INTRODUCTION

In the course of the previous three chapters, I have explored some of the structures through which Roman power was reproduced by urban communities at a local level, and the ways in which a discourse of a shared identity was located within the fabric of the town. The idea throughout has been that whilst there was an overall level of similarity between the various towns, the way in which these social structures were reproduced was in each case slightly different. In this way, the understanding of what it was to be Roman varied subtly between communities. However, both unequal power relationships and shared group identities can exist at various levels. In seeking to understand the nature of Roman society, we need to be able to move between scales, from the global to the local (Gardner 2002). Unequal relations of power existed at the wider level between centre and province, but also at the local level within individual communities. Although identity, hierarchies and power existed on these different scales, the ways in which they formed part of a lived experience rested upon the same social practices and the same material culture. Given this multivocality of material culture, the public architecture of a provincial town could be used in the reproduction of imperial power at the same time as the articulation of local hierarchies and identities. Furthermore, one consequence of this duality was that made possible different experiences of being Roman within the broader discourse of Roman-ness.