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DIVERSITY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill of the University of Reading wrote for the BBC: “One of the most astonishing features of the Roman Empire is the sheer diversity of the geographical and cultural landscapes it controlled. It was a European empire in the sense that it controlled most of the territory of the member states of the present EU, except part of Germany and Scandinavia. [Source: Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]
“But it was above all a Mediterranean empire, and pulled together diverse cultures, in Asia (the Near East), Egypt and North Africa that have not been reunited since the spread of Islam. This represented a vast diversity, including language (two 'international' languages were still needed for communication, Greek as well as Latin, let alone local languages) and relative development - they spoke of 'barbarians' versus Romans/Greeks, where we would speak of first and third world. The planting of cities, with their familiar apparatus of public services and entertainment, was a sign and instrument of the advance to 'first-world' status. |::|
“But while we can still admire the effectiveness of this city-based 'civilisation' in producing unity and common cultural values in diverse societies, what we might look for from a contemporary perspective, and look for in vain, is some conscious encouragement of the 'biodiversity' of the different societies that composed the empire. Vast regional contrasts did indeed continue, but there is little sense that the emperors felt an obligation to promote or protect them. The unity of the empire lay in a combination of factors. The central machine was astonishingly light compared to modern states - neither the imperial bureaucracy nor even the military forces were large by modern standards. The central state in that sense weighed less heavily on its component parts, which were largely self-governing. But above all the unity lay in the reality of participation in central power by those from the surrounding regions. Just as the emperors themselves came not just from Rome and Italy, but Spain, Gaul, North Africa, the Danubian provinces, and the Near East, so the waves of economic prosperity spread over time outwards in ripples.” |::|
Foreigners and Outsiders in the Roman Empire
Juvenal inveighs against this mud-laden torrent pouring from the Orontes into the Tiber. But the Syrians, whom he so greatly despised, hastened at the first possible moment to assume the guise of Roman civilians; even those who most loudly advertised their xenophobia were themselves more or less newcomers to Rome, seeking to defend their adopted home against fresh incursions. Juvenal himself was probably born at Aquinum. In his house in "Pear Street" on the Quirinal, Martial sighs for Bilbilis, his little home in Aragon. Pliny the Younger, whether at Rome or in his Laurentine villa or on his estates in Tuscany, remains faithful to his Cisalpine birthplace; distant Como, which his liberality embellished, was never absent from his heart. [Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” by Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]
In the Senate House senators from Gaul, from Spain, from Africa, from Asia, sat side by side; the Roman emperors, Roman citizens but newly naturalised, came from towns or villages beyond the mountains and the seas. Trajan and Hadrian were born in Spanish Italica in Baetica. Their successor, Antoninus Pius, sprang from bourgeois Stock in Nemausus (modern Nimes) in Gallia Narbonensis.
At the end of the second century was to see the empire divided between Caesar Clodius Albinus of Hadrumetum (Tunis) and Septimius Severus of Leptis Magna (Tripoli). The biography of Septimius Severus records that even after he had ascended the throne he never succeeded in ridding his speech of the Semitic accent which he had inherited from his Punic ancestors.
Inclusion in the Roman Empire
Eleni Bozia wrote: The time of the Roman Empire is a unique historical period that, in many respects, can be seen as a lived lesson for issues of diversity and inclusion. As occupiers, the Romans did impose their rule with military means. Still, they accepted their subjects’ differences, granted privileges to several provinces and gave citizenship on a case-by-case basis until A.D. 212, when everyone was given Roman citizenship. [Source: Eleni Bozia, Associate Professor of Classics and Digital Humanities, University of Florida, The Conversation February 13, 2023]
Their pragmatic aim was to maintain stability and ensure cooperation. The result was a multilingual, multicultural and cosmopolitan empire. People were allowed to retain their ethnicity, language, culture and religion for the most part. Latin was [not imposed except in the army] and administration; Greek was established as the language of the educated.
This period could be said to resemble our current times: People traveled, relocated and worked in different parts of the empire. Also, there were scholars and writers who were trilingual and multicultural. For instance, there were African authors who wrote in Latin and were also fluent in Greek, and Romans who were fluent in Greek, too.
These authors wrote about their sense of identity and belonging and were proud of their ability to remain true to their origins while also adapting to the conditions of the global world of the empire. On the other hand, there were also other authors who were anti-immigration and critical of new citizens and non-native speakers, and others who showed that Roman occupation weighed heavily on their subjects.
Immigrants in Rome
bronze statue of African child charioteer, from Archaeology magazine
The historian William Stearns Davis wrote: In the reign of Domitian (81-96 A.D.), the city of Rome “was overrun, in the opinion of some commentators, by non-Roman immigrants, almost swamping the old Italian element. The courtly poet Martial seizes the fact to pay a compliment to the Emperor.”
On Immigrants in Rome, Martial (40-103/4 A.D.) wrote in Epigrams, IX.3 (81-96 A.D.): “What race is so distant from us, what race is so barbarous, O Caesar, that from it no spectator is present in your city! The cultivator of Rhodope [in Thrace] is here from Haemus, sacred to Orpheus. The Scythian who drinks the blood of his horses is here; he, too, who quaffs the waters of the Nile nearest their springing; and he also whose shore is laved by the most distant ocean. [Source: “Martial (40-103/4 A.D.):Immigrants in Rome, Epigrams, IX.3 William Stearns Davis, ed., “Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources,” 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West]
The Arabian has hastened hither; the Sabaeans have hastened; and here the Cilicians have anointed themselves with their own native perfume. Here come the Sicambrians with their hair all twisted into a knot, and here the frizzled Ethiopians. Yet though their speech is all so different, they all speak together hailing you, O Emperor, as the true father of your country.
The Romans were familiar with black Africans, which they considered exotic. Ethiopians was a general terms used by Greeks and Romans to describe all black Africans. It is not known whether the Romans kept black African slaves as they did slaves from other places.
Statue of a African Child Charioteer
The four-centimeter (1.8-inch) -high bronze Statuette of an Auriga (Charioteer) dates to A.D. 2nd century and was found in Altrier, Luxembourg. According to Archaeology magazine: “Chariot racing was ancient Rome's favorite pastime. It attracted millions of spectators to stadiums across the empire, inspired fierce fan loyalty, and provided its stars a chance to earn spectacular sums — a successful charioteer's single-day winnings could equal a teacher's annual salary. It is perhaps surprising, then, to learn from epigraphic evidence that most charioteers were slaves who began racing as children, and many were foreigners, who came to the sport to earn fame and fortune. [Source: Archaeology magazine, Volume 65 Number 3, May-June 2012]
But until the discovery of this figurine, according to archaeologists Sinclair Bell and Franziska Dövener, no representation of an African child charioteer had ever been found. Bronze figurines of Roman charioteers are rare — there are fewer than ten — particularly in comparison to those depicting other entertainers, including gladiators and actors.
Bell and D vener are certain that this statuette represents a charioteer on the basis of his distinctive costume — his upper abdomen and chest are corseted by three wide leather belts called fasciae, part of a charioteer's basic uniform, worn to protect the chest. That the figurine represents a child is clear from his enlarged head, large eyes, fleshy cheeks, and youthful expression. The curly hair, flat nose, thick lips, and bulging eyes are features typical of Roman depictions of Africans. The archaeologists are, however, less certain of the statuette's function. It was found near what may have been a sanctuary to mother goddesses, but it is impossible to say whether it was a votive offering or a toy.
Genetic Studies Reflect Rome’s Diversity
Dacian
In a study published in Science in November 2019, researchers from Stanford and Italian universities said populations from ancient Romes’s earliest eras and from after the Western empire's decline in the A.D. 4th Century genetically resembled other Western Europeans. But during the imperial period in between, Romans had more in common with populations from Greece, Syria and Lebanon. The study was is based on genome data of 127 individuals from 29 archaeological sites in and around Rome, spanning nearly 12,000 years of Roman prehistory and history. [Source: AFP, November 7, 2019]
AFP reported: “The earliest sequenced genomes, from three individuals living 9,000 to 12,000 years ago, resembled other European hunter-gatherers at the time. Starting from 9,000 years ago, the genetic makeup of Romans again changed in line with the rest of Europe following an influx of farmers from Anatolia or modern Turkey. Things started to change however from 900 B.C. to 200 B.C., as Rome grew in size and importance, and the diversity shot up from 27 B.C. to 300 CE, when the city was the capital to an empire of 50 million to 90 million people, stretching from North Africa to Britain to the Middle East.
“Of the 48 individuals sampled from this period, only two showed strong genetic ties to Europe. The genetic "diversity was just overwhelming," added Ron Pinhasi of the University of Vienna, who extracted DNA from the skeletons' ear bones. After the empire split into two parts with the eastern capital in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Rome's diversity decreased once more. "The genetic information parallels what we know from historical and archaeological records," said Kristina Killgrove, a Roman bioarchaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who wasn't involved in the study.
“Jonathan Pritchard, a population geneticist at Stanford University who sequenced and analyzed the DNA, said mass migration is sometimes thought to be a new phenomenon. "But it's clear from ancient DNA that populations have been mixing at really high rates for a long time," he added.
Common Values That Unified the Roman Empire
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill of the University of Reading wrote for the BBC: “The unified empire depended on common values, many of which could be described as 'cultural', affecting both the elite and the masses. Popular aspects of Graeco-Roman literary culture spread well beyond the elite, at least in the cities. Baths and amphitheatres also reached the masses. It has been observed that the amphitheatre dominated the townscape of a Roman town as the cathedral dominated the medieval town. [Source: Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]
“The underlying brutality of the amphitheatre was compatible with their own system of values and the vision of the empire as an endless struggle against forces of disorder and barbarism. The victims, whether nature's wild animals, or the human wild animals - bandits, criminals, and the Christians who seemed intent on provoking the wrath of the gods - gave pleasure in dying because they needed to be exorcised. |::|
“There was also a vital religious element which exposed the limits of tolerance of the system. The pagan gods were pluralistic, and a variety of local cults presented no problem. The only cult, in any sense imposed, was that of the emperor. To embrace it was as sufficient a symbol of loyalty as saluting the flag, and rejecting it was to reject the welfare of all fellow citizens. |::|
“Christians were persecuted because their religion was an alternative and incompatible system (on their own declaration) which rejected all the pagan gods. Constantine, in substituting the Christian god for the old pagan gods, established a far more demanding system of unity. |::|
“We are left with a paradox. The Roman Empire set up and spread many of the structures on which the civilisation of modern Europe depends; and through history it provided a continuous model to imitate. Yet many of the values on which it depended are the antithesis of contemporary value-systems. It retains its hold on our imaginations now, not because it was admirable, but because despite all its failings, it held together such diverse landscape for so long.”
Multi-Culturalism of One Roman Citizen
Vandal leader Gaiseric
Eleni Bozia wrote: Take Lucian, a high-ranking Roman official in the second century. Born in Syria, he later chose to be a naturalized Roman. As a non-native speaker of Greek and Latin who, by his own admission, looked different from many people in Greece and Rome, he dealt with issues of ethnicity, language use and social acceptance. [Source: Eleni Bozia, Associate Professor of Classics and Digital Humanities, University of Florida, The Conversation February 13, 2023]
Lucian is a cosmopolitan individual. He was born in Samosata, which was in Syria until it was incorporated into the Roman Empire. He traveled to Cappadocia, Pontus, Athens, Rome, Gaul and Egypt. He wrote in perfect Greek; he was in the entourage of the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus and served as the secretariat of the Roman prefect in Egypt.
Throughout all his works, Lucian clearly suggests that he should be accepted in this new world as the model of the new citizens — individuals who were open about their ethnic identity yet embraced the Greco-Roman culture and contributed to advancing contemporary social inclusion.
In his essay “The Dream,” Lucian imagines his future as an underrepresented citizen. He writes that two women appeared in his sleep: an elegant one representing Greek education and a rugged one representing a craftsman’s life. The former promised him a life of popularity among the world’s elite. He chooses to be a well-to-do man of letters who overcame his humble origins and succeeded in a cosmopolitan society, even though he was not a native speaker or a native citizen. In another one of his writings, “Zeuxis,” he writes about about his fluency in Greek and insists that he should not be seen as an outsider because he is as articulate as any native-born Greek speaker.
He becomes more emboldened in his treatise “A Slip of the Tongue in Greeting.” Here, he intentionally makes a mistake in a salutation and supposedly writes to apologize. In reality, however, he shows his knowledge of Greek cultural norms and, at the same time, clearly proves that he is versed in Roman culture, too. On the other hand, he also wrote a piece titled “My Native Land,” in which he says that no matter the languages one learns, the cultures one acculturates oneself to, and the global recognition, they are always their motherland’s sons and daughters — proud of them and indebted to them.
Foreign Influences on Rome
When we think of the conquests of Rome, we usually think of the armies which she defeated, and the lands which she subdued. But these were not the only conquests which she made. She appropriated not only foreign lands, but also foreign ideas. While she was plundering foreign temples, she was obtaining new ideas of religion and art. The educated and civilized people whom she captured in war and of whom she made slaves, often became the teachers of her children and the writers of her books. In such ways as these Rome came under the influence of foreign ideas. [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901)]
As Rome came into contact with other people, we can see how her religion was affected by foreign influences. The worship of the family remained much the same; but the religion of the state became considerably changed. In terms of art, as the Romans were a practical people, their earliest art was shown in their buildings. From the Etruscans they had learned to use the arch and to build strong and massive structures. But the more refined features of art they obtained from the Greeks.
It is difficult for us to think of a nation of warriors as a nation of refined people. The brutalities of war seem inconsistent with the finer arts of living. But as the Romans obtained wealth from their wars, they affected the refinement of their more cultivated neighbors. Some men, like Scipio Africanus, looked with favor upon the introduction of Greek ideas and manners; but others, like Cato the Censor, were bitterly opposed to it. When the Romans lost the simplicity of the earlier times, they came to indulge in luxuries and to be lovers of pomp and show. They loaded their tables with rich services of plate; they ransacked the land and the sea for delicacies with which to please their palates. Roman culture was often more artificial than real. The survival of the barbarous spirit of the Romans in the midst of their professed refinement is seen in their amusements, especially the gladiatorial shows, in which men were forced to fight with wild beasts and with one another to entertain the people. \~\
Dr Neil Faulkner wrote for the BBC: “Sometimes, of course, it was outsiders who introduced the trappings of Roman life to the provinces. This was especially true in frontier areas occupied by the army. In northern Britain, for example, there were few towns or villas. But there were many forts, especially along the line of Hadrian's Wall, and it is here that we see rich residences, luxury bath-houses, and communities of artisans and traders dealing in Romanised commodities for the military market. “Even here, though, because army recruitment was increasingly local, it was often a case of Britons becoming Romans. [Source: Dr Neil Faulkner, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]
“Foreign soldiers settled down and had families with local women. Grown-up sons followed their fathers into the army. The local regiment became more 'British'. The new recruits became more 'Roman'. We see evidence in the extraordinary diversity of cults represented by religious inscriptions on the frontier. Alongside traditional Roman gods like Jupiter, Mars, and the Spirit of the Emperor, there are local Celtic gods like Belatucadrus, Cocidius, and Coventina, and foreign gods from other provinces like the Germanic Thincsus, the Egyptian Isis, and the Persian Mithras. Beyond the frontier zone, on the other hand, in the heartlands of the empire where civilian politicians rather than army officers were in charge, native aristocrats had driven the Romanisation process from the beginning.” |::|
Collaboration, Resistance, Civilisation or Enslavement?
Dr Neil Faulkner wrote for the BBC: “How did the Romans maintain control of such a huge empire for so long? Partly, of course, it was a matter of using military power to threaten those who resisted. But partly, too, it was a matter of positive incentives to collaborate. In their conquests, the Romans rarely faced united opposition. Usually they made alliances with native rulers who were willing either to fight alongside them or at least provide logistical support. [Source: Dr Neil Faulkner, BBC, February 17, 2011. Dr Faulkner is an honorary lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. |::|]
“Once Roman military superiority was clear, other native rulers frequently gave up the unequal struggle and made terms. Die-hards who fought on to the bitter end were often a minority. The difference between collaboration and resistance can be seen in comparing two cases: Pergamum in Western Turkey, which was bequeathed to the Romans by its last independent ruler in 133 BC; and Dacia, the ancient Romania, whose king resisted fiercely in three hard-fought wars between 85 and 106 AD. The result was that whereas the long-established Hellenistic culture of Pergamum survived and flourished under the Romans, Dacia appears to have been laid waste, ethnically cleansed, and re-settled by foreign colonists. |::|
“Another aspect of Roman policy was explained - rather cynically - by the historian Tacitus in a biography of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the governor of Britain from 78 - 84 AD: [Agricola] wanted to accustom them [the Britons] to peace and leisure by providing delightful distractions. He gave personal encouragement and assistance to the building of temples, piazzas and town-houses, he gave the sons of the aristocracy a liberal education, they became eager to speak Latin effectively and the toga was everywhere to be seen. 'And so they were gradually led into the demoralising vices of porticoes, baths and grand dinner parties. The naïve Britons described these things as 'civilisation', when in fact they were simply part of their enslavement.' |::|
“Tacitus was a senator as well as an historian - one of the small class of super-rich politicians and administrators who effectively ran the Roman empire. His testimony reveals that when native aristocrats adopted a Roman lifestyle and acquired a taste for Mediterranean luxury and refinement, the rulers of the empire were delighted. Instead of jealously guarding their privileges, they were eager to share them. They understood that if the empire was to be stable and to endure, it required wide foundations. |::|
“Rome's rulers were happy to welcome native aristocrats as fellow citizens. This was possible because citizenship in the ancient world was not defined by nationality. Anyone could, in theory, be granted citizenship of the city-state of Rome, even if they had never been there and had no intention of going. Place of residence, language, religion, parentage - none of these was decisive. If you had standing in your own community and supported the new order, you were likely to attract attention as someone to be cultivated.” |::|
Barbarians Become Citizens in the 3rd Century
With the Constitutio Antoniniana, or Edict of Caracalla (A.D. 212), the Roman franchise, which had been gradually extended by the previous emperors, was now conferred to all the free inhabitants of the Roman world. The edict was issued primarily to increase tax revenue. Even so, the edict was in the line of earlier reforms and effaced the last distinction between Romans and provincials. [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901)]
In the A.D. 3rd century a conciliatory policy toward the tribal people (“barbarians”) was adopted, by granting to them peaceful settlements in the frontier provinces. Not only the Roman territory, but the army and the offices of the state, military and civil, were gradually opened to Germans and other tribe members who were willing to become Roman subjects.
Mithraism was very popular in the Roman Empire
It became a serious question what to do with all the newcomers who were now admitted into the provinces. The most able of the barbarian chiefs were sometimes made Roman generals. Many persons were admitted to the ranks of the army. Sometimes whole tribes were allowed to settle upon lands assigned to them. But a great many persons, especially those who had been captured in war, were treated in a somewhat novel manner. Instead of being sold as slaves they were given over to the large landed proprietors, and attached to the estates as permanent tenants. They could not be sold off from these estates like slaves; but if the land was sold they were sold with it. This class of persons came to be called coloni. They were really serfs bound to the soil. The colonus had a little plot of ground which he could cultivate for himself, and for which he paid a rent to his landlord. But the class of coloni came to be made up not only of barbarian captives, but of manumitted slaves, and even of Roman freemen, who were not able to support themselves and who gave themselves up to become the serfs of some landlord. The coloni thus came to form a large part of the population in the provinces. \~\
This new class of persons, which held such a peculiar position in the Roman empire, has a special interest to the general historical student; because from them were descended, in great part, the class of serfs which formed a large element of European society after the fall of Rome, during the middle ages. \~\
See Citizenship Under Society
Limits of Romanization
Dr Neil Faulkner wrote for the BBC: “We tend to take the material remains of the Roman past for granted - the towns, the monumental architecture, the villas, the luxury trades, the decorative and fine arts. But in many parts of the empire, all this was very new, and the speed with which it was adopted is therefore a mark of the attraction to native elites of the new cultural package. It was a fashion revolution at the top of society. Chariots, hillforts and bragging about the military exploits of one's blue-painted forebears were hopelessly passé. To keep up with one's peers, to elevate oneself above the lower orders, to get on under the new regime, one became Roman. [Source: Dr Neil Faulkner, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]
“But there were limits to Romanisation. Religious practice is a key measure. Roman gods are represented mainly at forts, towns and villas. Even at such high-status sites, however, there is evidence that many native gods were also worshipped. While in the countryside, where the mass of common people lived and worked, we see strong survival of native cults. There is sometimes a Roman veneer - a stone temple, perhaps, or a dedicatory inscription - but the god worshipped as almost always a local one. |::|
“Roman archaeology is revealing ever more of the cultural diversity of the empire, and increasingly we sense that different ways of life, world-views and value systems could co-exist with the dominant, more uniform, Graeco-Roman culture of the elite. Occasionally, indeed, one or another of these alternative cultures was forged into an ideology of resistance. There were winners and losers in the Roman Empire. |::|
“As well as the rich and their clients, as well as officials, soldiers, landowners and merchants, there were the exploited and oppressed, those who were taxed to make empire and civilisation possible. In three great revolts between 66 and 136 AD, for instance, the Jewish peasantry, inspired by radical interpretations of traditional Judaism, organised itself into a revolutionary force to challenge Roman power. Each time they were defeated. But their efforts reveal to us the limits of Romanisation. The culture of the conqueror often had little appeal to the oppressed.” |::|
Trajan greeted by barbarians
Slow Collapse of Rome: an Immigration Crisis?
Dr Peter Heather wrote for the BBC: “A two-stage process occurred between the battle of Hadrianople in 378 AD, when the emperor Valens and two-thirds of his army (upwards of 10,000 men) fell in a single afternoon at the hands of an army of Gothic migrants, to the deposition of Romulus Augustulus nearly a century later. “This process created the successor kingdoms. Stage one consisted of immigration onto Roman soil, followed by a second stage of aggressive expansion of the territory under the migrants' control. All of it was carried forward at the point of the sword. [Source: Dr Peter Heather, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]
“The central Roman state collapsed because the migrants forcibly stripped it of the tax base which it had used to fund its armies, not because of long-term 'organic' transformations. In this violent process of collapse, some local Roman societies immediately went under. In Britain and north eastern Gaul particularly, Roman landowners lost their estates and Roman culture disappeared with them. |::|
“In southern Gaul, Spain, and Italy, Roman landowners survived by coming to terms with the migrants. But to suppose that this was a voluntary process - as some of the revisionary work done since the 1960s has supposed - is to miss the point that these landowners faced the starkest of choices. As the central Roman state ceased to exert power in their localities, they either had to do such deals, or lose the lands that were the basis of their entire wealth. And even where Roman landowners survived, the effects of Rome's fall were nonetheless revolutionary. |::|
Admitting Provincials to the Senate
In a speech on admitting provincials to the Senate by Claudius (41–54 A.D.), Tacitus (b.56/57-after 117 A.D.) wrote in “Annals” (A.D. 48): “In the consulship of Aulus Vitellius and Lucius Vipstanus the question of filling up the Senate was discussed, and the chief men of Gallia Comata, as it was called, who had long possessed the rights of allies and of Roman citizens, sought the privilege of obtaining public offices at Rome. There was much talk of every kind on the subject, and it was argued before the emperor with vehement opposition. "Italy," it was asserted, "is not so feeble as to be unable to furnish its own capital with a senate. Once our native-born citizens sufficed for peoples of our own kin, and we are by no means dissatisfied with the Rome of the past. To this day we cite examples, which under our old customs the Roman character exhibited as to valour and renown. Is it a small thing that Veneti and Insubres have already burst into the Senate-house, unless a mob of foreigners, a troop of captives, so to say, is now forced upon us? What distinctions will be left for the remnants of our noble houses, or for any impoverished senators from Latium? Every place will be crowded with these millionaires, whose ancestors of the second and third generations at the head of hostile tribes destroyed our armies with fire and sword, and actually besieged the divine Julius at Alesia. These are recent memories. What if there were to rise up the remembrance of those who fell in Rome's citadel and at her altar by the hands of these same barbarians! Let them enjoy indeed the title of citizens, but let them not vulgarise the distinctions of the Senate and the honours of office." [Source: Tacitus, The Annales 11.23-25]
“These and like arguments failed to impress the emperor. He at once addressed himself to answer them, and thus harangued the assembled Senate. "My ancestors, the most ancient of whom was made at once a citizen and a noble of Rome, encourage me to govern by the same policy of transferring to this city all conspicuous merit, wherever found. And indeed I know, as facts, that the Julii came from Alba, the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum, and not to inquire too minutely into the past, that new members have been brought into the Senate from Etruria and Lucania and the whole of Italy, that Italy itself was at last extended to the Alps, to the end that not only single persons but entire countries and tribes might be united under our name. We had unshaken peace at home; we prospered in all our foreign relations, in the days when Italy beyond the Po was admitted to share our citizenship, and when, enrolling in our ranks the most vigorous of the provincials, under colour of settling our legions throughout the world, we recruited our exhausted empire. Are we sorry that the Balbi came to us from Spain, and other men not less illustrious from Narbon Gaul? Their descendants are still among us, and do not yield to us in patriotism.
"What was the ruin of Sparta and Athens, but this, that mighty as they were in war, they spurned from them as aliens those whom they had conquered? Our founder Romulus, on the other hand, was so wise that he fought as enemies and then hailed as fellow-citizens several nations on the very same day. Strangers have reigned over us. That freedmen's sons should be intrusted with public offices is not, as many wrongly think, a sudden innovation, but was a common practice in the old commonwealth. But, it will be said, we have fought with the Senones. I suppose then that the Volsci and Aequi never stood in array against us. Our city was taken by the Gauls. Well, we also gave hostages to the Etruscans, and passed under the yoke of the Samnites. On the whole, if you review all our wars, never has one been finished in a shorter time than that with the Gauls. Thenceforth they have preserved an unbroken and loyal peace. United as they now are with us by manners, education, and intermarriage, let them bring us their gold and their wealth rather than enjoy it in isolation. Everything, Senators, which we now hold to be of the highest antiquity, was once new. Plebeian magistrates came after patrician; Latin magistrates after plebeian; magistrates of other Italian peoples after Latin. This practice too will establish itself, and what we are this day justifying by precedents, will be itself a precedent."
“The emperor's speech was followed by a decree of the Senate, and the Aedui were the first to obtain the right of becoming senators at Rome. This compliment was paid to their ancient alliance, and to the fact that they alone of the Gauls cling to the name of brothers of the Roman people.”
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.
Last updated October 2024