A MEDITERRANEAN EMPIRE 25underrate the strength of local patriotism and the willingness of leading men
to satisfy their ambitions at home. To these considerations we can add, with
varying degrees of applicability, distance from Rome, inadequate fi nancial
resources and, among the better informed, an appreciation of the uncertainties
and perils of politics in the capital. But especially in the northern provinces
social and cultural considerations are crucial: the relative weakness of
urbanization and the values associated with it and therefore the maintenance
of traditional structures and ways of life. These factors operated in both
directions, to rebuff those who sought imperial careers and to discourage
those who were in principle eligible.
The sources do not catch for us either the stifl ing of ambition at source or
its rejection by emperors and their advisers. But contemporary literature, the
creation of spokesmen of the imperial political and cultural elite, reveals
attitudes that help to explain the absence of Northerners from high offi ce
and the Mediterranean orientation of the empire throughout our period.
Civilization and its limits
Two of Augustus’ strategic aims, the conquest of the North, and the
reconciliation of the Greek world to Rome, present a sharp contrast. Less
than two generations earlier, Roman rule in the eastern Mediterranean had
barely survived the rebellion of Mithridates VI of Pontus and his Greek-
speaking allies. The fearful revenge taken by the Romans and the succession
of civil wars that they proceeded to fi ght on Greek soil did nothing to lessen
Greek hostility to Roman rule. Yet this period of crisis in Greek–Roman
relations also witnessed two related, positive developments: the progressive
acknowledgment by educated Romans of the superiority of Greek culture,
and the forging of links of mutual interest between individual Roman and
Greek aristocratic families. Augustus’ aim and achievement were to foster
the mutual dependence of Romans and Greeks and thereby secure the
empire and broaden its base. In this he was aided by men of letters from the
Greek- speaking parts of the empire. Among those who moved to Rome it is
Dionysius of Halicarnassos, with his message that Romans were actually
Greek in origin and culture, who catches the eye. However, the most rounded
vision of the unity of the Graeco-Roman world, and the fullest exploration
of its cultural limits, is provided by Strabo, a man from the Pontus whose
ancestors had been active partisans of Mithridates.^16
The distinction between the civilized and uncivilized is a recurring motif
in Strabo. This distinction embraces, in the fi rst place, the division between
plain and mountain. Civilization was an urban phenomenon, centring on
the polis , the self- governing town or city- state; and the urban life with which
Strabo was familiar, in southern Europe and Asia Minor, was concentrated
in a narrow coastal fringe hemmed in by impressive and daunting mountain
ranges. (In the south and south- east it was the desert that limited the