Romans and Italians 451Epilogue
In an important essay, Cornell (1991, with Ampolo 1991) expounded upon Rome’s view
of itself after the fourth centuryBCE. Rome’s attitude was dominated by an anachronis-
tic vision of itself as a city-state, a utopian place populated by subsistence farmers who
jointly governed the city, fought in the legions, and ran their own households firmly and
justly. They expected good and virtuous behavior from their fellow citizens—especially
from their leaders—and from time to time they would allow outsiders into the community
who had demonstrated merit and character in service to Rome. This preconception dom-
inates Roman self-identity long after its creation of a professional standing army led by a
highly differentiated elite, long after its transformation into pluralistic nation-statehood.
Viewed through this lens of city-state ideology, much of Rome’s attitude toward itself
and the world helps us make sense of the otherwise inexplicably irrational and hypocritical
behavior of the Roman elite and masses. For instance, it goes some way toward explain-
ing why Cato the Elder would trumpet the values of peasant farming and husbandry, but
write a treatise on how to create and run alatifundiaoperation; why Rome was at once
“imperialistic,” but frequently resisted the annexation of territory; and why Rome would
extend citizenship to freed slaves, but not to Italian allies for centuries.
Rome’s attitude toward ethnic groups and its opinion of its own multi-ethnic nature
fit well into this scheme. However, the details were never static: good Etruscans in early
Roman legends show that the stereotype of the Etruscan character—visible earliest in our
Greek sources—only came to be accepted by Romans later. Citizenship extended to the
previously “greedy and tyrannical” Sabines in the third centuryBCEmay have generated
the belief that early Rome had a Sabine element filled withprisca virtus(“pristine virtue”).
The central Apennine people, and ultimately the elite of the rest of Italy, managed to
change their reputation from untrustworthy savages to marginal figures put to Rome’s
use, and finally to paragons of old-fashioned rusticity and virtue.
Roman political culture was permeated by elite promotion and suppression of various
ethnic identities within the political ranks. The very loudness with which the aristocracy
addressed the politics of ethnic identity speaks to the “horizontal” and “vertical” social
mobility possible within Roman society. Cicero is perhaps our greatest witness to elite
posturing and the layering of identity. As anovus homoand Latinmuniceps, he was acutely
aware of what it could mean to be on the low end of the elite “pecking-order,” and we
possess his articulation of Roman dual identity (duae patriae). He was highly indignant
about attacks against the municipal, Latin image, but at the same time he was not immune
to using its clichés for his own purposes. By doing so, he was drawing upon a long
tradition of constructing and arranging the various Italic identities that were fundamental
to the composite identity of the Roman state. However, these groups continued to speak
back and had a hand in creating their own identities, even as these identities were created
for them.
Once the emperor Claudius broke down the barriers to Rome’s political culture, the
different non-Italic groups increasingly became official participants. Previous experience
with various groups in the Republic seems to have informed how Rome would include
them (Farney 2007: 233–43). It is often thought that Imperial Rome was the first truly
multi-national, universal state in European history. Yet, we should see now that the ideas