The Universal and the Local in the Civitas Batavorum

Abstract Intense recruitment for the Roman army among the Batavians of the Lower Rhine exposed their community more profoundly to Latin literacy and the universal culture of the empire than many other provinces. However, through an anthropological examination of their community, the present paper demonstrates that even under these conditions, the cultural amalgamation of the imperial and the local was limited, and Batavian society retained a markedly distinct culture throughout centuries of Roman rule.