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The Provinces of the Roman Empire
(1885; English translation 1886), drew attention away from the
political history of the Principate, which tended in the nineteenth
century to be understood in a fairly superficial manner – not least
as a result of overly literal readings of the classical literary sources
– as a story of tyranny and decadence, and focused it instead on
the fate of the rest of the Roman world. He emphasised the fact
that the Empire had not only persisted for centuries after the
supposedly catastrophic end of the republic and the establishment
of autocracy, but had in fact brought peace and prosperity to most
of its inhabitants. Furthermore, in developing this perspective both
Mommsen and his admirers considered a much wider range of
evidence than the literary sources and works of art on which ancient
history had traditionally been based. Mommsen was best known for
his work on Latin epigraphy – collecting, editing and commenting
upon the inscriptions put up by thousands of provincials, and
making manifest their adherence to Roman values and culture.
Haverfield and other British archaeologists meanwhile turned their
attention to the wealth of material evidence, not as a desperate
expedient to compensate for the lack of literary sources for Roman
Britain but as a means of gaining access to the experiences of a
far larger proportion of the population than was usual in ancient
history. While the literary sources obsessed about intrigue and social
degeneracy in the city of Rome, the material evidence gave an insight
into the everyday life of the provinces and revealed that the majority
of the Empire’s inhabitants were enjoying a wide range of new
goods, different styles of housing and the delights of urban life.
Metropolitan politics were a sideshow; the Empire’s enlightened
rule of its conquests brought about the Romanisation of its subjects.
Contrary to the image of a uniform and inexorable process of
‘Romanisation’ that is sometimes brought forward as a straw man
in current debates, Haverfield did at times offer a fairly nuanced
picture of these developments:
Romanization was, then, a complex process with complex issues.
It does not mean simply that all the subjects of Rome became
wholly and uniformly Roman. The world is not so monotonous as
that. In it two tendencies were blended with ever-varying results.
First Romanization extinguished the difference between Roman
and provincial through all parts of the Empire but the east, alike
in speech, in material culture, in political feeling and religion.
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ThE dynamIcs of culTural changE
109
When the provincials called themselves Roman or when we call
them Roman, the epithet is correct. Secondly, the process worked
with different degrees of speed and success in different lands. It
did not everywhere and at once destroy all traces of tribal or
national sentiments or fashions. These remained, at least for a
while and in certain regions, not in active opposition, but in latent
persistence, capable of resurrection under proper conditions. In
such a case the provincial had become a Roman, but he could still
undergo an atavistic reversion to the ways of his forefathers.
19
The triumph of Roman culture was not inevitable, therefore, but an
ongoing struggle, in which some of the conquered peoples proved
themselves more amenable to civilisation than others. Nevertheless,
the effect of Roman rule in most regions was to draw the provincials
into a common culture and way of life, raising them to a higher
standard of living and a more refined sensibility and allowing them
to participate fully in the political and social life of the Empire.
While this model of the cultural impact of Rome has held sway
for decades as the theoretical basis for the study of Roman Britain
and the other western provinces, in recent years serious criticisms
have been made of the underlying assumptions of its creators and
therefore of the way that it has shaped understanding of provincial
culture. At the same time as the idea of ‘Romanisation’ influenced
ideas about the cultural role of modern imperialism, and on occasion
even influenced the policies of the imperial powers, it was itself
influenced by contemporary intellectual and cultural currents.
20
Rome was read through the lens of modern imperialism as much
as the modern experience was understood through comparison
with Rome. The most obvious example is the tendency of many
of these authors to identify with Roman culture and to take it
for granted that its adoption was a progressive and desirable
process.
21
In many respects, for example, Haverfield was quite
insistent on the differences between Roman and British imperialism
– as he remarked, Roman history ‘provides few direct parallels or
precedents; the wise man does not look for that in history’ – but the
contrast was abandoned when it came to the distinction between
civilisation and barbarism:
Our civilization seems firmly set in many lands; our task is rather
to spread it further and develop its good qualities than to defend
its life. If war destroys it in one continent, it has other homes.
But the Roman empire was the civilized world; the safety of
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110
ThE roman EmpIrE
Rome was the safety of all civilization. Outside roared the wild
chaos of barbarism.
22
The Roman conception of civilisation, and its practical expression
in the provinces, matches our own expectations, since in part
our expectations have been defined by the Roman tradition of
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