INTRODUCTION in His Father-In-Law's Biography Tacitus

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

In his father-in-law’s biography Tacitus (Agr. 21) reports that after the campaigning season of A.D. 79 had ended Cn. Julius Agricola, the legate of Britannia, spent the winter fostering the development of civi- lization among his uncultured subjects. Tacitus records his father-in- law’s efforts as he encouraged the Britons in the building of temples, fora, and good houses. This new and orderly landscape provided a backdrop to his program for educating the sons of the local chieftains. Soon he had them speaking Latin—better than the Gauls in Agricola’s opinion—and wearing togas. His achievement was crowned by the people’s increasing zeal for arcades, baths, and sumptuous banquets, features of their enslavement which the Britons took for the trappings of civilization. Tacitus describes here the process recently dubbed “becoming Roman”, wherein provincials are gradually assimilated into the Roman imperial structure, taking upon themselves the cultural markers which contribute to Roman identity.1 Agricola was not, however, leading a cultural crusade. He was not bestowing the benefits of Roman civiliza- tion as a gift to improve the lives of Rome’s British subjects. Tacitus tells us that he encouraged the British to adopt a more orderly life to pacify them, observing that a lack of culture had made them war- like. Agricola’s aim was to prepare these local elites, or at least their heirs, to take their stand in the traces of empire, to become part of the imperial machinery, for Rome ruled her subjects through middlemen provided by the provincial elites.2

1 G. Woolf, Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); idem, “Becoming Roman, Staying Greek: Culture, Identity and the Civilizing Process in the Roman East,” PCPhS 40 (1994): 116–43. 2 A convenient overview can be found in A. K. Bowman, “Provincial Adminis- tration and Taxation,” CAH2 10.344–70; W. Eck, “Provincial Administration and Finance,” CAH2 11.266–92; H. Galsterer, “Local and Provincial Institutions and Gov- ernment,” CAH2 11.344–60; F. Millar, ed., The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours (2nd ed.; London: Duckworth, 1981), 52–103; A. W. Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (London: Routledge, 1993). 2 chapter one

We can easily understand what Agricola and, by extension, Rome was doing in this situation, but what were the local elites doing? They were, presumably, laying aside ancestral traditions and customs as they “became Roman” in order to preserve their position at the top of society. As a result of this “Romanization” most of the indigenous languages and cultures of Western Europe disappeared. How did these elites feel about this? Tacitus’ narrative allows us to imagine the very intimate scene of the tribal leader’s household, for the historian tells us that Agricola was educating the sons of the elite. Traditional dress yielded to the toga. The various national tongues, in which were com- posed and sung the sagas and legends which underpinned British soci- ety, were replaced with Latin and the doings of Aeneas. How would the elders feel about this? More broadly, how did provincials feel about the Roman Empire and their place in it? Tacitus neither asks the ques- tion nor answers it.3 It is a particularly intriguing question in this age of post-colonial approaches to the study of empire, with its welcome attention to the imperial experience of subjects.4 Students of ancient history were

3 Elsewhere (Agr. 30–2), of course, Tacitus turns to the question in a speech put in the mouth of the Caledonian leader Calgacus. Haranguing his men before the battle of Mons Graupius Calgacus offers his famous summation of Roman imperial aims: “They have pillaged the world: when the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy, if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of ‘empire’ (imperium). They make a desert and call it ‘peace’” (trans. from Tacitus, Agricola and Germany [trans. A. R. Birley; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999]). The speech has long been accepted, of course, as a Tacitean composition, with traditional Roman criticisms of imperialism put into the Caledonian’s mouth; see R. M. Ogilvie and I. A. Richardson, eds., Cornelii Taciti: De vita Agricolae (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), 253–4. R. Hingley, “Resistance and Domination: Social Change in Roman Britain,” in Dialogues in Roman Imperi- alism: Power, Discourse, and Discrepant Experience in the Roman Empire (ed. D. J. Mattingly; JRASup 23; Portsmouth, R.I.: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997), 81–2, rightly points out that the speech put into Calgacus’ mouth by Tacitus hardly qualifies as an authentic provincial voice as the points of the Caledonian leader largely echo Tacitus’ own reservations about Roman imperialism and the position of his own class under the emperor. 4 On the application of post-colonial theory to the study of Roman imperialism see J. Webster and N. Cooper, eds., Roman Imperialism: Post-colonial Perspectives: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at Leicester University in November 1994 (Leicester Archaeology Monographs 3; Leicester: School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester, 1996); Mattingly, Dialogues. R. Hingley, Globalizing Roman Culture: Unity, Diversity, and Empire (London: Routledge, 2005) offers a good example of the theo- retical approach to Romanization studies.