Following the victory of Augustus, institutions, values and cultural life in
Rome gradually adjusted to the monarchy. Augustus’ exercise of political
patronage had its counterpart in the cultural sphere. As loyalty to the
emperor became the key to offi ce and high status, so those writers and artists
who were the benefi ciaries of the emperor’s patronage were expected to
treat Augustan themes and to do so in a sympathetic manner.
The provinces were less directly exposed than the capital city to the
processes of cultural transformation stimulated by the installation of an
emperor; nor was there any grand design emanating from the emperors and
their advisers to spread the culture of Rome through the empire at large.
Nevertheless, in the expanding western empire, emperors stepped up the
traditional Roman policy of imposing metropolitan political and cultural
institutions as an essential complement to military conquest. The consequence
of Roman imperialism, however, was not so much Romanization as the
forging of distinctive Romano-Iberian, African, Gallic or British cultures
through the fusion of imperial and local elements.
Moreover, Roman customs and ideas circulated mainly in the cities;
where urbanization remained underdeveloped, and in the countryside in
general, the impact of the imperial culture was much reduced. Similarly, in
the eastern provinces, where an indigenous civic culture was already
entrenched and fl ourishing, no attempt was made to disturb it. In general,
Romanization was deep- rooted and lasting only where a local elite were
zealous in espousing Roman culture, and this spirit was entirely lacking in
the eastern empire.
Finally, the imperial or metropolitan culture was itself a blend of
indigenous and foreign elements. Receptiveness to the cultures of others,
especially that of the Greeks, whose cultural superiority was not contested
by the Roman governing classes, was enhanced as a result of the political
integration of the Mediterranean by Augustus, and given specifi c
encouragement by philhellene emperors.
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Culture
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