Keeping Up with the Julii: Roman lmpact on Social Stratification and Mobility in the Rhône Basin c.125-10BCE

Abstract

This thesis investigates the character and fate(s) of the local ruling classes of Gallic communities around the Greater Rhône Basin (such as the Aedui, Arverni, Allobroges, and Volcae Arecomici) in relation to the advent of Roman domination of the region over the late second and first centuries BCE. It responds in particular to suggestions by Drinkwater (1978) that the majority of the aristocracy of Late Iron Age Gaul were removed from power by the c.58-50BCE Gallic Wars and replaced with clients of Caesar (the titular ?Julii?), and hypotheses of the emergence of Gallo-Roman provincial civilisation in tying it to the rise of a new local elite (or at least new language of elite expression in late first century) BCE/first century CE. The thesis examines the possibility of such a revolutionary transition of class demography and/or ideology amongst the peoples of southern and eastern Gaul, using a holistic methodology that combines textual, archaeological, and iconographic evidence with a theoretical framework of analysis of social power. Its focus on the Rhône Basin as a geographic region seeks to reintegrate the historical connections between groups living either side of the artificial provincial boundary of Gallia Transalpina at the time and reframe the conquest and tribulations of the Lower Rhône Valley into a history of Gaul's annexation by Rome that tends to privilege Caesar's campaigns alone.