Mary Beard

Yes.

And the period from Augustus on is where we start to see the Roman Empire looking a bit more like our familiar image of it.

I mean, there are governors and a state taxation system underneath, financial officials.

You can see a fledgling but very fledgling bureaucracy there in a way I think that would have looked quite different

from what was going on in the Republic, at least for the elite in the provinces.

And frankly, peasants in Roman Britain, eventually conquered by Claudius after Augustus, they barely noticed the Roman Empire.

But if we're thinking about what this looks like in the towns and amongst the aristocracy of the provinces,

We're seeing new sets of connections formed between the centre and the elite of the provinces.

And one thing that Augustus really buys into is the incorporation of the elite into

into the governmental structure of Rome.

Now, that wasn't entirely new.

It goes back to the idea that when Rome is conquering the cities, Rome incorporates rather than keeps them on the outcrowd.

There's something already there, but what Augustus does is give that an enormous push.

So that what you find is that rich provincials, as we might call them, become incorporated into Roman office holding.

They do, right?

And they become members of the Senate and eventually they become emperors, consciously or not.

And again, it's one of those questions of it's hard to know whether there was a grand plan here or a series of improvisations.

that he is buying the loyalty

He would say winning the loyalty.

He's winning the loyalty of the provincial elite who are actually therefore being part of his intermediaries.