1 Patriotism and Ambitions: Intellectual Response to Roman Rule in the High Empire

Abstract

One of the most influential studies of Greek reluctance towards the Roman world is Simon Swain's Hellenism and Empire from 1996. Here, Greek criticism of Roman rule and the institutions involved are seen as ways by which educated Greeks drew a line between Greek and the Roman worlds. In the High Empire, the emperor was the most important institution in Roman government. The third century senator and historian Cassius Dio is one example of a Greek intellectual to discuss the institution of the principate and reign of different emperors. The imperial cult was an institution with theological issues and the potential to further enhance the social difference between emperor and the Empire's elite communities and was therefore bound to attract the attention of intellectuals across both cultural and social divides. Greek and Latin authors had different views of the Roman Empire both within and across political, social and cultural divides. Keywords: cultural divides; high Empire; imperial cult; intellectual response; Roman rule; social divides