1 - On Romanization

Summary

The civilizing process

At some point in the late 290s ad, an orator from the town of Autun in present day Burgundy made a speech before an imperial governor, perhaps the Prefect of the province of Lugdunensis I. The orator, Eumenius, was a powerful and wealthy citizen of the community of the Aedui, whose capital Autun was, and had recently returned from serving as Magister Memoriae at the court of Constantius Chlorus, one of the two Caesars, or junior emperors, who assisted the Augusti, who at that time ruled the Roman empire. Constantius had set in hand the restoration of Autun, which had been sacked a generation before during a Roman civil war; the work had already begun, and Eumenius had been entrusted by the Caesar with the task of instructing the Aeduan youth of Autun in the liberal arts, which meant above all in oratory. Now, in his speech, he sought the Caesar's permission to dedicate his considerable salary to the physical restoration of the Scholae Maenianae, the celebrated schools of Autun. Recalling Constantius' past services to the city, and both the ancient and recent services of the Aedui to Rome, Eumenius sought permission to perform an act of euergetism, of civic munificence, that would at the same time express his loyalty to his imperial patron, his civic patriotism, his adherence to the highest cultural ideals of the empire and his pre-eminence among his own people.