History of Rome

In one sense, xenophobia was not very strong in the Roman empire. That is to say, anyone who had learnt the Greek or Latin language and absorbed enough of the prevalent culture to participate in current activities was able to make good. The proof is provided at the very top of the pyramid, by a long list of non-Italian emperors. The first of them was Trajan, whose Roman ancestors had settled in Spain and had no doubt intermarried with Spaniards.

The list of foreign rulers continues with his compatriot Hadrian, with Antoninus Pius whose ancestors had come from Gaul, with Septimius Severus who was a north African married to a Syrian, and with Elagabalus who was himself a Svrian ; followed by emperors who themselves came from Thrace, from Arabia, and from the Illyrian provinces bordering on the Danube and on the Dalmatian coast. But even before emperors came from the provinces, many other political and military figures had been of provincial origin. Thus the home of Caesar’s chief adviser Balbus was the partially Semitic Gades (Cadiz) in Spain, described as containing more capitalists than any city of the empire except Patavium (Padua) ; a Roman knight, Theophanes, Pompey’s historian, came from Mitylene, and his grandson Q. Pompeius Macer became a senator under Tiberius; the principal secretaries of Claudius and Nero were orientals; Tiberius Julius Alexander, Prefect of Egypt from Nero to Vespasian, was a renegade Jew; Domitian’s Commander of the Guard, Crispinus, was an Egyptian; legionary commanders came from Gaul and other provinces; and one of Trajan’s principal generals, Lusius Quietus, was a Berber.

In AD 48 Claudius addressed the Senate in favour of admitting Gaulish chiefs to their membership. The speech, in addition to an imperfect account by Tacitus, has survived in a verbatim reproduction at Lyon. With a characteristic blend of liberal practicality and antiquarian learning he points out that this sort of receptiveness had been typical of Roman history from the very beginning. In support of this thesis, he is able to cite not only Julius Caesar, who had himself admitted to the Senate a few Gallic notables-perhaps of Roman origin-but also the legendary or semilegendary kings of Rome, of whom Numa Pompilius was reputed to be not a Roman but a Sabine, Tarquinius Priscus the son of a Corinthian immigrant to Etruria, and Servius Tullius the son of a slavewoman or refugee in the same country. Many of the greatest masters of the Latin language also came from outside Italy, and the best of `Roman’ sculpture, architecture and painting was almost all the work of non-Roman hands: the most noteworthy school of imperial sculpture was at Aphrodisias in southwestern Asia Minor, and the most famous architect of metropolitan buildings, Apollodorus, was a Greek or more probably a Hellenized Syrian from Damascus.

Yet behind this impressive picture of internationalism there were serious racial tensions. The most significant of these, because it concerned the two chief peoples of the empire on whose collaboration the whole structure depended, was the tension between Romans and Greeks. Psychologists might describe the attitude of the Romans towards their Greek neighbours and subjects as the manifestation of a love-hate relationship. On the one hand educated Romans felt a passionate admiration for Greek culture, and a consciousness of inferiority to its possessors. On the other hand they retained a widespread suspicion of its unmanly cleverness, and a strong distaste for contemporary Greeks, who seemed light-weight, unsound and unprincipled. Already in the second century Bc Rome had rung all the changes on these attitudes-and had moved all the way from the sentimental `liberation’ of Greece in by the philhellene Flamininus to the increasing loss of patience manifested in their dissolution of the Achaean League and sack of Corinth. During the latter part of this period Rome had witnessed a deep cultural fissure between the supporters of Cato the elder, who despite his own debts to Greek literature stood for the retention of the `pure’ Italian, crude, western tradition, and Scipio Aemilianus who gathered round himself the leading Greek thinkers of the day such as the historian Polybius and the Stoic philosopher Panaetius.

Even with Cicero, however, the overriding consideration was, too often, the effect of his actions on his Roman career, of which he regarded this governorship as an irritating and painful interruption. Yet the desire of a few men like him to rule decently pointed the way to a better future.

During the later Republic, governors were generally bad; from the time of Augustus onwards they were generally conscientious. When Tiberius told them that `a good shepherd shears his flock but does not flay them’,sl he was instructing them to maintain what had already, since the beginning of the principate, become current practice. Under the system established by Augustus, senior senators who had served as consuls or praetors were carefully groomed and chosen for provincial governorships, of which the old rascalities came to an end. Africa and Asia came at the head of the `senatorial provinces’-still governed by `proconsuls’, usually for only one year at a time. But Augustus himself, `at the request of the Senate’ (probably confirmed by a Law of the Assembly), and on a basis which was at first temporary but in fact became permanent, took over, as supreme governor, the principal military provinces. These included Spain and the regions bordering on the Rhine, Danube and Euphrates. Following and expanding certain late Republican precedents for governorships in absentia-Pompey had governed Spain in this way-Augustus controlled his provinces through `legates’ who like the proconsuls were of high senatorial rank, but unlike them often retained their posts for several years at a time.

Augustus also strengthened the provincial administration by his reorganization of the Order of Knights. This was still limited, like the Senate, to the well-to-do, though its property qualification was less than theirs. Augustus used the knights to provide the nucleus of a new Imperial Civil Service existing alongside, and supplementing, the traditional official career of the senators. He posted knights in the provinces as his personal representatives (procurators), with tax collecting and other financial duties under his close supervision. They were also allowed certain `plums’, such as the governorships of small provinces-notably Judaea, when it passed into Roman hands-and one large one : the rich territory of Egypt which, after its conquest from Cleopatra, remained under the emperor’s personal control, and was entrusted by him to a prefect chosen from among the knights.

Cicero was a hesitant, timid man, but occasionally he was so moved by a cause that he showed determination; and he showed it here. This was in keeping with his own conduct as governor of Cilicia, which at that time extended far into the interior of Asia Minor. He worked strenuously, fought to maintain public security seeking a somewhat tenuous military glory against some tribesmen and, unlike so many others, was in a position to claim that he had extracted no improper gains from his province. His only profit, one regarded as legitimate, comprised the proceeds (at famine prices) from the large amount of corn which governors were allowed to requisition, ostensibly for their own table; and even these perhaps not wholly creditable, but legally defensible, savings were lost to Cicero once the Civil War started, since Pompey laid hands on them. Cicero also proved unwilling to help Caelius Rufus, the fashionable young man who was his political informant at Rome, either with a free gift of panthers for his electioneering show, or with a financial contribution from the provincials. Cicero describes the situation in his Cilician province to Atticus, with a typical mixture of vanity, the human desire to criticize one’s predecessor, and real humanity :
`So I sit down on the high road to scribble you a summary of what really calls for a long epistle. You must know that my arrival in this province, which is in a state of lasting ruin and desolation, was expected eagerly. I got here on 3 i st July. I stayed three days at Laodicea, three at Apamea, and as many at Synnada. Everywhere I heard the same tale. People could not pay their taxes : they were forced to sell out their investments; groans and lamentations in the towns, and awful conduct of one who is some kind of savage beast rather than a man. All the people are, as you may suppose, tired of life. However, the poor towns are relieved that they have had to spend nothing on me, my legates, or a quaestor, or anyone. For you must know that I not only refused to accept pay, or what is a proper perquisite under the Julian law, but that none of us will take firewood or anything beyond four beds and a roof; and in many places we do not accept even a roof, but remain mostly under canvas. So extraordinary throngs of people have come to meet me from farms and villages and every homestead. Upon my word my very coming seems to revive them. Your friend Cicero has won all hearts by his justice and self restraint and kind bearing.