carefully cultivating powerful friends. The system advantaged a hereditary aristocratic group and men without those inherited connections found it very difficult to break into Roman political life. Any politician who alienated the Roman political elite risked the loss of all political support and of being consigned to a virtual political wilderness. The system encouraged conservatism and created a close-knit political elite, some of whom regarded political power as almost a birthright.
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