31 - Literature and sophistic

Summary

Until the wars of A.D. 68 to 70 the empire had enjoyed a century of peace. Its cities, the chief vehicles of Roman imperial culture, had grown in number, size and prosperity. In the West whole provinces, like Lusitania and the Three Gauls, saw a network of cities of the Graeco-Roman type superimposed on their previous town and village structures. Even in others that had long had cities, like Baetica and Narbonensis, the number and size of cities grew. The same happened in the eastern empire. There many more provinces already boasted Greek cities where the élites lived their cultured lives, though there were some, like Celtic Galatia, where city life was only developing, and others with large tracts of land where villages were the rule. The foundation of cities continued through into the third century, but in the years from 70 to 192 a number of factors combined to accelerate the efflorescence of the Greek cities of the eastern empire. The philhellenism of Nero and his gift of ‘freedom’ to Greece was a false dawn. But Vespasian's revoking of the latter was less important than his admission of many easterners to the Senate, often some places up the cursus, partly a consequence of his eastern power-base in the civil wars. Admission of easterners continued under Domitian and increased under Trajan. By Hadrian's accession there was a significant caucus of Greek-speaking senators who might draw imperial attention and favour towards Greek cities, especially their own. The shifting of Rome's chief engagement with northern barbarians from the Rhine to the Danube frontier made some contribution to bringing the cities of Macedonia and even Achaea nearer to centre-stage, while military movement along the Bosporus and Dardanelles routes that linked the northern and eastern frontiers had discernible economic effects on the eastern Balkans and parts of Asia Minor, notably Bithynia.