Ancient+Rome

=Romanisation: The Process of Becoming Roman (excerpts) =

//By Dr Neil Faulkner //
==//Last updated 2010-10-15 - ////[|//http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/romanisation_article_01.shtml//] //==

Collaboration or resistance?
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. 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.

Civilisation or enslavement?
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: 'He [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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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.

[…]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Limits of Romanisation
<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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. <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">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.

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">1) What evidence supports the idea that Dacia and Pergamum were two examples of resistance and collaboration, respectively?

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">2) Why do you think Tacitus said “The naïve Britons described these things as ‘civilisation’, when in fact they were simply part of their enslavement.”?

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">3) Who could be a citizen in the Roman empire? What was necessary and what wasn’t to be considered a citizen?

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">4) Explain why religious practices can be considered as evidence of the limits of romanisation.

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