64 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Constant suppression of hostile subjects is diffi cult for any imperial
power. Romans preferred when possible to return to the comfortable
symbiosis with a local elite that they considered as the norm. Troublemakers
within the ruling class were removed by death or exile in the hope that those
remaining would see the advantages of cooperation. Gaul after AD 21 was
still ruled by the Gallic Iulii, aristocrats given citizenship by Caesar or
Augustus. In Britain Agricola was energetically wooing the local elite to
Roman ways eighteen years after the Boudiccan uprising (Tac. Agr. 21). It is
likely that Civilis and the Batavi were pardoned in the early years of
Vespasian. Such clemency is a symptom of Roman self- confi dence and the
belief that most provincials, given suffi cient wealth and power, would throw
their weight behind the imperial authorities; in perhaps the most blatant
case of such an attitude, Augustus bought off the bandit Corocotta who was
plaguing Africa with a gift of a million sesterces, which made him as rich as
the minimum requirement for a senator (Dio 56.43.3).^20
It was rare for the Roman state to give up altogether in its attempt to use
a local elite. In Gaul part of the elite was fi rst ignored and then destroyed.
Before the Romans arrived power was shared in Gallic society between the
war leaders, warriors whose prowess brought them wealth and prestige so
long as they proved their competence, and the druids, a group of learned
experts who ruled on matters of law and religion (Caesar, B.G. 6.13–14).
The fi rst century of Roman rule saw the gradual evolution of the war leaders
into a landed aristocracy of the Greco-Roman type, reliant on tenant
incomes and responsible for the gradual urbanization of Gaul, as well as the
collection of tribute and preservation of order on behalf of Rome. The
druids meanwhile gradually came under a state ban, until Tiberius forbade
altogether the practice of druidic rites (Pliny, HN. 30.4).^21 In Judaea the
ruling class was removed from power completely, perhaps because of the
extent of its involvement in revolt or because of the link as priests of many
of them with the destroyed Temple. It may also have been relevant that there
already existed in Palestine a sizeable population of non-Jews able and
willing to take over the role of local administrators: the submerged hostility
to the Jews of the Greeks of the surrounding regions surfaced in the mutual
massacres of AD 66, and pagan city authorities sent troops to aid the Romans
against the rebels.^22
Success in revolt was the exception rather than the rule, and provincials
reacted to failure in a variety of ways. It is unwarranted to assume that
most, realizing the folly of opposition, assimilated into the dominant culture
and society. Undoubtedly some did, but since the rebellions had occurred for
the most part in precisely those areas that the Romans persisted in seeing as
barbarian and uncivilized (see above, p. 57: the coincidence is not, of course,
accidental), penitent rebels could not expect easy acceptance by the governing
elite of the empire.
A more common response to defeat was for the provincial society to
build up or retain a cultural alternative to Rome in place of political