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VI. Monarchy and Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

The installation of an emperor made possible the evolution of administrative structures and a centrally directed foreign and military policy appropriate to the government of a large empire. These gains were made at a cost of the destruction of the traditional forms of political life and the reordering and control of the social hierarchy at all levels.

In law, the emperor devised new jurisdictions dependent on himself, created law, and empowered select jurisconsults, who were increasingly professionals of non-aristocratic background, to issue authoritative legal judgements and interpretations – with the necessary consequence that the courts, judicial procedures, and legislative organs inherited from the Republic went into a slow decline.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 15: The Early Principate: Augustus to Trajan , 1982 , pp. 35 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

Notes

1. Jolowicz/Nicholas (1973); Schulz, F., Roman Legal Science (Oxford, 1946)Google Scholar; Kunkel, W., Herkunft und soziale Stellung der römischen Juristen (Weimar, 1952)Google Scholar.

2. Roman religion in general: Le Gall (1975). Emperor worship: Liebeschuetz (1979); cf. Nock, CAH X (1934), ch. 15. Astrology, magic: Cramer, F. H., Astrology in Roman Law and Politics (Philadelphia, 1954)Google Scholar; Liebeschuetz (1979).

3. Republican background: Last, H., ‘The Study of the “Persecutions”‘JRS 27 (1937), 80–92 Google Scholar. Druids: Chadwick, N. K., The Druids (Cardiff, 1966)Google Scholar. The imperial distaste for Druidic rites, especially human sacrifice, was a factor in the repression of Druidism; cf. Tert., Apol. 9.2-3, with Leglay, M., Saturne Africaine (Paris, 1966), pp. 61-2Google Scholar, 322 (public sacrifice of children banned at Carthage, perhaps by Tiberius). Judaism: Smallwood (1976). Christianity: de Ste. Croix, ‘Why were the early Christians persecuted?’ in Finley (1974), pp. 210-49, 256-62; Barnes, T. D., ‘Legislation against the Christians’, JRS 58 (1968), 32–50 Google Scholar.

4. Hicks, R. D., Stoic and Epicurean (London, 1911)Google Scholar; Long, A. A., ed., Problems in Stoicism (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Sandbach, F. H., The Stoics (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Brunt (1975); Griffin (1976). For Pyrrhonian scepticism, Pythagoreanism, and Platonism, see Armstrong (1967); Wallis, R. T., Neoplatonism (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Dillon, J. M., The Middle Platonists (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Glucker, J., Antiochus and the Late Academy (Göttingen, 1978)Google Scholar.

5. Syme (1939), ch. 30; Williams (1968), ch. 2; Johnson, W. R., Darkness Visible, A study of Virgil’s Aeneid (Berkeley, 1976) especially pp. 135-54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Griffin, J., ‘Augustan Poetry and the Life of Luxury’, JRS 66 (1976), 87–105 Google Scholar; Sullivan, J. P., Propertius (Cambridge, 1976)Google Scholar; Otis, B., Ovid as an Epic Poet 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1970), ch. IX Google Scholar; Syme, R., Ovid in History (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar; Cambridge History of Classical Literature II (Cambridge, 1981), chh. 15-23.

6. Contra Williams (1978).

7. Bonner, S. F., Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Liverpool, 1949)Google Scholar; Syme (1958), ch. 9; Kennedy (1972).

8. The system is described by Quintilian in Instit. Orat. (written in the early 90s). See Marrou (1956); cf. Bonner (1977).

9. The Ara Pacis sums up all the themes of Augustan propaganda. See Strong (1961), p1. 35; Weinstock, S., ‘Pax and the “Ara Pacis” ’, JRS 50 (1960), 44–58 Google Scholar; Toynbee, J. M. C., ‘The “Ara Pacis Augustae”’, JRS 51 (1961), 153-6Google Scholar; Ryberg, I. S., Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art, MAAR 22 (Rome, 1955), ch. 4 Google Scholar and passim.

10. Brilliant (1963), pp. 89 ff.; 105 ff.; 113 ff.; 118 ff.

11. For buildings of this period see Boëthius/Ward-Perkins (1970), pp. 217 ff.; also MacDonald, W., The Architecture of the Roman Empire I (New Haven, 1965), pp. 47 Google Scholar ff.

12. Vitruv. I, pref. 2; Suet. Aug. 28.3 ff.; 31.5; Nero 31; Tac. Ann. 15.38 ff.; Polliti, J. J., The Art of Romee. 753 B.C. to 337 A.D.: Sources and Documents (New Jersey, 1966), pp. 104 Google Scholar ff.; 140ff.; Boëthius, A., The Golden House of Nero (Ann Arbor, 1960)Google Scholar; Nash, E., Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London, 1968), vol. I, pp. 339 ffGoogle Scholar.

13. Jones (1974), ch. 5. The extent and depth of the Greek culture of Roman aristocrats should not be exaggerated. See Jocelyn, H. D., ‘The ruling class of the Roman republic and Greek philosophers’, Bull. Ryl. Libr. 59 (1977), 323-66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. MacMullen (1974), ch. 2; Millar, F., ‘Local cultures in the Roman Empire: Libyan, Punic and Latin in Roman Africa’, JRS 58 (1968), 126-34Google Scholar; P. A. Brunt (p. 14, n. 15), 170-2.

15. See e.g. M. Leglay (n. 3); Bénabou, M., La résistance africaine à la romanisation (Paris, 1976), pp. 261 Google Scholar ff. The point is briefly made in Minuc. Fel., Octavius 6.1-2. In art, one may note for example the continued use of ‘Republican’ types of portrait styles for provincial men and women, see Bandinelli, R. Bianchi, Rome the Centre of Power (London, 1970), pp. 86 Google Scholar ff. For regional diversity of style in portraiture see Rosenbaum, E., A Catalogue of Cyrenaican Portrait Sculpture (London, 1960), pp. 6 Google Scholar ff. Inan, J., Rosenbaum, E., Roman and early Byzantine Portrait Sculpture in Asia Minor II (London, 1966)Google Scholar.

16. Gordon, R. L., ‘Mithraism and Roman Empire’, Religion 2 (1972), 92–121 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. If this chapter is above the level of ‘potted cultural history’, this is in part a tribute to the advice of Drs. Janet Huskinson, Simon Price, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Professor E. J. Kenney, and Professor J. A. Crook, who has also contributed searching criticisms of an earlier draft of the whole. They do not necessarily agree with the views expressed and positions taken therein.