Communis patria.

Abstract

The stability of the Roman empire requires substantial and specific explanation. What induced the quietude and then the obedience of her subjects? At some level, the official discourse of the imperial government, and the principles of legitimation to which it gave voice, must have answered some need in the polyglot population of the provinces. The absorption and internalization of that official discourse transformed the empire from an imperium, a collection of conquered provinces, into a patria, a homeland, a focus for the patriotic loyalties and national aspirations of its subjects. This dissertation pursues the topic in several stages. Having situated this inquiry in the context of ancient thought on Roman imperialism and modern scholarship on nationalism and ideology (Chapters I and II), it reviews the expectations that surrounded the publication of administrative documents by the imperial government (Chapter IV). The government exploited various systems and institutions to induce its subjects to play an active role in empowering their rulers (Chapter V). The government developed, and provincials responded to, a wide range of non-verbal media. Coins, portraits, milestones and military standards each carried considerable ideological weight in a vast panorama of visual spectacle that kept the government and its representatives continuously before the people (Chapter VI). The final chapters consider the cross-fertilization between provincial and imperial definitions of the Roman community and the mechanisms through which provincials could express their faith in rationality of the government and the goodness of their emperor (Chapters VII and VIII).