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Barbarians

All empire-builders have to justify what they do - to themselves, to their own people, and to those they dominate.

The Romans developed a sophisticated world-view which they projected successfully through literature, inscriptions, architecture, art, and elaborate public ceremonial.

Some elements of this world-view evolved during the existence of the empire, most notably with the adoption of Christianity in the early fourth century AD.

Other themes remained constant. Perhaps the most important of the latter was the idea that Rome represented peace, good government, and the rule of law. The societies with which Rome was in conflict were caricatured as barbaric, lawless and dangerous.

Julius Caesar, in his famous account of the Gallic Wars of the 50s BC, provided readers at home with a blood-curdling description of the Germanic tribes he encountered in battle:

'The various tribes regard it as their greatest glory to lay waste as much as possible of the land around them and to keep it uninhabited. They hold it a proof of a people's valour to drive their neighbours from their homes, so that no-one dare settle near them. No discredit attaches to plundering raids outside tribal frontiers. The Germans say that they serve to keep young men in training and prevent them from getting lazy.'

Mission statement

Marble statue of Augustus, believed to have been commissioned in 15AD  © Barbaricum was not only a place of perpetual strife. There was also grinding poverty and cultural backwardness.

Describing the Caledonian tribes of ancient Scotland in the early third century AD, Dio Cassius wrote:

'They inhabit wild, waterless mountains and lonely, swampy plains, without walls, cities, or cultivated land. They live by pasturing flocks, hunting, and off certain fruits. They live in tents, unclothed and unshod, sharing their women and bringing up all their children together.'

Clearly, the implication seems to be, such people could not but benefit from Roman rule. But even those already civilised - those, indeed, whom many Romans recognised as more civilised than themselves - stood to gain.

There is a famous passage in Virgil's Aeneid, written in the reign of the first emperor, Augustus (30 BC - 14 AD), where the achievements of the Greeks are acknowledged, but their need of Roman government asserted.

'Others [that is, Greeks] shall hammer forth more delicately a breathing likeness out of bronze, coax living faces from the marble, plead causes with more skill, plot with their gauge the movements in the sky and tell the rising of the constellations.

'But you, Roman, must remember that you have to guide the nations by your authority, for this is to be your skill, to graft tradition onto peace, to spare those who submit, but to crush those who resist.'

Leadership cult

A toga statue of Augustus as Pontifex Maximus c. 30 - 20 BC  © This concept, of a tough but essentially benevolent imperial power, was embodied in the person of the emperor.

His presence was felt everywhere. His statues dominated public places. He was worshipped alongside Jupiter and the military standards in frontier forts, and in the sanctuaries of the imperial cult in provincial towns.

His image was stamped on every coin, and thus reached the most remote corners of his domain - for there is hardly a Roman site, however rude, where archaeologists do not find coins.

How did the spin-doctors of ancient Rome represent the great leader to his people? Sometimes, wearing cuirass and a face of grim determination, he was depicted as a warrior and a general; an intimidating implicit reference to global conquest and military dictatorship.

At other times, he wore the toga of a Roman gentleman, as if being seen in the law-courts, making sacrifice at the temple, or receiving guests at a grand dinner party at home.

In this guise, he was the paternalistic 'father of his country', the benevolent statesman, the great protector.

The message was clear: thanks to the leadership of the emperor, the frontiers are secure, order reigns at home, and we can all go safely about our business and prosper.

Commonwealth

At first, the principal audience for Roman imperial propaganda had been only a minority of the empire's population - mainly soldiers, the inhabitants of Rome and Italy, and Roman citizens living in colonies and provincial towns.

At this time, the empire was still expanding, and the role of the emperor as generalissimo was emphasised. But from the time of the emperor Hadrian (117 - 138 AD), aggressive wars all but ceased, and the empire was consolidated on existing frontiers.

As well as stressing the role of the emperor as civil ruler, Roman propagandists henceforward developed a more rounded and inclusive view of what it meant to be part of the empire.

Greek culture was embraced more wholeheartedly than before, and the resultant blending of themes and motifs produced a distinctive Graeco-Roman or 'classical' culture during the second and third centuries AD.

Hadrian and his successors actively promoted the idea that the empire, while embracing a diversity of peoples and religions, was united by an overarching set of values and tastes - and therefore by loyalty to the imperial state which safeguarded these.

This conception of empire as a commonwealth of the civilised - in contradistinction to both barbarians beyond and subversives within - was monumentalised in stone on the frontiers and in the cities.

Consolidation

The ruins of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Greece  © 'He set out for Britain', Hadrian's biographer tells us, 'and there he put right many abuses and was the first to build a wall 80 miles long to separate the barbarians and the Romans.'

Hadrian's Wall was not a defensive structure. The Roman army at the time did not fight behind fixed defences.

Equally, if it was intended as a line of customs and police posts - a controlled border - it was an extraordinarily elaborate and expensive one. So what was is for?

There seems little doubt that the wall, like other great Roman frontier monuments was as much a propaganda statement as a functional facility.

It was a symbolic statement of Roman grandeur and technique at the empire's furthest limit, and a marking out of the point in the landscape where civilisation stopped and the barbarian wilderness began.

Hadrian's travels took him across the empire. Everywhere - in Rome, France, Spain, Africa, Greece, Turkey, Egypt - he raised great monuments. Instead of battles, he gave the empire bath-houses. Instead of trophies, temples and theatres.

Most of the ruins we see today visiting the great classical cities of the Mediterranean are of public buildings erected in the second century golden age of imperial civilisation inaugurated by Hadrian.

Each one made a set of statements. In its functionality, it helped define the Roman lifestyle and what it meant to be 'civilised'. In its towering size and richness, it spoke of the wealth and success of empire.

Through images on fresco, mosaic and sculpted panel, it promoted a cultural identity and shared values. And in the very fact of its existence, it redounded to the credit of the regime whose guiding hand had made it possible.

War on terror

But beneath the veneer of gentility, there was a chilling note of warning. Myths depicted men ripped apart for defying the gods or challenging those who - like the emperors - enjoyed divine protection.

Legends from Rome's past told of enemies vanquished, lands laid waste and thousands sold to slavery.

And in the amphitheatre, dramas of life-and-death were acted out which symbolised the gulf between friend and enemy, citizen and barbarian, freeborn and slave, loyalist and dissident.

Gladiators fought to the death dressed to mimic historic enemies like Samnites, Gauls and Britons. Christians were eaten alive by half-starved beasts. Rebels and outlaws were burnt at the stake. The arena offered a pageant of 'the war on terror' Roman-style.

Much imperial propaganda consisted of traditional themes endlessly repeated. But one big change was of truly world-shaking importance: the adoption of Christianity by the Roman state.

Paganism had been the living heart of Roman propaganda for a thousand years. Every significant act demanded sacrifice to appease a god. No new enterprise could be entertained without divine favour.

The legions marched into battle carrying the eagle of Jupiter, patron god of Rome, on their standards. Governors, generals and emperors led the holy rites at temples. Rulers were imagined ascending into heaven to take their places among the gods after death.

Yet, the religion of the empire remained tolerant, inclusive and diverse. The existence of one god, however powerful, did not preclude that of many others.

But because of this, because paganism was polytheistic, it was unable to offer the empire a unifying religious ideology.

Crusaders

A Late Roman coin showing the Chi-Rho monogram and the Alpha and the Omega  © When Constantine the Great ordered his men to fight as Christians in 312 AD, he began an ideological revolution.

By the end of the century, paganism was effectively outlawed, and Christianity was the dominant religion of the state, the army, the elite and the towns. Donations of land and wealth flowed to the church.

When we examine the archaeology of Late Roman cities, we find many of the old monuments ruined and their walls cannibalised to build new cathedrals and churches.

We find the mosaicist employed making Christian tombstones, the silversmith engraving Christian motifs, the fresco-painter decorating Christian chapels.

The bishops reciprocated the favour shown the Church by preaching loyalty to the secular power.

An alliance was forged between church and state, and henceforward Roman emperors were represented as the agents of God on Earth, charged with crushing paganism and heresy, with defending Christendom against its enemies.

We see them depicted - on coins, jewellery, silverware, frescos and mosaics - alongside the symbols of the Christian church - the Cross or the Chi-Rho monogram (the first two letters of Christ's name in Greek).

Here was a new motif in the propaganda of power, one destined to have a long and bloody history: the ruler as crusader.

Find out more

Books

Claudian : Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius by Alan Cameron (Clarendon, 1970)

Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments edited by Kathryn Welch and Anton Powell (Duckworth, 1998)

Roman Art and Imperial Policy by Niels Hannestad (Aarhus University Press, 1986)

Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus edited by Anton Powell (Bristol Classical Press, 1992)

The Art of Persuasion: Political Propaganda from Aeneas to Brutus by Jane DeRose Evans (University of Michigan Press, 1992)

About the author

Dr Neil Faulkner is an honorary lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He is editor of the popular magazines Current Archaeology and Current World Archaeology, and has written four books, including The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain and Apocalypse: The Great Jewish Revolt against Rome. His TV appearances include Channel Four’s Time Team, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ TWO's Timewatch, and Channel Five's Revealed.