Conclusion

It is remarkable that none ofthe Latin writers we have discussed above was a native of Rome itself (see also Chapter 28). In fact, of the Latin writers we know, only Julius

Caesar came from the city. (Fabius Pictor was born in Rome, but his literary activity was in Greek.) But each contributed to Roman cultural identity through a process of selftransformation and alignment with Rome that changed Rome and its cultural acquisitions (see also Chapter 22). Roman cultural identity was not a fixed thing or even an agreement among Romans as to who they were, but a competitive and acquisitive process of self-transformation and adjustment. Similarly, the Roman self, as presented, explored, and acquired in the Republic, was an aggressive and competitive project in assimilating, manipulating, and controlling others. It competes with others for standing and self-determination and is changed by the very process of competition. At the core of the Roman identity is a contest to see who gets to say who we are, who gets to mobilize the symbolic value ofcultural achievements and public discourse, who gets to turn whom into a Roman or a non-Roman. This process requires both the deployment of rhetoric and a deep belief in the rhetorical nature of human activity. Just as their empire was successful on land and sea by adopting and adapting to the military resources of the enemy, so their cultural empire continually drew within the Roman sphere the successes and accomplishments of Greece by adopting and changing those successes. It all goes back to Plautus’ slave: ‘‘The trick is to discover if we are our own selves or someone else’s self.’’ Someone may have turned us into Romans when we weren’t looking. In 212 ad the emperor Caracalla issued an edict that turned all free men of the Empire into Romans. Today, if you look in a modern Greek dictionary under the term that derives from the Latin for ‘‘a Roman,’’ Romaics, you will find the definition ‘‘a modern Greek person.’’ Roman identity, then, like the secular capitalism of Western civilization, is the process that naturalizes you into a Roman citizen, and it makes no difference whether you or someone else civilizes you.