Over time major rebellions against Roman rule ceased, even
if this took a little longer in Judaea. Small-scale revolts did occur in a
number of provinces, although even these were rare. In AD 171 or 172, a group
called the Boukoloi (or Bucoli) – ‘cowboys’ or ‘herdsmen’ – rebelled in the
Nile Delta. Our sources are poor, with the fullest little more than a paragraph
from a much later epitome of Dio’s account, whose collator focused on the lurid
and bizarre. He claims that some of the Boukoloi disguised themselves as women,
so that they could get close to the centurion sent to collect money from them.
The Roman officer was taken by surprise and hacked down, and a companion
butchered as a sacrifice, his entrails being eaten to bind the rebels in a
dreadful oath.
Joined by a group led by a priest named Isidorus – described
as ‘the bravest of them all’ – the rising gathered momentum. The Romans
responded in the usual way and attacked, but the force sent against the rebels
was defeated. By this time Egypt was garrisoned by a single legion, supported
by at most a dozen auxiliary units. Some of these troops were stationed on the
province’s southern frontier, guarding the Upper Nile, and others patrolled the
roads to the Red Sea ports or were dispersed in small detachments, guarding
quarries or granaries, and acting as policemen and administrators. Such a
deployment makes it unlikely that the column sent to deal with the rising was
either large or consisted of the best-trained and motivated troops in Egypt,
making the defeat less surprising.
Success encouraged the rebels to advance on the great city
of Alexandria, although clearly this was some months later, for they were
blocked by forces sent from Syria and led by the legate of that province, Caius
Avidius Cassius. Senators were forbidden from visiting Egypt, and this
intervention must have been ordered by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, requiring a
report to reach him, an order to be sent to Syria, and time for a force to be
mustered and then moved to Egypt. Cassius avoided a major battle and instead
wore the rebels down, fighting many smaller actions and defeating each of the
rebel groups separately. This suggests that they had either dispersed as raiding
bands or each settled down to defend their own homes.
Many important details of the episode elude us. For
instance, the attack on the centurion suggests that Roman levies were resented,
but it is not clear whether this was the main cause of the revolt. A gruesome
human sacrifice and the mention of the priest Isidorus both hint at religious
fervour, whether simply as a unifying force and reminder that they were ruled
by foreigners of a different culture, or as a promise of divine aid like that
Mariccus offered to his followers among the Boii. Yet we should be cautious,
given so brief an account. Greeks and Romans alike saw the people of Egypt as
excessively superstitious and alleged that they practised strange and savage
rituals, and so were inclined to depict their behaviour in this way. The
Boukoloi also appear in ancient fiction, turned into a caricature of wild
barbarians given to human sacrifice and cannibalism, and this fictional imagery
may well have seeped into historical narratives.
For all our doubts about the rebellion, some aspects are
revealing. As was often the case, it appears to have taken the Romans by
surprise, in the long as well as the short term, for the gradual reduction in
size of the garrison of Egypt in the later first and second centuries AD
suggests that no major trouble was anticipated. Whoever the Boukoloi really
were, and whether or not they were truly as savage as the sources claim, they
were just one group within the wider population of rural Egypt. Others joined
them, but the revolt was not by a unified people with a common sense of
identity, and instead consisted of multiple communities loosely banded
together. If the scale of the revolt is unclear, there is no hint that it
involved anything more than a small minority of the provincial population, and
while the rebels were clearly hostile to Rome, the move on Alexandria suggests
little sympathy for other subjects of the empire. That city was always
described as Alexandria ‘near Egypt’ rather than ‘in Egypt’ and was a metropolis
with a population of several hundred thousand. Founded by Alexander the Great,
its inhabitants were mixed, but the dominant group was legally and culturally –
if not necessarily ethnically – Greek. Groups like the Boukoloi and the rural
population in general had little affection for this ‘foreign’ city, any more
than the Alexandrians had any liking for them.
The mix of populations within a province was one of the main
reasons why even the major rebellions struggled to unite the entire population
of a single province against the imperial power. Lesser rebellions tended to
focus on small regions or groups, and found it difficult to spread, because
other provincial communities were antipathetic or openly hostile to them. Few
of the areas in the empire had experienced peace and stability before the
Romans arrived, and memories of past feuds remained strong. The experience of
conquest reinforced some divisions among the indigenous population, as did any
subsequent real or perceived favouring of particular leaders and sections of
the population. In the eastern Mediterranean, where the Romans were merely the
latest in a succession of conquerors, their arrival did not remove every
long-standing division created or exacerbated by earlier empires. Even if the Alexandrians
and the Egyptians from the countryside both felt alienated by Roman rule at the
same time and rebelled, there was no prospect of them joining together. In
fact, throwing off Roman rule was likely to make them eager to revive far older
quarrels.
During the civil war after the death of Nero, the hatred
between Lugdunum and Viennensis (modern Vienne) in Gaul flared into new life,
and led to skirmishes ‘too savage and frequent for anyone to believe that they
fought on behalf of Nero or Galba’. Later, the leaders of Lugdunum tried to
persuade an army on its way from the Rhine frontier and fighting for another
claimant to the throne to sack Viennensis as a place ‘foreign and hostile’ and
also rich in plunder. The people there managed to placate the soldiers by a
dramatic display of submission and by handing over money and weapons to them.
Later during the same power struggle, the cities of Oea and Lepcis Magna in
North Africa went from disputes between peasants stealing each other’s cattle
and crops to ‘proper weapons and pitched battles’. Oea enlisted the aid of some
of the Garamantes to the south, ‘an ungovernable people well practised in
raiding their neighbours’, and so gained the upper hand. Eventually a force of
auxiliaries arrived and drove off the Garamantes, recapturing the plunder they
had taken, apart from the goods already sold off to distant communities, and
peace was restored.
Even Italy was not free of rivalries between its cities.
During some fighting in this same civil war, the ‘most splendid’ amphitheatre
outside the city walls of Placentia (modern Piacenza) was burned down. No one
was quite sure whether the blaze was started by the besiegers or by the
defenders hurling burning missiles at them, but afterwards the ‘common folk of
the town’ alleged that the building had been packed with combustible material
by unknown agents of other Italian cities who envied Placentia its magnificent
monument. The games were a great opportunity to parade civic pride, both in the
grandeur of the venue and the scale and style of the gladiatorial fights and
other shows. In AD 59 this exploded into violence between Pompeii and its
neighbour and rival Nuceria at a show staged in the amphitheatre at Pompeii. A
few bits of graffiti from the city hint at long-standing hostility – ‘Good luck
to the Nucerians and the hook for Pompeians and Pitheucusans’. At first there
was simply chanting and mutual abuse of the type common enough between rival
fans at many sporting events, but Tacitus then says that this was followed by
‘stones, and finally cold steel’. A famous wall painting from a house in
Pompeii showing gladiators fighting in the arena while other figures battle it
out on the streets outside surely depicts the disturbances that followed. The
visiting Nucerians were heavily outnumbered and soon had the worst of it, with
many being killed or wounded. Some of the injured were taken to Rome, and the
matter was brought to the attention of Nero, who ordered the Senate to hold an
enquiry into the whole incident. They found against the Pompeians and banned
the city from holding games for ten years.
Fighting on this scale was unusual anywhere in the empire
and especially in Italy, and we know too little of the background to identify
what sparked the trouble. The Senate exiled several leading culprits, including
the man who staged the games, who had been expelled in disgrace from their own
ranks before this incident. Although competition between cities was common
throughout the empire it was mainly peaceful, if only because there were few
occasions when large crowds of hostile communities would meet. More common was
bickering over the boundaries of their jurisdiction, where the risk was of
small-scale violence and theft. An inscription from Sardinia records the formal
end of hostility between two villages after 185 years, the peace deal being
imposed by the Roman authorities in AD 69, centuries after the region became a
province. This only occurred because the Romans threatened to use heavy force
against one of the rivals. For many provincials Rome was a distant presence,
resented rather less than the ongoing annoyance of living close to old enemies.
‘FIRMNESS AND DILIGENCE’
Around 160 years after Cicero landed at Ephesus on his way
to govern Cilicia, another former consul arrived there on his way to his own
provincial command of Bithynia and Pontus. Pliny the Younger (Caius Plinius
Caecilius Secundus) had not dawdled like the reluctant Cicero, but even so
arrived later than he hoped, his ship delayed by bad weather. More delays
followed as he pressed on to his province. The heat was excessive, making
overland travel by carriage arduous, and Pliny went down with fever and had to
stay some days at Pergamum, but when they took passage on trading ships
operating along the coast they were again held back by the weather. It was not
until 17 September AD 109 that the new governor reached Bithynia, allowing him
to celebrate the birthday of the Emperor Trajan on the next day.
Pliny was a ‘new man’ like Cicero, his family coming from
one of the towns of Italy, in his case Comum (modern Como, on the picturesque
lake of the same name). He was also a highly successful advocate in the courts
and a prolific author who published nine books of edited letters in conscious
emulation of his famous predecessor. Pliny’s correspondents included many of
the distinguished senators of the era, notably the historian Tacitus, and dealt
with domestic themes, literature, admirable behaviour by prominent men and
women, and the conduct of some of the important trials in which he was
involved. There were also a number of letters soliciting favours for himself or
his associates. Wholly absent is Cicero’s concern for the outcome of elections,
for building political friendships with others, for the changing balance of
power and influence within the Senate and with the details of legislation. The
reader of Pliny’s Letters can be left in no doubt that this was a state
controlled by a princeps, whose influence – malign in the case of Domitian and
benevolent in the case of Trajan – was everywhere. It is no coincidence that
the only one of Pliny’s published speeches to survive is a panegyric of Trajan,
for senators under the Principate were dependent on imperial favour to a degree
that Cicero could scarcely have imagined, even during Caesar’s dictatorship.
It was as a representative of the emperor, as legatus
Augusti on a special commission, that Pliny went out to Bithynia, his
appointment made by Trajan and not subject to senatorial debate or lot. Even so
his authority was greater than that of anyone else in the province, except in
the highly unlikely event of the princeps coming in person. However, the
greater power of Trajan could not be ignored. Pliny took with him a set of
instructions (mandata) issued by the emperor, which were longer and more
prescriptive than the suggestions the Senate made to someone like Cicero. It
would be difficult for provincials to appeal over his head to Rome unless they
had his permission, but it was certainly not impossible. There was also a procurator
overseeing the imperial estates and some of the taxation of the province and
this man corresponded directly with the princeps and his advisors. In this case
the relations between the two men were good.
Bithynia and Pontus was not a major military province and
was garrisoned by at most a handful of auxiliary units – one cohors equitata
consisting of infantry and a small force of cavalry is definitely attested, a
second is almost certain, and there may have been other regiments. In normal
times the province was under senatorial control, its governor a proconsul
selected by lot from a list drawn up by the Senate of sufficient men to fill
the number of posts coming vacant in the public provinces. Sometimes the
princeps’ advice on selection was sought, and even when it was not it is clear
that they would not choose anyone who was obviously out of favour. In office,
these governors had limited independence and their decisions could be overruled
by the princeps if a matter was brought to his attention. They were also bound
by rulings made by past emperors, and would need to seek approval to change
these. Augustus may at first not have issued mandata to proconsuls, but
probably began to do so later in his reign and this became normal under his
successors.
In the early second century AD Bithynia and Pontus was a
troubled region. Several of its former governors were prosecuted for
corruption, while there were bitter rivalries for dominance within its major
cities and widespread misuse of public money. Trajan decided to intervene,
temporarily adding the region to his provinces and sending Pliny there as his
legate. He was princeps and the Senate could not refuse, although in this case
it is unlikely that it resented the move, since it still meant that one of their
number was given the command.
On the whole, proconsuls and imperial legates did much the
same job, and successful senators served in both capacities at different stages
in their careers. The essentially civilian role of the proconsul was emphasised
in the wearing of the toga on ceremonial occasions, while the overtly military
legates wore a sword, military cloak and cuirass. The former were accompanied
by six lictors bearing fasces, the latter probably by five, marking their
lesser imperium as representatives rather than magistrates in their own right.
Both types of governor held essentially identical authority over the garrisons
of their provinces in every important respect, and it was simply that the
proconsuls had far fewer troops at their disposal. Their tenure was also
shorter, often no longer than the traditional twelve months. In contrast it was
rare for a legate to hold command for less than three years, and many were in
post for even longer, giving the province greater continuity of leadership and
allowing the governor to address more serious problems, whether military or
civil. Pliny died before the end of his third year in the post and we do not
know how long he was due to be in the province, but he was sent expressly to
restore order to its finances and administration so there may not have been a
fixed term.
Throughout his time in the province Pliny wrote to Trajan,
often seeking guidance on specific problems. A tenth book of correspondence was
published posthumously, consisting of letters to the emperor, and it is
dominated by his time as governor – his letters from Bithynia and Trajan’s
replies make up 107 out of a total of 121. Although we do not know the
circumstances of their preparation and release, this must surely have occurred
with at least the approval and perhaps the active involvement of Trajan and his
advisors. It was an era when many technical manuals were being written, and in
some ways the letters from Bithynia have a similar, instructional feel to them,
showing the way that a good governor should go about his job. Pliny’s approach
to a problem involved looking for precedents and past rulings, trying to find
the most beneficial solution for the provincial communities, and seeking the
emperor’s decision on some issues where he was unsure. This was clearly how
Trajan wished his principate to be seen, as efficient, benevolent, respectful
to local traditions and obedient to the spirit as well as the letter of the
law. The Trajan of these letters has the same tone of friendship and interest
in the welfare of provincial communities that can be seen in many inscriptions
recording replies from emperors to requests from cities and individuals.
All imperial legates sent reports and queries to the
princeps, and we cannot say whether or not Pliny wrote more often than was
normal – or indeed whether there were originally far more letters, some too
brief or too mundane to be included in the published version. The tendency to
address just one issue in each letter was more likely intended to make it
easier for the imperial secretariat to check for precedents and to respond or advise
the princeps rather than being a sign that letters were extensively rewritten
before publication. It is possible that some of the questions were asked in
order to permit Trajan to give the official response, although this would
assume that it was always planned to publish the letters. One instance is the
repeated requests for specialists such as architects and surveyors to be sent
out from Italy or from a military province – the army produced very skilled
technicians of all kinds. Only once does the princeps agree, saying that he
will instruct the legate of Moesia to send a man to supervise a complex
canal-building scheme. Otherwise, he invariably assures Pliny that not simply
Bithynia but any province will have competent specialists among the population,
an answer with a general application.
All in all, the letters in Pliny’s tenth book appear genuine
and give us our best picture of a provincial governor under the Principate,
worthy of comparison with Cicero’s letters from Cilicia. As always, the different
circumstances of the early second century AD compared to the middle of the
first century BC are obvious. No doubt Pliny wrote plenty of letters to
friends, relations and other connections while in his province, but none of
these were published. What mattered was the relationship between princeps and
legate and the provincial communities. Throughout Pliny addressed Trajan as
domine – master or lord – and was in turn called ‘my dear Secundus’. Augustus
had not cared to be called dominus, but under his successors – even ones
considered to be good rulers and respectful of the Senate – this became normal.
Some of the replies have a formal style, reflecting their drafting by imperial
secretaries, but now and again the tone of familiarity or of exasperation at
the provincials is surely the authentic voice of the emperor.
