Civil War and Public Dissent: the State Monuments of the Decentralised Roman Empire

From the tetrarchy onwards, the arches and columns erected in praise of emperors show a distinct change in the ways in which victory in civil war was commemorated or justified. The attitudes towards civil war demonstrated on these monuments also changed according to their location and the attitudes and social mores of those who erected them. From the time of Augustus onwards, in both panegyrical texts and public monuments, victory in civil war had been presented in terms of the defeat of non-Roman combatants. However, by the 4th c., despite protest from the conservative aristocracy, it was possible to commemorate defeat of fellow Romans. This paper suggests that this development reflects both a change in imperial image and in the sociopolitical context of these monuments, whereby the need to establish the legitimacy of imperial rule overrode the traditional concerns of conservative sections of the public.