94 See, e.g. Tic. Ann. v.i, Dio Lvn.12. » Tac. Ann. xn.42.}.
related to Augustus was at once recognized by Romans and provincials. Augustus' house was princely; the ladies might in the East be honoured with the attributes of suitable goddesses, in the West have towns named after them. Group portraits of the family set up by loyal towns may include women and children.[1103]
The independence and individuality of women (despite the restrictions of the marriage legislation and their deployment as brides) is signalled by nomenclature. Few aristocrats in the Republic used a second name for women. Practice becomes more flexible from Augustus on, starting with the top. Livia Drusilla dropped her second name; her stepdaughter Iulia's daughters were known as lulia (a striking departure from the rule that legitimate daughters take the father's name) and Agrippina (from the father's cognomen). The daughter of Drusus and Antonia was known not as Claudia, but by the two gentile names of Livia (from her paternal grandmother) and lulia (presumably from her step- grandfather, Augustus). Maternal descent in a dynasty founded by a man without a son acquires an importance unrecognized in old agnatic theory. The upper class follows suit. There was also continued progress in economic rights.[1104] Accidents of survival and inheritance often concentrated economic power in the hands of women in all the propertied classes and no doubt down to the level of market-women.[1105]
The existence of a 'court', with various nuclei (the circle of lulia was distinguishable on sight from that of Livia: Macrob. Sat. 11.5.6) changed the focus of society. Promotion was validated by the princeps, perhaps on the recommendation of a Livia, a Maecenas or a Pallas.99 Subventions to enable a senator to maintain his status or dowries to protegees flowed from the imperial family, who in turn were enriched by legacies from foreign kings and wealthy Romans. Yet this was the last efflorescence of the old aristocracy. The Julio-Claudians and their kin died out, the last males wiped out by Nero, only one great-great-granddaughter of Augustus, Iunia Calvina, surviving under Vespasian. Then unallied republican nobles also disappeared; the newer families show little continuity in senatorial status. The turnover accelerated as senators were recruited from all over the empire.
The Flavii represent the gradual rise of an Italian family. T. Flavius Petro, a municeps of Reate, after serving under Pompey in the civil war, is said to have retired to his home town to earn his living as a debt-collector (like Horace's father). His son Sabinus according to some was a professional soldier who perhaps rose to be chief centurion of a legion, according to others first an excise-officer in Asia and then a banker in the Alps. His wife, Vespasia Polla, from a well-established family of Nursia, had more distinguished connexions: her father was an equestrian officer and her brother became praetor. Their two sons, Sabinus and Vespasian, both achieved a senatorial career, though Vespasian was late in embarking on it. Sabinus rose to be prefect of the city and Vespasian, through military ability and (it was alleged) the favour of the emperor Gaius and the imperial freedman Narcissus, to be proconsul of Africa and commander in the Jewish War, before he made his bid for the supreme power.[1106] This was the culmination of the advancement of Italian families which Augustus had begun.[1107]
A policy of enfranchizing suitable provincials and of promodng promising men from one level to another in the hierarchy of service is deduced from the emperor's reported acdons and from the epigraphic records of individual careers. Comparatively few junior candidates can have been personally known to the emperor. Some were recommended to him by his advisers or their patrons. The system secured the controlled promotion of others, for instance the auxiliary troops who on discharge became ciuzens. By the end of the Julio-Claudian period the citizen body was much expanded and both equites and senators were of more diverse origin than in the late Republic. The Alexandrian Jew, Ti. Iulius Alexander, would not have been prefect of Egypt under Augustus as he was under Nero.[1108] Roman society continued to show remarkable powers of absorption at all levels. Newcomers, says Tacitus, were assimilated through customs, liberal arts and marriage ties (Ann. xi. 24.10). Despite their anxiety to conform, they contributed to the gradual changes of Roman culture. Though they might adopt Latin, new names, Roman cults, the practice of Greco-Roman rhetoric or the 'epigraphic habit', they might cling, for example, to non-classical ideas of visual art, to foreign deities and old customs. Enfranchized Jews, numerous in the city by the time of Caesar, communicated to Rome the idea of the week and a weekly day of renewal (e.g. Hor. Sat. 1.9.69; Ov. Rem. Am. 219Q.
The imperial peace and Augustan reorganization meant that Roman citizens were spread over the old and newly annexed provinces as never before.[1109] Veterans and some civilians were sent to colonies; peasants displaced in the reallocations of Italian land in the civil war period emigrated to provinces; provincials, particularly the upper classes, were gradually enfranchized. The army provided continual geographical mobility for citizens and a route to citizenship for non-citizens. By the end of our period Italians were not joining up in such numbers as they had under Augustus: in part this may be an indicadon of the prosperity of Italy (so that their economic prospects in civilian life were now better). Augustus had done much to promote the standard of living of urban Italians, though nothing directly to solve the social problems caused by the agrarian economy.
The Roman plebs, losing political power, gained in material advantages, which ranged from a fire brigade to attractive places of public resort. The esprit de corps and energies of the guilds (collegia) were regulated and scope found for the ambitions of comparatively humble men for community service and social recognition. In Italian towns freedmen in particular enjoyed the office of Augustales. Such bodies directed loyalty to the emperor and created outlets for ambition, altruism and talent. The activity of guilds and boards of minor officials seems to have been a 'grassroots' phenomenon. The upper-class bias of our sources must not blind us to the strong sense of personal worth and of community which is often attested by the lower classes. The population of the capital was heterogeneous, including the poorest of native-born labourers, craftsmen and shopkeepers, the great households of the rich, foreign traders and envoys. But Rome could still elicit loyalty from the descendants of slaves. An actor and freedman of Claudius or Nero, with the pleasing name Tiberinus, is commemorated by his mother (presumably a freedwoman, but of another family), who makes him claim, 'Rome is my fatherland, my parents are from the heart of the plebs.'104 Despite the insecurities and miseries of life, those plebeians who could afford to commemorate themselves show the vigour, independent spirit and cockney pride which Horace caught in his portrayal of the auctioneer Mena (Epist. 1.7.461!). The type survives the Augustan revolution and the steady influx of freedmen and foreigners. At this social level, the impact of emperors is limited. But the institution of what, in contrast to republican laissez-faire, must be regarded as responsive government with some ability to plan ahead produced an Italian heyday.