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Pax romana

	Battle between gladiators: detail of mosaic in Rome, AD 320 The Bridgeman Art Library Enlarge Image

The civil wars preceding Augustus's imperium had been an argument not just over who should run Rome but how it should be run. The Senate had lost, but now that Augustus had supreme power, both he and the Romans wanted to present the new reality not as a break with tradition but as a continuation.

Retro gone mad
The next few years were retro gone mad. For instance, the Senate's first edict was to close the doors of the temple of Janus – an ancient ceremony to mark the end of war, supposedly dating back to the first king of Rome (the doors hadn't been closed for more than 200 years).

In addition, the old class system was reconstituted. Women were ordered, more or less on pain of death (or at least ostracism), to get married and lead lives as matrons of the republic. Augustus added the role of Pontifex maximus ('chief priest') to all his other jobs to make sure that the gods were back on track. And history was rewritten because of the yearning to justify centuries of bloody battle.

Rewriting history
The most vivid example of that rewriting is the monumental History of Rome started by Livy at about the same time that Virgil was struggling with his commission to create a respectable foundation myth for Rome (see The power of the myth). The History runs from the city's mythic foundation in 752 to what was then the present day (which was 9 BC by the time Livy got there).

Only 35 of the original 142 volumes have survived. From them, it is clear that what he intended was not a critical history but an elegant, discursive narrative, filled with fables and concocted speeches that extol the virtues of the republic. Compare Livy's well-intentioned PR with the dark genius of Tacitus, writing about 120 years later under the tyranny of Domitian – you will understand how quickly this artificial Roman dream was spoiled by reality.

The concept of citizen
The hard truth is that what the Romans were good at was conquest and administration. Having won their empire through the efforts of their indomitable citizen armies, they lost it eventually because the concept of citizen – Civis romanus – had become so diluted as to be almost meaningless.

Once it had meant standing in the swampy marshes below the Palatine Hill to be counted in or out of the next army to march out to meet the enemy. By the time of Domitian, most Rome-born Romans preferred to stay at home enjoying the gladiators and circuses rather than shiver on the northern frontier or bake in the Asian sun. There was a yawning gap between what they were told Rome stood for and what they could see with their own eyes.

The essence of Rome
Fortunately for them, the glory of Rome seemed more real the further you were from the eternal city. The term Civis romanus was an international honour awarded like an Empire Medal from Queen Victoria. It continued to mean something to non-Romans long after the real citizenry of Rome had lost their appetite for it.

One of these non-Romans was Hadrian, the emperor who started the frontier wall across the northern neck of Britain. Born in Spain, he held military and civil offices in Hungary, Germany, Greece and Syria before becoming emperor, and then spent most of the next 20 years touring restlessly around his domain.

The city of Rome was the material focus of all the grandeur of empire. The essence of Rome was the way it dispersed Roman power and Roman identity and thus prolonged its life force.

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