Divinely Sanctioned Domination Accommodating Roman and Native Identities in Dionysius’ Roman Antiquities and Josephus’ Jewish War

Abstract

In the early imperial period, many local people perceived the Roman rule in the eastern Mediterranean as unstable and unjust. Attempts to achieve a positive social identity may have fuelled social competition and hostility towards the Romans. Both Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Flavius Josephus adopted a different strategy of identity building: social mobility. Their accounts of historical events sought to defuse antagonism by embracing hybrid Greco-/Judeo-Roman identities and allowing fluid transitions between their native identities and the overarching Romanness. In doing so, they also promoted perceptions of the legitimacy and stability of Roman rule. Both authors used history to illustrate Roman piety, virtue, and consequent divine favour to justify Roman domination.  Dionysius constructed a superordinate idea of idealized Greekness that subsumed the Romans as the torchbearers of ancient Greek values, while Josephus saw a divine hand at work in the Roman military triumph. Since the Romans had earned their divinely sanctioned rule either by adhering to Hellenic traditions or by being part of God’s great plan, Dionysius and Josephus managed to retain the positive social identities of Greeks and Jews under the Roman imperial umbrella.