PERSPECTIVES ON FLAVIAN ROMANISATION

This chapter deals with objectscapes of the Roman northwest in the last decades of the first century AD, archaeologically-speaking, c. AD 70-100. Historically, the period is framed by the beginning and end of Flavian dynasty, from the accession of Vespasian in AD 69 to the demise of Domitian in AD 96. In this important era of tumult and rebirth, the northwest provinces underwent major changes and directly contributed to shaping the new geo-politics of the Roman empire. A mere seven years after the destructive Boudican revolt had laid waste to much of Britannia's urban infrastructure, the rebellion of Gallic senator Vindex precipitated the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty with the suicide of Nero. In the power vacuum that followed, another revolt led by the Batavian auxiliary commander Civilis had to be quelled before Vespasian's position could be properly secured by AD 70. Archaeologists and historians have long speculated about the impact of these events on societies in the northwest provinces. Whereas once upon a time the historical narrative informed by ancient written sources was used to structure the emerging riches of archaeological data, postcolonial scholarship from the 1990s onward preferred to invert this relationship by stressing the role of archaeology in recovering ‘native voices’ missing in the accounts of Greek and Roman authors, with particular emphasis on addressing questions of cultural and political resistance – although seldom with specific reference to the Flavian era.

To explore further, let us examine the influence of a text of direct relevance to part of the region in question. For Britannia, Tacitus’ description of the encouragement given by his father-in-law Agricola to the British aristocracy looms large in attempts to understand Flavian Romanisation. While Tacitus presents Agricola as an exemplary provincial governor who stimulated urban development and the adoption of Roman cultural practices, the modern consensus is to emphasise the laissez faire attitude of the Roman authorities in such affairs, who are thought to have relied instead upon competition between local aristocrats to transform provincial societies within a broad Roman cultural framework. The modern search for archaeological correlates of the phenomena described by Tacitus has predictably focused on urban change and the evidence for the agency of local elites.