Patriotism and some related aspects of Roman character
Rome levelled her subjects in crashing, shattering defeat and then lifted them up to share a pride in her that could capture the discriminating Jewish intelligence of a Paul. Her supreme victory came when the superiority and desirability of her civilization were admitted among civilized men.
A Sacred People: Roman Identity in the Age of Augustus
Studies of collective identity have grown rapidly among ancient historians in recent decades, particularly among scholars of the Greek world. Scholars have been fascinated by the development of Greek identity, from the dark ages of Greece through the classical period, from the Hellenistic Age through to its period of political dormancy under Roman rule. Despite this plethora of work being done on Greek identity, there is not a comparable genre of works on Roman identity.
Narratives of Roman Syria: a historiography of Syria as a province of Rome
Existing scholarly accounts of Roman Syria revolve around three themes: hellenization,
similarity to Rome, and a profound difference with the western provinces of the Roman empire. In the following sections I argue that the overemphasis on these three themes by scholars has obscured the process of Syria’s incorporation into the Roman empire and the profound impact of this process on local communities.