IAN HAYNES, Newcastle University
Blood of the Provinces: The Roman Auxilia and creation of imperial society
Date/Time: 24th November 2010, 18:00 - 19:00
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A RECORDING OF THIS LECTURE
Drawing on recent archaeological research from across the Roman Empire, Ian Haynes examines the mechanisms by which Rome successfully incorporated potential enemies into the ranks of her own armies. Ian Haynes is Professor of Archaeology at Newcastle University. This is his inaugural lecture.
A Newcastle graduate who took his doctorate at Oxford following work with Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Wurttemburg and the Museum of London; Ian Haynes taught at Oxford and at Birkbeck College, University of London before being appointed Professor of Archaeology at Newcastle in September 2007. Ian has pursued his interest in the archaeology of the Roman Empire through fieldwork in seven countries, directing excavations on a range of cult sites, towns, rural settlements and military installations. He is currently planning to return to fieldwork on Hadrian’s Wall and to complete a survey of the extensive archaeology that lies beneath the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome.‘The Provinces are won by the blood of the provinces’ claims Julius Civilis in Tacitus’ spirited account of Rome’s bloodstained year of four emperors, AD 69. Civilis’ speech was no more than a literary fiction, but the argument he voices reflects a defining feature of the Roman Empire – its capacity to pursue its interests through the extensive exploitation of non-citizen soldiers. This lecture will examine how these soldiers, themselves potential enemies of the Roman order, were incorporated into the imperial system. I will argue that while cash and cane played a crucial role in harnessing the manpower of provincial populations, many more subtle processes were at play. The study of these processes offers new insight into the operation of Roman power, from distant frontiers to the very heart of empire, in the eternal city itself.
