ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to demonstrate ways in which Gramsci's concept of ‘hegemony’ can be used as an analytical tool to understand the development of the Roman Principate. The breakdown of the Roman Republic in I century BCE can be interpreted as a Gramscian ‘organic crisis’, in which there was no longer a consensus across society. In the creation of the new autocracy of the Principate, coercion and repression played a part, but the manufacturing of a new consensus was key. This new hegemonic narrative is not solely, or even primarily, created by the autocrat, but by all elements in society. To illustrate the extent to which this hegemonial narrative became embedded in the century after Augustus, two ancient sources from very different social groups are examined. Tacitus, the sceptical senatorial historian, is shown to accept the narrative of the inevitability of autocratic rule, a narrative developed by senators themselves to justify their participation in the system. Luke, the author of the Gospel and of Acts of the Apostles, represents the views of a subject of the Roman Empire, and shows the depth and spread of the acceptance of the new hegemonial narrative.
