A Roman of Ancient Rome

Paper Summary:

The paper advances the thesis that Roman identity originated as a fixed and highly codified concept in a legal sense because of the distinction of citizens and slaves that became problematic with the introduction of religious and civic pluralism during the expansion of the Roman Empire. The paper focuses on the broad, satirical comedies of Plautus and their depiction of slavery and the discussion of religion in the works of the historian Livy. It also includes some contrasting commentary by the earlier historian Polybius and his contemporary Saullst.

From the Paper:

"What did it mean to be Roman in the context of ancient Roman society? On its surface, such a question seems obvious. To be Roman means to be a citizen, of course, to be a part of the great, famously "grand" empire that was Imperial Rome. But in analyzing the particular texts of the Roman period the question of who constituted a citizen in the ancient Roman empire, and of the ways in which the "public cult" of Roman civic and religious obedience was observed, this easy analysis of Roman identity is called into question.

In discussing questions of identity, the anthropologist Mary Douglas once observed "whenever a strict pattern of purity is imposed on our lives it is either highly uncomfortable, or, it leads into contradiction if closely followed, or it leads to hypocrisy." (Douglas 163) By making this statement, Douglas means that whenever a society has a strong definition of what constitutes its identity and core of values, it is almost impossible to follow the strictures imposed by that definition of identity in any close and accurate form without discomfort or contradiction. This was true of the definition of what it meant to be a good and virtuous Roman citizen from the empire's earliest days. According to the early historian Polybius, "Romaness" was an austere, military discipline."

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