Imperial Identities in the Roman World

Wouter Vanacker, Arjan Zuiderhoek, Wouter Vanacker, Arjan Zuiderhoek

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317118473
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia antigua

In recent years, the debate on Romanisation has often been framed in terms of identity. Discussions have concentrated on how the expansion of empire impacted on the constructed or self-ascribed sense of belonging of its inhabitants, and just how the interaction between local identities and Roman ideology and practices may have led toa multicultural empire has been a central research focus.This volume challenges this perspective by drawing attention to the processes of identity formation that contributed to an imperial identity, a sense of belonging to the political, social, cultural and religious structures of the Empire. Instead of concentrating on politics and imperial administration, the volume studies the manifold ways in which people were ritually engaged in producing, consuming, organising, believing and worshipping that fitted the (changing) realities of empire. It focuseson how individuals and groups tried to do things 'the right way', i.e., the Greco-Roman imperial way. Given the deep cultural entrenchment of ritualistic practices, an imperial identity firmly grounded in such practices might well have been instrumental, not just to the long-lasting stability of the Roman imperial order, but also to the persistence of its ideals well into (Christian) Late Antiquity and post-Roman times.

1
Between Greece and Rome

Forging a primordial identity for an imperial aristocracy

Andreas Hartmann

As is well known, the composition of the senatorial order changed considerably during the two first centuries CE. Members of the local elites from the Greek East were admitted to the senate in increasing numbers from the Flavian period onwards.¹ The appointments to the major priesthoods tended to be somewhat conservative, but – as far as we can tell from the prosopographical data available – in the end recruitment practice roughly corresponded to the situation in the senate as a whole.² Equestrian careers had been open to provincial notables from the beginning of the imperial period. All this raises the question what this process meant for the cultural identity of the imperial aristocracy. Outright assimilation could be expected from ‘barbarians’ of all sorts, but not from Greeks whose cultural heritage had been accepted as valuable at Rome since the middle Republican period. How could the new men from the East ‘become Roman, and stay Greek’ ³ at the same time?

In the wake of Greek contacts with Italy and Latium, Greek scholars had developed foundation legends that integrated the cities of Latium into the wider network of Greek cities. The indigenes also fitted themselves into this pattern and accepted the Greek construction of their past. Bickerman traced this process in a seminal article many years ago.⁴ The beginnings of Rome became related to the Greek East not only through the myth of Trojan descent, ⁵ but also through belief in the existence of an ancient Arcadian colony and the visit of Hercules to Rome on his way back from the West.⁶ During the Augustan age, Dionysius of Halicarnassus put much effort into an argument that Rome was in fact a Greek polis, ⁷ but Rome had been described as ‘Greek’ since the fourth century BCE already.⁸

This remarkable construction of a shared past would have remained a mere intellectual mind game, if there had not been any evidence which could lend some plausibility to such claims. I will argue that religion and the involvement of the imperial aristocracy into public cults provided an important medium for the formation of a shared Greco-Roman past. Senators and knights from Rome, Italy and the Latin West of the Empire performed rituals that could be conceptualized as remembering the Greek origins of Rome; vice versa senators and knights from the Greek East actively participated in rituals that could be seen as re-enactments of Rome’s earliest history, thus inscribing themselves into this tradition.

Peculiar cultic practices led to the production of aetiological narratives, which explained these rites through reference to specific historical circumstances. This also meant that ritual and aetiological history amalgamated into some sort of ritual history. The most extreme consequence of this development was the reinterpretation of gods/goddesses as divinized mortals under the influence of Greek hero-cult: for example, Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports the existence of public cults for Evander and his mother Carmenta at Rome.⁹ From a Greek perspective, such offerings to a deceased person as a demi-god were common enough, but at Rome, the category of the hero as a recipient of cult simply did not exist.¹⁰ The existence of a flamen Carmentalis proves that Carmenta was really an ancient goddess.¹¹ The similar case of Acca Larentia shows that the process was well under way in the second century BCE and is not restricted to authors with a specifically ‘Hellenic’ perspective: Cato already interpreted her cult as a funerary one.¹² The annalist Calpurnius Piso claimed that there were annual offerings to Tarpeia.¹³ Such shifts in conceptualization also meant that cultic offerings could be experienced as memorial services.

In this context, Beard has made the important point that we cannot understand the significance of Roman rituals during the imperial period from their supposed origins, but that it is exactly from aetiological stories that we can glean what these often obscure rites meant for those who practised them.¹⁴ Beard states that ‘the Roman ritual calendar together with its exegetical texts (and no doubt also its exegetical oral tradition) offered one important way of “imaging” Roman history, even imaging Rome itself’.¹⁵ The ritual history of Rome also defined ‘what it was to be Roman … it constituted a perfect image of “Romanness”’.¹⁶ However, this insight does not apply to the Romulean rituals discussed by Beard only, but it is extremely valuable for a better understanding of ‘Greek’ and ‘Trojan’ cults at Rome, too. Romanness as construed through these ritual acts explicitly incorporated elements of privileged foreignness. The following discussion will be limited to some significant examples and cannot in any way pretend to exhaust all the relevant material.

The Greek side: Evander and Hercules at the ara maxima

The ara maxima on the forum Boarium was believed to go back to the times of Evander and Hercules.¹⁷ One of them had allegedly founded the sanctuary after the killing of Cacus.¹⁸ The altar preserved an archaic flavour until its destruction in the fire of 64 CE: Dionysius of Halicarnassus remarked explicitly on the stark contrast between the religious importance of the site and its humble appearance.¹⁹ In addition, the sanctuary possessed important relics: allegedly, Hercules had left his club there, ²⁰ and an ancient wooden goblet was supposed to have belonged to the hero himself.²¹ This scyphus perhaps was related to Hercules’s role as a giver of salt at Rome, ²² but it fitted nicely with Greek traditions about Hercules as a great drinker.²³ The goblet was put to actual ritual use, when the praetor used it for making libations during his annual sacrifices at the ara maxima as the hero himself had done.²⁴ The relic bridged the gap to an imagined past and provided haptic proof for the aetiological legend.

The most important aspect of the ritual practice at the ara maxima is, however, that it is qualified in our sources as being performed ‘according to the Greek rite’ (Graeco ritu).²⁵ The supposedly Greek rites at the ara maxima had already been used as proof for the basically Greek character of Rome by the annalist Acilius.²⁶ Varro took them as evidence for the foundation of the cult by Hercules or some of his companions who settled down at Rome.²⁷ The closest parallel is provided by the ara Saturni at the forum Romanum, which also became connected with Evander and Hercules. As in the case of the ara maxima, the principal reason for this was the fact that cult at this altar was practised Graeco ritu.²⁸

One may object that this is only antiquarian speculation, but the ritual terminology was technical indeed: the acts of the ludi saeculares give us an impression of the official language employed in such contexts at Rome. In these documents, we find the description of certain sacrifices as Graeco Achivo ritu.²⁹ Thus, it cannot be denied that the Roman state officially endorsed the belief that some of the religious rituals performed by its representatives were of Greek origin.³⁰ But what specific elements could be perceived as ‘Greek’ in the cult at the ara maxima?

The most conspicuous element of the Graecus ritus was the sacrifice with bare head (capite aperto).³¹ Additionally, the participants in the cult might use wreaths – at the ara maxima, all worshippers wore laurel wreaths.³² I...