Patterns of Diet in the Roman Empire
When we consider the Roman Empire as a whole, the dominant characteristic is one of dietary regions that roughly correspond to provinces, but also to climate/topographic zones (Fig. 18). This is not to say that patterns were environmentally determined, however, since the process of Romanization did have an influence on these patterns. This process appears to take two forms; the first is the influence of the 'Roman' high pig pattern, which was probably a high-status diet that caused an elevation in pork (especially young pork) consumption. In some regions, such as southern Spain, parts of Italy itself and perhaps parts of Gaul, this was probably a significant influence, but in the north-west provinces only sites of strong Mediterranean orientation, singled out in the relevant sections, display the 'Roman' pattern.
The pork-rich 'Roman' diet was, in fact, an exceptional pattern within the Empire as a whole. It was a wealthy diet that probably relied on the flow of produce to Rome in the form of taxes and the annona for its existence. Basic foodstuffs were as likely to have been imported as home-produced, and were probably low in price because of the economic effect of the annona. This would have opened the way for the high pig percentage meat diet to have become not just a high-status preserve, but to have achieved widespread currency amongst the regional population as a whole. It was a diet that was difficult to export because the peculiar socio-economic circumstances of Rome and its hinterland were not reproduced elsewhere, except perhaps in microcosm at certain Roman colonies, such as Fréjus, and other high-status, highly Romanised sites.
The other, more successful form of Romanization of the diet is a 'military' pattern originating in the army stationed north of the Alps during the 1st century AD, and reflecting the origins of the majority of troops in Germany, Gaul, northern Italy, northern Spain, etc. This pattern became the main dietary influence in provinces such as Britain, and was much more significant there than the 'Roman' pattern. Thus, for many regions of the western provinces we cannot refer to a common Italian origin for the Romanization of the diet. In Britain, for instance, it is preferable to refer to the 'Gallicization' or 'Germanization' of the diet, with the Roman army as the apparent catalyst for dietary change.
In the eastern parts of the Empire, the dietary influence of Rome appears to have been slight. A strongly established and highly characteristic pattern existed in the Near East, i.e. Syria, Palestine and probably also Egypt and Cyrenaica, although the evidence is not decisive for the latter. Apart from the influence of the army in Egypt, in the guise of its specialized, command-economy diet at the desert fortifications, outside influences on the East seem to have derived mainly from earlier Hellenistic patterns.
The cultural effect of Greek and Hellenistic expansionism is clearly significant in the East, and also in the western Mediterranean Greek colonies. Although the evidence is weak from the Greek homeland itself, there was a Hellenistic dietary pattern that tended towards sheep and goat meat consumption, but also with reasonable percentages of beef and pork. Hellenistic sites in the East reflect this, whilst the western Greek colonies and their hinterlands display evidence of a preference for a diet towards the mutton and goat meat end of the Hellenistic spectrum.
In terms of diet, therefore, the effect of the Italian core was very weak on most provinces. Regional patterns retained their strength, and cultural dietary influences also flowed between provinces that had significant personnel movement between them. We cannot conclude that Romanization of diet was a uniform cultural process throughout the Empire. Even if other aspects of culture became markedly Roman in style, regional identity within a loosely drawn Roman koiné seems to be the most appropriate way to characterize the diet of the provinces.