Roman Elite Ethnicity 465their “Italian” counterparts also remains obscure. Identification with a community of ori-
gin in North Africa, Asia Minor, or Gaul does not necessarily entail self-identification as
Punic, Greek, or Gallic (Hopkins and Burton 1983: 185). As with the Italian “new men”
before them, however, these origins may have left these senators open to representation
as less “Roman” than others.
Ancestry and ethnic origins may not have had quite the bearing on prestige and power
play under the principate that they did in the republic, but ethnicity continued to have
potency in elite discourse and could be leveraged in political competition. Deep into
the second, third, and fourth centuriesCE, the ethnic origins of Rome’s rulers could be
brought to bear upon their prestige and assumed character in ways that reveal traditional
ethnic hierarchies. Such hierarchies had physical and linguistic dimensions that allowed
distinctions to be exposed and policed, as in the story of the senatorial laughter elicited by
the young Hadrian’s provincial accent (Historia Augusta, “Life of Hadrian,” 3.1). While
the text that records this anecdote is notoriously unreliable (Birley 1997: 3–4), it may
preserve evidence that ethnic identity remained a concern even for the most powerful
Roman late into his reign. TheHistoria Augusta’s “Life of Hadrian” begins by claiming
to cite Hadrian’s own autobiography:
The ancient home of the family of the Emperor Hadrian was Picenum, and their more recent
home was Spain. Hadrian himself records in his autobiography that his ancestors originated
from Hadria and migrated to Italica in the time of the Scipiones. (Historia Augusta,“Life
of Hadrian,” 1.1)As he surveyed and reported his achievements, the emperor was concerned about assert-
ing theItalianorigins of his Spanish family. If accurate, this suggests the continued
importance of the old identification of the Roman elite with Italian ethnicities. The
occasional insistence in elite texts that certain aristocrats of provincial origin are “just
like Italians” further demonstrates this persistent privileging of Italian ethnicity (e.g., the
poet Statius insists this about the young Septimius Severus: Statius,Silvae4.5.45–6; see
Dench 2005; Farney 2007: 234–5).
Finer ethnic distinctions could be made and felt among the expanding Roman elite in
the imperial period, just as distinctions among Latins, Sabines, and Italians of different
origins operated in the Republican period. Cassius Dio, writing in the third century and
himself a Roman senator and consul from Bithynia, reflects these attitudes in his contemp-
tuous remarks regarding the Mauretanian origins of the “usurper” emperor, Macrinus,
who “because of his natural cowardice (being a Moor [Mauros], he was terribly timo-
rous) and his soldiers’ ill-discipline, did not dare to fight on” (Cassius Dio 79.27). In
Cassius Dio’s representation, Macrinus is certainly not “just like an Italian.” Instead, his
ethnicity is marked in his moral character and physical appearance (e.g., his pierced ear:
Cassius Dio 79.11) in ways that express his political illegitimacy.
There were also limits to the ethnic inclusiveness of the Roman elite. Britannia had
been an imperial province since 43CE, yet no senators with identifiable origins in
this province were ever admitted to the Senate. While senators from Egypt (a Roman
province from 30BCE) are known, they remain a very small number compared to