Chapter 5. The Governor in his Province
I. Audiences, Props, Scripts
Before discussing the complex of audiences, insignia, and standards of behavior that patterned a Roman governor’s self-presentation, it will be useful to briefly outline the nature of his role. Since the formal responsibilities and personal motivations of this official have already
1 Talbert 1984: 113-28 discusses the meeting places of the imperial Senate. On spaces of justice in Rome, see De
Angelis 2010: 19ff. The various spaces associated with elite self-representation are perhaps best understood through the settings in which individual senators were commemorated; the multiple statues erected under Nero for Volusius Saturninus (see Eck 1972 = AE 1972, 174) are particularly informative.
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been discussed,2 we need review here only those aspects of his role that were carried out before a
sizeable civic audience.
We will take as our example the proconsul of Asia, most prominent of the Roman governors in Asia Minor.3 When visiting one of his fourteen conventus cities, the proconsul
appeared first and foremost as a judge.4 His staff could assist him in the arduous process of
reviewing petitions, and some trials could be entrusted to his legates;5 but he presided personally
over hearings for the most important cases, a task that often lasted weeks. Although the most sensitive cases could be tried in a closed courtroom, the majority were heard publicly in the basilica or agora. There the proconsul, resplendent in his senatorial toga, would sit with his legal advisors on a tribunal raised above the litigants and their advocates, often before a considerable crowd. This large and rotating audience ensuring that the proconsul’s appearance on the tribunal would be as fundamental to popular conceptions of his personality and authority.
A few of the proconsul’s other duties provided additional opportunities for public performance. The inaugural sacrifice to the city’s patron god was such an occasion, as were the sacrifices customarily offered on the emperor’s birthday and the anniversary of his accession.6
Likewise, when his visit coincided with an important local festival or the provincial games, a proconsul was expected to preside over the proceedings, as he would as the more occasional ceremonies surrounding the dedication of new buildings. Particularly in times of unrest, he might
2 See the general introduction and Ch. 3.
3 Despite the formal differences in their roles, proconsuls of Asia carried out virtually the same tasks as the imperial
legates in Bithynia-Pontus and Lycia-Pamphylia, and can thus be taken as representative of the Roman governors in Asia Minor.
4 See Ch. 12. On the proconsul’s role as judge, see Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2002: 143-70 and Bérenger 2014: 171-236,
esp. 218-24. Burton 1973: 130-216 provides a thorough treatment of the judicial process.
5 Dig. 1.16.6, pref., 1-2. The sheer number of petitions for trial – a prefect of Egypt was famously deluged with 1804
in two days (P. Yale 61, 3-7) – precluded anything more than cursory perusal of all but the most important cases. The rest were delegated or denied with a short comment (subscriptio) written below the petition.
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also officiate at meetings of the city council or assembly. In a less formal capacity, he would appear as guest of honor at a series of semi-public banquets and receptions thrown by members of the local elite, or in a special seat at the theater during popular performances.7
The proconsul of Asia’s role, in short, entailed frequent appearances in public space and constant interaction with local notables. These factors encouraged highly conscious performance of his rank and office, and correspondingly close attention to the priorities of the audiences he hoped to impress, the visibility of his insignia and subordinates, and the mannerisms popularly associated with authority.
A. Audiences
Perhaps the most immediate influence on a governor’s self-presentation was his
consciousness of the audiences he intended to impress. For the sake of convenience, these can be divided into three groups: the emperor, sociopolitical peers, and the provincial elite. All three audiences wanted the proconsul to perform his stipulated duties carefully and conscientiously, but for different reasons. The emperor wanted to maintain the stability and revenue flows of his province; the senatorial elite, to uphold the dignity of their rank and order; and the leading provincials, to win favors for themselves and their cities. Although their relative importance varied with the circumstances, no proconsul could afford to ignore any of these groups or their goals: the emperor could withdraw his favor, his peers could ostracize him, and the provincial elite could initiate maladministration proceedings against him. Whatever his personal feelings on the legitimacy of the emperor, dignity of his peers, and importance of the leading provincials, basic self-interest obligated him to acknowledge this complex of audiences in his public actions
7 See Bérenger 2014: 277-83 for proconsuls officiating at ceremonies of the imperial cult, ibid. 356-8 on their
appearances at civic and provincial festivals, 271-2 on dedications, and 358-65 on private meetings with elite provincials. Presiding at meetings of the assembly: Dio Chrys., Or. 48.2; cf. Dig. 42.4.1.4. The governor at banquet: e.g. Plut, Mor. 707b-708b; cf. Cic. II Verr. 1. 65. At the theater: e. g. Philostr., VA 7.5.
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and pronouncements, as the preamble to the famous decree of P. Fabius Persicus, proconsul of Asia under Claudius, neatly illustrates:
It is certainly my view that a magistrate in charge of provinces must before all else perform the offices entrusted to him with all steadfastness and good faith, and in such a way that he gives thought to the permanent good of the individual, of the whole province, and of each city – and not merely to that of his year in office; [but although this is my view], I freely acknowledge that I have been influenced by the example of the greatest and most truly just emperor [Claudius], who has taken the whole human race into his personal care and has, among other welcome benefactions, conferred this favor: he has restored to each person that which is his own. (IvE 18a.5-5-17)8
In a single long sentence, Persicus professes concern for provincial well-being, claims to follow the emperor’s example, and announces his adherence to an ethic of service that his fellow senators would have applauded. Although the decree is addressed to the citizens of Ephesus, the fact that Greek and Latin copies were set up both in the theater and the lower agora indicates that Persicus’ declaration of his motives may have anticipated – and indeed courted – a broader audience.
The Emperor
Proconsuls of Asia cultivated close, if not necessarily friendly, relationships with the emperor.9 The princeps, who had a hand in their appointment and issued the instructions
(mandata) by which they conducted their administration,10 represented the ultimate source of
8 ἐν ταύτῃ διὰ παντὸς τῇ ὑπολήψει ὑπάρχων [πρὸ πάντων] τοὺς τῶν ἐπαρχιῶν προεστῶτας ἄρχοντα[ς μετὰ πάσης] εὐσταθείας καὶ πίστεως δεῖν ἐπιμέλεσθα[ι τῆς ἐγκεχει]-ρισμένης αὐτοῖς ἀρχῆς, ὥστε τοῦ διηνεκῶς κ[αὶ ἀεὶ κατὰ] τὸν βίον χρησίμου τοῦ τε καθ’ ὅλην τὴν ἐπαρχεί[αν τοῦ τε] κατὰ πόλιν προνοεῖν, ἀλλὰ μὴ τοῦ ἰδίου ἐνιαυτοῦ μό[νον,] ἥδειον ὅμως ὁμολογῶ{ι} πρὸς ταύτην ἐπιτετάσθα[ι τὴν] γνώμην τῶι ὑποδείγματι τοῦ κρατίστου καὶ ἀλ[η]θῶς δικαιοτάτου ἡγεμόνος, ὃς πᾶν τὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένος εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν ἀνα<δε>δε{ι}γμένος {ἀναδεδεγμένος} κηδεμονίαν ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις καὶ πᾶσιν ἡδίστοις φιλανθρώποις καὶ τοῦτο κεχάρισ<τ>αι τὸ τὰ ἴδια ἑκάστωι ἀποκατασταθῆναι. For a similar profession of goodwill, see I. Beroia 7.1-2.
9 Hurlet 2006 is the most comprehensive account of the relationship between proconsul and emperor. See Millar
1977: 328-41 for a more concise summary.
10 For the emperor’s influence on proconsular appointments, see Hurlet 2006: 66-79. Bérenger 2014: 45-8, 87-100
and Millar 1977: 313-28 discuss the content and significance of imperial mandata; cf. Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2002: 338-42 for a list of testimonia.
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their authority. Formally, of course, they were emissaries of the senate; but it was the emperor to whom they wrote for advice,11 the emperor’s name by which they sanctioned their actions, and
the emperor’s divinity for which they sacrificed. Trajan summarizes the dynamic in a letter acknowledging Pliny’s arrival in Bithynia: “I believe the provincials will understand that I have taken thought for their interests, for you will make clear to them that you were chosen to be sent to them in my place” (Ep. 10.18.2). And indeed, as we shall see in the following section,
proconsuls often evoked the emperor in official contexts as a sort of “virtual audience” that lent prestige and legitimacy to their actions.
Yet the emperor was also a genuine, if distant, spectator. Most emperors took at least a passive interest in the activities of their officials, and expected to be consulted by letter on particularly controversial or important matters; governors who showed signs of excessive independence were liable to be regarded with disfavor or suspicion.12 However, as long as they
did not indulge in particularly flagrant malfeasance – in behavior, that is, which was likely to undermine provincial stability or tax revenue – governors would be left largely to their own devices.13 Their behavior, however, was constantly monitored by imperial functionaries and
travelling Romans, who would keep the court informed of any irregularities.14 Distance imposed
strict limits on imperial intervention in the provinces, but corrupt or incompetent officials were
11 See Hurlet 2006: 202-301 on correspondence with the emperors.
12 One well-known example is Barea Soranus, whose energetic and independent administration of Asia earned him
the distrust of Nero (Tac., Ann. 16.23). Cornelius Gallus, prefect of Egypt under Augustus, was supposedly condemned for touting his accomplishments too brashly (Cass. Dio 53.23.5).
13 Governors were allowed to accept moderate gifts (Dig. 1.16.3, 1.16.6.3, 1.18.18), but solicitation of bribes for
judgment was not tolerated (Brunt 1961:190ff). See the comments of Levick 1994 on Tactius’ famous assertion (Ann. 1.2.2) that the establishment of the Principate brought responsible governance to the provinces. As Tiberius said of the Egyptians, emperors wanted their subjects “sheared, not shaved” (Suet., Tib. 32) – an attitude comparable to Cicero’s argument that responsible governance sustained the state (Off. 2.26-7), but presumably applied with more consistency.
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liable to the full force of the emperor’s displeasure on their return to Rome.15 Those who showed
themselves effective and trustworthy servants, by contrast, could hope for imperial favor and further preferment.16 Most proconsuls, accordingly, seem to have presented themselves like Pliny
in his letters to Trajan: sedulously loyal, at least overtly attentive to their duties, and eager to assimilate their achievements to the glory of the imperial house.17
Peers and Rivals
Selected by his fellow senators from a list of candidates approved by the emperor, a proconsul remained theoretically responsible to them for the duration of his office.18 Although
individual senators might call upon friends serving in the provinces for favors – Cicero, for example, was asked to escort a number of panthers through Cilicia for the games of M. Caelius Rufus – the total lack of evidence for correspondence with an incumbent official suggests that the senate’s oversight was purely formal. As a body, however, the senate was deeply invested in the conduct of its members. Legally, this found expression in its frequent handling of accusations of maladministration.19 Far more important, however, were the social pressures it focused. The
senate was cynosure and epicenter of the prestige economy that regulated the public life of every Roman elite male. A proconsul of Asia, holder of one of the most coveted offices that the senate could grant, was inevitably an object of intense admiration and envy, and could expect his
15 See Bérenger 2014: 424-5 on the risks of displeasing the emperor.
16 Note the qualities Pliny commends in his recommendations of friends to Trajan (Ep. 10.4.4, 10.26.2). 17 Pliny’s attitudes are particularly obvious in his comments on civic building projects; he endorses a canal at
Nicomedia, for example, on the grounds that it will redound to the emperor’s glory: “Intuenti mihi et fortunae tuae et animi magnitudinem conuenientissimum uidetur demonstrari opera non minus aeternitate tua quam gloria digna, quantumque pulchritudinis tantum utilitatis habitura” (Ep. 10.41.1).
18 Hurlet 2006: 21-82 examines the method of selection in great detail.
19 Bérenger 2014: 405-8 collects the evidence for Cicero’s handling of the panthers. On the Senate’s management of
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conduct to be scrutinized with corresponding closeness.20 However far he was from Rome, his
actions would find an echo in the curia; in a letter congratulating his brother Quintus on a third term as proconsul of Asia, Cicero compares the province to a theater audience vast and loud enough to be heard in Rome.21 If a proconsul was to maintain the status and prestige that defined
him as a member of the Roman elite, he had to ensure that his official conduct did not offend the sensibilities of his peers. The idea that the greatest measure of individual glory was to be won in service to the state was at least as old as the Republic. Despite the limited opportunities for gaining prestige as functionaries of the Principate, the ethos retained much of its potency: at the beginning of the second century, Pliny could still claim that his friend Silius Italicus “attained to glory from his proconsulship of Asia” (Ep. 3.7.3).22
As Cicero observed to Quintus, the duties of a proconsul left little space for brilliant achievement, especially in a time of general peace and prosperity.23 Instead, glory was to be
gained by demonstrating the virtues of one’s rank and class: “what can be imagined so striking or desirable as the circumstance that sets such virtue, such command over the passions, such self- control as yours not in obscurity, but in the brilliant light of Asia?” (ad Q. F. 1.1.9).24 Though
ostensibly adopted to benefit the provincials, this code of conduct was directed at the ruling elite in the capital, as Pliny’s advice to a newly-appointed corrector of Achaea makes clear:
The outstanding reputation that you brought back from your service as a quaestor in Bithynia lies heavily on you [as an incentive]…you must strive not to appear to have been more civilized, efficient, and expert an official in that distant province
20 See, for example, Cicero’s comment to Quintus on the importance of good conduct in his proconsulship of Asia:
“nunc vero propter earum rerum, in quibus versati sumus, splendorem et magnitudinem, nisi summam laudem ex ista provincia assequimur, vix videmur summam vituperationem posse vitare” (QFr.1.1.41).
21 “quoniam eiusmodi theatrum totius Asiae virtutibus tuis est datum, celebritate refertissimum, magnitudine
amplissimum, iudicio eruditissimum, natura autem ita resonans, ut usque Romam significationes vocesque referantur” (Cic., QFr.1.1.42; cf. II Verr. 5.35)
22 See Lendon 1997: 191-201 for the influence of the Roman prestige economy on officeholders. 23 Cic., QFr.1.1.4-5
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than in this one closer to Rome…for in general, as we have often heard and read, it is much more humiliating to lose a reputation than to fail to win one (Ep. 8.24.8-9)
Cultivation, integrity, and prudence were considered hallmarks of proper senatorial conduct in the provinces.25 Agricola, Tacitus’ ideal senator, governs Britain with moderation and firmness,
righting all abuses and holding his entire household to his own high standard of austerity.26
Cultivated self-control was also to characterize relations between the governor and his subjects; Pliny advised his friend to “take nothing away from the dignity, from the liberty, or even from the pretensions of any man” (Ep. 8.24.3), both on general principle and in recognition of Achaea’s storied past. By the same token, according to another letter of Pliny, a governor who failed to act equitably – that is, to treat the local elite with special respect – opened himself to accusations of ill-breeding and conduct unbecoming his station.27 In some cases, the proconsul’s
discipline may have been stiffened by a professed dedication to the tenets of Stoicism; the basic principles by which he conducted himself, however, were always tied to the aristocratic system of honor upheld by his senatorial peers. This was a competitive ethos, partly animated by personal rivalries – Cicero, for example, constantly contrasted his conduct in office with that of his predecessor – but it outlined an objective standard of service, and a distinctive style of performance, to which any governor who hoped to gain his peers’ regard would have to adhere.28
Only thus, as Cicero reminded his brother, could a proconsul win glory for himself and his
25 Tacitus’ famous comment on new austerity in the senate under the Flavians (Ann. 3.55) led Syme (1958: 26f) to
posit that devotion to good governance would be especially attractive to new senators from provincial families, who could not rely on ancestral prestige. Though foreshadowed by Cicero (QFr.1.1f), this idea of service to the state is particularly developed by Tacitus (Agr., passim; cf. Ann. 13.53), and may represent an idiosyncratic view..
26 Tac., Agr. 19-20; cf. Cic., QFr.1.1.18 27 Plin., Ep. 9.5
28 Cicero contrasts himself with his predecessor: e.g. QFr.1.2.7; Att. 6.1.2; cf. QFr.1.1.41 for the significance of
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family;29 for however the provincials assessed his behavior, it was on the judgment of his
countrymen that his reputation would be founded.30
Provincial Elites
The civic audience before which a governor performed his duties can be roughly divided into two groups: the local elite with whom he interacted personally and the elements of the citizen body he encountered in various public settings.31 Although both groups were interested in those of the governor’s actions that affected the entire city,32 they perceived and interpreted them
from very different perspectives. To most of the citizens who watched him sacrifice for the emperor or dispense judgment from the tribunal, the proconsul was as much symbol as functionary, an impressive emissary of the awesome and impossibly distant emperor. Some governors, as we shall see in the following section, were careful to address popular perceptions in the public performance of his duties. As Pliny observes in a letter to a friend serving in the provinces, however, the governor who failed to prioritize the interests of the local elite would be perceived as both imprudent and impractical:
You are acting admirably – for I have been inquiring [into your conduct] – and I urge you to keep commending your love of justice to the provincials with merciful consideration; [but remember that] the greatest part [of such
consideration] consists in cultivating the most respectable men, [a gesture] for which you will be loved by the humbler classes and approved by the eminent. Many [governors], apprehensive of seeming to accede too much to the interests of
29 “Denique etiam illud debes cogitare, non te tibi soli gloriam quaerere; quod si esset, tamen non negligeres,
praesertim cum amplissimis monumentis consecrare voluisses memoriam nominis tui; sed ea est tibi communicanda mecum, prodenda liberis nostris” (QFr.1.1.44)
30 During a debate over the provincial custom of voting formal declarations of thanks for a governor’s good service,
Thrasea Paetus scorns the idea that a Roman’s reputation could rest anywhere but in the judgment of other Romans (Tac., Ann. 15.20).
31 For a collection of sources on a Roman governor’s engagement with local elites, see Bérenger 2014: 367-77; on
his interaction with the lower orders, see ibid., 380-6. There were of course other groups with distinctive methods and goals for interacting with the proconsul, such as the organizations of Roman merchants so prominent in the eastern provinces during the late Republic and early Empire (e.g. Cic., QFr.1.1.7).
32 A governor could, for example, uphold a city’s status (e.g. OGIS 669 II, 1-3), make provision for relief in times of
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the powerful, obtain a reputation for uncouthness or even malice. I know that you keep yourself from this error, but find myself unable to refrain from praise – couched as advice – for holding to a moderate course, so as to maintain the distinctions of rank and dignity; for if these are confused, disordered, and confounded, nothing can be more unequal than such equality. (Ep. 9.5.2-3)33
Besides a characteristically Roman emphasis on hierarchy and stability, this letter reflects Pliny’s consciousness of the need for a close working relationship between Roman officials in the
provinces and the local elites who hosted him. Although a governor would benefit in many ways from affording civic notables the respect they were due as brokers of local authority and