190 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
the revolt of AD 21 might have included former high priests of Rome and
Augustus at Condate (Tacitus, Ann. 3.41). In Britain, too, the institution of
the imperial cult by Claudius at Colchester (Camulodunum) at the
inauguration of the new province in AD 43 predated the pacifi cation of the
people and the winning of the loyalty of the local leadership. The temple to
the Divine Claudius subsequently erected on the site was represented by
Tacitus as a symbol of domination in perpetuity. This description
misrepresents neither the sentiments of the rebellious Britons in AD 60 nor
the intentions of the Romans. Tacitus lets slip the detail that the expensiveness
of the priesthood was a grievance ( Ann. 14.31). The message had not yet
sunk in among the native leadership that the prestige of the priesthood more
than compensated for its cost.^5
In contrast, Augustus left the older and more Romanized Iberian provinces
and Gallia Narbonensis without a provincial cult. Tarraco, the capital of
Hither Spain, received a civic cult of Augustus in about 26 BC. It may have
been diffi cult for the city to avoid requesting one, and for Augustus to avoid
granting its request, given that ambassadors from Mitylene bringing a decree
conferring divine honours on Augustus found him there ( IG IV 39). This
happy coincidence may also explain the relatively early award of a cult of
the Divine Augustus to the province of Tarraconensis, following
representation by the provincials at the court of Tiberius in AD 15 (Tacitus,
Ann. 1.78). Augustus had not given it to them a generation earlier. Despite
the comment of Tacitus that Tiberius in conceding the cult had created a
precedent, no province apart from Lusitania is known to have followed suit
( AE. 1966,177). It was left to Vespasian to establish the imperial cult in
Baetica, Narbonensis and Africa Proconsularis, as part of a drive by an
uncharismatic, arriviste emperor to bind the empire in loyalty to him and to
the Flavian family. Tarraconensis was a deviant case.^6
The imperial cult is important for its novelty, (eventual) ubiquity and its
functions as a conveyor of imperial ideology, a focus of loyalty for the many,
and a mechanism for the social advancement of the few. The widespread
diffusion of the traditional gods of Rome was a complementary and closely
associated phenomenon. The development was not confi ned to Roman
colonies and municipalities abroad, although in the early stages the
transplantation of gods, priesthoods and major festivals into these
communities served to mark them off from others of lower status. The
prominence of the capitoline triad of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva is marked,
particularly from the time of Trajan. The building of capitols in north Africa
is a second- century phenomenon, spilling over into the third.
Under the infl uence of Trajan and Hadrian and later emperors, the triad
became an essential element of the imperial ideology and propaganda.^7 The
capitol in the forum at Dougga in Africa Proconsularis, where a native city
coexisted with a new urban agglomeration, was dedicated for the safety of
the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. The pediment, depicting
the apotheosis of their predecessor, Antoninus Pius, underlined their present