Pax Romana Read online

  I cannot hope to cover in detail all the ways in which life changed after the imposition of Roman power or direct rule, for the subject is vast and complex. Much of the evidence is archaeological, influenced by the amount and quality of excavations, surveys and other work done in a region. We have a lot more data for some provinces than others, and often it is concentrated in particular areas of those provinces and certain types of settlement, ritual or funerary practice. Analysing this evidence to produce a general picture of a province, and then comparing it with that of the periods before Roman rule in an attempt to discern changes, is not straightforward. In the western provinces it becomes much easier to date levels in an excavation after the arrival of Rome, which provides coinage and faster-changing patterns of ceramics and other goods. The pace of change in the pre-Roman Iron Age cannot be as readily measured as some developments in the Roman period. All data is subject to interpretation, and often opinions differ radically, often being overturned by fresh discoveries or new methods of analysis. I have tried to be fair, but have presented my own views on these matters. Others will see things differently.

  This book presents an overview, and tries to give an idea of the range of different experiences, but cannot hope to be exhaustive. The works cited in the endnotes should allow the interested reader to discover more about the many topics touched upon only lightly here, for each will yield more references to additional studies. Many more books and articles could have been added to the notes, and as always I must acknowledge my debt to the labours of so many scholars. My aim is to present the most relevant material and ideas, and always to explain what we do not know as well as what we do know. When writing about the ancient world almost every statement could be qualified. I hope that the reader is shown enough of the evidence and the methods used to interpret it to make up his or her own mind on these issues.

  The same is true of the broader issue of whether or not the Roman Empire was a good thing, as I do not feel that there is a simple answer to such a question. It is fruitless to ask what would have happened if the Roman Empire had not been created, but even so it is important to remind ourselves that Rome was far from the only aggressive, imperialistic state in the ancient world. We should no more idealise the provincials or the peoples outside the empire than we should the Romans. It is important to consider the frequency of warfare in each region before the Romans arrived to judge whether or not the situation improved or became worse. Empires are unfashionable, while much about Roman society is alien and unpleasant to modern eyes, but dislike for Rome must not translate into automatic sympathy with others, nor must it compel us to deny that the Romans achieved anything at all worthwhile. As misleading is the tendency to focus so heavily on Roman imperialism, Roman warfare or Roman Grand Strategy, so that all other participants are reduced to an entirely passive role. There were plenty of other peoples, states and leaders in this world with aims, ambitions and fears of their own.

  The Romans were more successful than their rivals and created a vast empire which they maintained for a very long time. Its impact was felt in the provinces and also far beyond the frontiers. The question as to how far the empire enjoyed internal peace must always be weighed against its cost, and it is worth considering more generally just how life changed because of the empire. Thus any discussion of Roman Peace – whatever this truly meant – should be set in the context of Roman conquest, and of understanding how the empire worked. The administrative and military machinery of the Roman state limited what could be achieved, whatever the aspirations of its leaders. This is a book about peace and sometimes about defence, but it must also be a book about conquest, aggression, warfare, violence and exploitation, and so we should begin with the Romans as conquerors, rather than as imperial overlords.

  PART ONE

  REPUBLIC

  I

  THE RISE OF ROME

  ‘But the Romans have subjected to their rule not portions, but nearly the whole of the world (and possess an empire which is not only immeasurably greater than any which preceded it, but need not fear rivalry in the future) . . . . For it was owing to their defeat of the Carthaginians in the Hannibalic War that the Romans, feeling that the chief and most essential step in their scheme of aggression had now been taken, were first emboldened to reach out their hands to grasp the rest and to cross with an army to Greece and the continent of Asia.’ – Polybius, 140s BC.1

  ORIGINS

  Rome had an empire long before she had an emperor, but there was a time, well before that, when she was simply one Italian city among many – more specifically, one Latin community in the area known as Latium. The Latins were a linguistic group, not a united people, and in many ways their settlements had much in common with those of neighbours like the Etruscans or Greek colonies such as Capua. Rome began in the eighth century BC, roughly around 753 BC when later tradition held that the City was founded. The story of Romulus and Remus, twin sons of the war god Mars suckled by the she-wolf and raised by a shepherd, existed in many forms during antiquity, but little was known with certainty about the early years. No Roman began to write narrative history until around 200 BC. The Greeks began much earlier, but we should not forget that Herodotus did not write until after the defeat of Persia in 479 BC. The Greeks’ knowledge of their own history in the eighth and seventh centuries BC was hazy indeed, and just as filled with legendary stories and the deeds of heroes. The Romans were not unusual in knowing little hard fact about their origins.

  That is not to say that there were no records, for these were societies that from early on made some use of the written word. Laws were preserved, as were dedications of altars, temples and monuments to commemorate victories, and there was a rich oral tradition, with songs and stories told about the past, many of them preserved by aristocratic families and inevitably highly flattering to their ancestors. There is no good reason to doubt the basic outline of the later traditions about the City’s early centuries, even if many of the incidents and individuals who figure in the stories were invented or distorted beyond recognition. It is safe to say that in the early centuries Rome was ruled by kings. The expulsion of the last king in 509 BC and the foundation of the Republic does seem to have been based on reliable records, even if the stories surrounding it included considerable romantic embellishment.2

  Warfare is a constant theme in the traditions about monarchy and Republic alike. The scale was no doubt small, most of the enemies very close neighbours, and much of the time it was little more than raiding for cattle, captives and plunder. The Romans attacked and were attacked by nearby communities in this way, and only occasionally did the fighting escalate into major battles. The same enemies were fought year after year, which suggests that neither side was able to win a permanent victory over its rivals. Not all contact with others was martial, and there was also trade and peaceful exchange of skills and goods. In the first year of the Republic the Romans made a treaty with the great mercantile empire of Carthage in North Africa (its heartland in modern Tunisia), a long-forgotten copy of which, written in archaic Latin, survived in the state archives some 350 years later and was read by the Greek historian Polybius. It was mostly concerned with the rights and restrictions placed on Romans travelling in Carthaginian territory, but gives an indication of just how far afield merchants were going.3

  Over time Rome grew in size and prosperity, its population increasing both naturally and from an unusual willingness and capacity to absorb others. Alongside warfare, the arrival of outsiders to join the community figures heavily in the later myths, whether it was Romulus gathering settlers from the vagrants and outcasts of Italy, the abduction of wives from the Sabines, or the arrival of the aristocratic Claudii with all their dependants under the Republic. Rome’s power also grew, so that it became by far the largest and strongest of all the Latin cities. The 509/508 BC treaty with Carthage names five other Latin communities allied to Rome as well as ‘any other city of the Latins who are subject to Rome’. These were not alliances between
equals, but marked the rise of a dominant local power.4

  Compulsion on the part of a stronger neighbour was one reason for the other cities to accept Roman supremacy, but so was the need for protection from very real threats. Late sixth- and fifth-century BC Italy saw widespread upheaval as groups like the Aequi, Volsci and Samnites, Oscan-speaking hill peoples from the Apennines, pushed out onto the more fertile coastal lands, while Gallic tribes drove into northern Italy. Many Latin, Etruscan and Greek cities were overrun by these invaders – Herodotus declared the defeat by one of these tribes of the great city of Tarentum (modern Taranto) in 473 BC as ‘the worst the Greeks have ever suffered’.5

  Rome survived and was able to protect its allies, but in such dangerous times warfare took on a harder edge, and as Roman power grew it could also prove more permanently decisive. In 396 BC the Romans sacked the Etruscan city of Veii and massacred most of its inhabitants, ending a rivalry that had been going on since Rome’s earliest days. Veii stood on a strong natural position barely ten miles away from Rome, which is a reminder of the small scale of so much of this early warfare. The tradition that the siege took a decade may well be an invention meant to draw parallels with the epic siege of Troy, although it is possible that fighting did take place for a long time. It was during the course of this war that the Romans first began to pay their legionaries, suggesting that these soldiers were required to undertake continuous service away from their farms for long periods. Veii’s territory was permanently added to the lands of the Roman people, the ager Romanus.6

  In 390 BC a band of Gallic warriors routed a Roman army with disdainful ease and sacked Rome itself. Later tradition tried to put a gloss on the humiliation by claiming that defenders held out on the Capitoline Hill, but admitted that the warriors were bribed to leave. It was a reminder of how dangerous conditions were in Italy in these centuries. Fortunately for the Romans, the Gauls were a mercenary band seizing an opportunity for plunder rather than invaders looking to settle. They left, and Rome gradually recovered, but the memory of these dark days long remained part of the Roman psyche. A visible sign of the trauma was the swift construction of expensive stone walls some seven miles in length, making Rome by far the biggest enclosed community in Italy.7

  In the decades that followed, some Latin communities turned against Rome, either less convinced of Roman might or resentful of her dominance and sensing an opportunity while she was weak. Others maintained the alliance and fought alongside the Romans to defeat the rest of the Latins. In 340 BC a group of cities formed a league and rebelled against Rome, but they were beaten two years later and the attempt was never repeated. The next half-century saw warfare on an ever larger scale against Etruscan cities and Samnite and Gallic tribes, including an alliance of all three in the year 296 BC. The Romans suffered defeats, some of them serious, but in the end prevailed, their levy of citizen soldiers defeating other citizen soldiers and warriors alike. They learned from their enemies, copied tactics and equipment, and adapted to fight each enemy in turn.

  The Roman Republic grew to be far more than the City of Rome and the lands around it. Roman citizenship was granted to loyal allies and to freed slaves – albeit with some limitations on the rights of the latter – and so the citizen body grew to be much larger than that of any other city-state in Italy or the wider world. Other communities received Latin status, which ceased to have any connection with race or language. Colonies were established on conquered territory, some in strategic positions and others just on good farmland. The settlers were both Romans and Latins, although often the entire community was given Latin status.8

  Incorporation contributed more to the growth of the Republic than colonisation, significant though this was. Defeated enemies occasionally ceased to exist as political entities, but the vast majority became subordinate allies of Rome. More or less quickly they were granted Latin rights and even citizenship. Greek cities were jealous of their citizenship, even the smallest of them being determined to retain an independent identity. There were cases of Latin communities declining the offer of Roman citizenship – a decision respected by the Senate – but more often they willingly accepted. As a result the city-state of Rome grew to dwarf even the greatest of Greek cities. Athens at the height of its democracy and overseas empire grew less rather than more generous with its citizenship. As a result it boasted at most 60,000 male citizens, fewer than half of them with sufficient property to serve as hoplites, the armoured infantrymen who constituted the great strength of the army. An Athenian field force of 10,000 or so hoplites was a major enterprise.9

  Writing in the first century AD, Pliny the Elder claimed that there were 152,573 Roman citizens in 392 BC, although the figure may include women and children. Some scholars are inclined to see this as too high, but more reliable are the numbers provided by the Greek historian Polybius for 225 BC. These are only for men registered to serve in the army, and, if no doubt rounded up and on the high side, at the very least they give an idea of scale. He states that there were 250,000 citizens eligible to serve as infantry and 23,000 as cavalry. Latins – there were at this date twenty-eight Latin colonies – provided 80,000 infantry and 5,000 horsemen. Adding in all other allies, the total numbers that could theoretically be called upon by the Roman Republic were a staggering 700,000 foot soldiers and 70,000 cavalry. The mobilisation of forces in the struggle with Hannibal, which began seven years later, makes it clear that Polybius did not exaggerate by much.10

  THE REPUBLIC

  Rome was larger than any other city-state, but its institutions were not profoundly different from many other communities in Italy and the Greek world. The same was true of the Latin colonies and allied cities, each of which ran its own internal affairs, electing magistrates and having its own laws. They were not permitted their own foreign policy, nor were links between the allies themselves encouraged. Instead each was an ally of Rome, and the Roman Republic was the centre of everything, not merely one strong element in a communal alliance. Even so, the allies did not pay taxes to Rome, nor did the Romans interfere in their day-to-day affairs, and their sole obligation was to provide contingents of soldiers when required. These men served in distinct units, but were under overall Roman command and subject to the regulations of the Roman army, which imposed harsh punishments on infractions of discipline and also paid them.

  At least half of every Roman field army consisted of allied soldiers, and normally the proportion was higher – Polybius’ figures show that the Latins and other allies made up nearly two-thirds of total manpower. Allies, and especially the Latins, shed their blood on behalf of the Republic, and also shared in the spoils of victory. Thus as Rome expanded the enemies of one generation helped as allies to win the wars fought by the next generation. Some became Roman, while all enjoyed the greater security that came from belonging to so great a military power. In essence, it was safer to be Rome’s ally than its enemy.11

  The Republic proved remarkably stable in comparison to other city-states, where political revolution was all too common. There were serious social tensions, but solutions were eventually found sufficient to satisfy most groups in society, expanding the elite from the original small circle of patrician families and limiting the power of magistrates. The system that emerged was based around preventing any one individual or group from securing permanent supreme power. All of political life was conducted at Rome itself, and a citizen had to be present to take part. This remained true as the citizen body expanded, and only those resident in or near Rome, or those with the wealth, time and inclination to travel there, could vote or stand for office.

  Elected magistrates provided the state with its executive officers. The most important were the two consuls, who held power for just twelve months and gave their name to the year. The political year began in March – the month named after the war god Mars. Consuls were first and foremost war leaders, and they were elected by an Assembly of the Roman People structured according to categories of the early army. As time passe
d restrictions were created to prevent a man from standing for the consulship in consecutive years, and eventually a ten-year interval was set down in law, as was a minimum age of forty-two for candidates seeking it. Yet a relatively small number of aristocratic families supplied a disproportionately high number of consuls, both because of ties of obligation with many important voters, but also a tendency for the electorate to prefer familiar names. It was difficult – although never impossible – for a man from outside to reach the consulship, but even so competition for the magistracy was fierce. With only two posts a year, the consul-ship was a prize won by only a small minority of senators.12

  Consuls did their best to win glory during their term of office, for this gave them personal prestige and status within the community and enhanced the reputation of their family with voters as well. Defeating the enemies of the Republic brought the greatest fame, ideally marked by the award of a triumph, when the victorious commander and his soldiers processed through the heart of Rome. The victor rode in a chariot, wearing the regalia of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Jupiter Best and Greatest), his face painted terracotta-red like the clay statues of the god. At some point it became the tradition for a slave to stand behind him and whisper reminders that he was mortal. The day of the parade was soon over, but the fame of the deed remained, the laurel wreath displayed on the porch of the victor’s house a constant reminder to visitors. Aristocratic families took every opportunity to advertise the successes of the current and earlier generations. Funerals were public events, and actors were hired to don the funeral masks and insignia of office of a man’s ancestors, their deeds being recounted along with his to offer an implicit promise of what the generations to come would achieve if trusted by voters.13