Roman Imperialism

121 Pages·2019·0.841 MB·English

by  Paul J. Burton

Roman Imperialism
Ancient History
Editor-in-Chief
Lee L. Brice (Western Illinois University)
Editorial Board
Jeremy Armstrong (Early Rome) (Auckland University)
Denise Demetriou (Greece and Ancient Mediterranean)
(University of California)
Selene Psoma (Classical and Hellenistic Greece) (University of Athens)
Daniëlle Slootjes (Late Rome) (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)
Georgia Tsouvala (Hellenistic and Roman Greece) (Illinois State University)
Volumes published in this Brill Research Perspectives title are listed at brill.com/rpah
Roman Imperialism
By
Paul J. Burton
LEIDEN | BOSTON
This paperback book edition is simultaneously published as issue 2.2 (2019) of Ancient History,
DOI:10.1163/25425374-12340004.
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Contents
Roman Imperialism 1
Paul J. Burton
Abstract 1
Keywords 1
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The Ancient Literary Sources for Roman Imperialism 7
1.2 The Present Work 8
2 Imperialism 10
2.1 Modern Theories of Imperialism 10
2.2 A Provisional Definition 17
3 Roman Imperialism 18
3.1 The View from Antiquity 19
3.2 Rome the Aggressor? Causes and Motivations 39
3.2.1 The Harris Thesis 39
3.2.2 Substantial Responses to Harris 44
3.3 The Theoretical Turn: Systems and Forces 56
4 The Diversification of the Field 73
4.1 Soft Power 74
4.2 Frontier Studies 78
4.3 Race, Ethnicity, and Romanization 83
4.4 The End of Roman Imperialism(?) 90
5 Conclusions 93
References 105

Roman Imperialism
Paul J. Burton
Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
[email protected]
Abstract
Rome engaged in military and diplomatic expansionistic state behavior, which we now
describe as ‘imperialism,’ since well before the appearance of ancient sources describ-
ing this activity. Over the course of at least 800 years, the Romans established and
maintained a Mediterranean-wide empire from Spain to Syria (and sometimes farther
east) and from the North Sea to North Africa. How and why they did this is a source of
perennial scholarly controversy. Earlier debates over whether Rome was an aggressive
or defensive imperial state have progressed to theoretically informed discussions of
the extent to which system-level or discursive pressures shaped the Roman Empire.
Roman imperialism studies now encompass such ancillary subfields as Roman frontier
studies and Romanization.
Keywords
Rome – imperialism – Romanization – warfare – politics – diplomacy – frontiers
1 Introduction
“Imperialism,” noted Sir William K. Hancock, “is no word for scholars.” He was
correct in two senses: there are perhaps almost as many definitions as there are
users of the term (in Hancock’s words, “It does not convey a precise meaning”),
and it is a decidedly polemical word, which reflects its nineteenth-century ori-
gin as a term of political abuse, rather than the sort of dispassionate analytical
tool serious scholarship demands.1
1  Hancock 1940, 1. History of the term: Koebner and Schmidt 1964; on its origins, see also Flach
1976, 4–5.
© Paul J. Burton, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004404731_002
2 Burton
The term ‘imperialism’ came rather late to modern discussions of Roman
foreign policy and international relations. The word was unknown to Edward
Gibbon and Theodor Mommsen, whose magisterial histories of Rome were
the gold standard of Roman historical scholarship until the early twentieth
century.2 The great Italian historian of Rome, Gaetano De Sanctis, occasionally
deployed the term in discussing Roman expansion of the middle Republican
period.3 Of course, that is not to say that scholars were not fascinated with the
spectacle of the expansion of Roman power across the Mediterranean, par-
ticularly during the middle Republic (roughly 264–146).4 They, like Polybius,
the ancient Greek historian of Rome’s rise to global power, sought a response
to the questions “how and under what system of government nearly the entire
world in less than fifty-three years fell under the sole rule of the Romans—
something that has never happened before.”5
The first systematic analysis of Roman imperialism as a discrete topic within
the field of Roman history was Tenney Frank’s 1914 Roman Imperialism. Prior to
its composition, Frank had spent his sabbatical leave in Göttingen and Berlin
attending lectures by the great Roman historians of the day, and had developed
a dislike for the contemporary Mitteleuropäisch view of imperialism, which he
regarded as “altogether too disingenuous and suspicious to account satisfacto-
rily for the behavior of unsophisticated Roman statesmen.”6 Frank criticized
the German Lebensraum justification for imperialism, which, in his view, led
to needless wars, such as the one that broke out the year his book appeared. He
rejected the idea that imperialism was “the national expression of an individu-
al’s ‘will to live,’” driven by “the overcrowding of population [which] threatens
to deprive the individual of his means of subsistence unless the united na-
tion makes for itself ‘a place in the sunlight.’”7 His own view was arguably too
2  ‘Imperialism’ was first applied to the Romans in 1853 in France and in 1861 in Britain: Flach
1976, 4–5.
3  E.g., De Sanctis 1917, 509 and 1923, 575.
4  All ancient dates are BCE unless otherwise indicated.
5  All translations are my own. Polyb. 1.1.5–6, τίς γὰρ οὕτως ὑπάρχει φαῦλος ἢ ῥᾴθυμος ἀνθρώπων
ὃς οὐκ ἂν βούλοιτο γνῶναι πῶς καὶ τίνι γένει πολιτείας ἐπικρατηθέντα σχεδὸν ἅπαντα τὰ κατὰ τὴν
οἰκουμένην οὐχ ὅλοις πεντήκοντα καὶ τρισὶν ἔτεσιν ὑπὸ μίαν ἀρχὴν ἔπεσε τὴν Ῥωμαίων. The fifty-
three-year period extends from 220 to 167, from the preliminaries to the Second Punic War to
the breakup of the kingdom of Macedon. ‘The entire world,’ ‘global power,’ and similar terms
refer to the world as the Greeks and Romans knew it, that is, the Mediterranean littoral from
Spain to Syria, North Africa, Egypt, and Gaul.
6  De Witt 1939, 274.
7  Frank 1914, vii.
Roman Imperialism 3
optimistic by contrast, a product of Frank’s midwestern American upbringing,
with its rural, small-town idyllic lifestyle and faith in the pioneer spirit.8
Explicitly taking his cue from Mommsen, Frank puts forward a thesis of
Roman defensive imperialism. Rome’s expansion, he writes, was prompted
by “specific accidents that led the nation unwittingly from one contest to
another until, to her own surprise, Rome was mistress of the Mediterranean
world”—thus echoing J.L. Seeley’s famous statement that the British Empire
was acquired “in a fit of absence of mind.”9 Unlike modern European states,
Frank argues, the Romans were not driven by the desire to possess, but by
fear of being destroyed by another state. In addition, the nature of the Roman
state—a narrow oligarchy “of a few hundred nobles, suspicious of the prestige
that popular heroes gain in war”—put a brake on men’s acquisitive instincts.10
Roman diplomatic practices played a role as well: “When one remembers that
modern nations must employ all the arts of diplomacy to keep peace with their
few neighbors, one is surprised not at the number of wars Rome fought but at
the great number of states with which she lived in peace.”11 An unusual “self-
restraint … ultimately won Rome her great gains.”12 Frank was, nevertheless,
realistic enough to acknowledge that, periodically, Rome traveled “the devi-
ous road of imperialism,”13 and behaved like “an unprincipled bully,”14 but he
connected this behavior to an unconvincing factional explanation: “the demo-
cratic party [was] more eager for empire than the senatorial,”15 and its “jingo”
leadership lured the ignorant, unsophisticated, and greedy plebs into imperi-
alistic adventures.16
Defensive imperialism theories, with few exceptions,17 held the field for
most of the twentieth century. In his inimitably positivist fashion, Maurice
8  See De Witt 1939, 273: “It seemed to him a precious personal asset that he had been per-
mitted to grow up in a genuinely American small town and rural community, where pio-
neer standards of conduct continued strong.” Linderski (1984, 146–48) suggests that the
Spanish–American War also influenced Frank.
9  Frank 1914, 120–21; acknowledgment of Mommsen’s influence: ix.
10  Frank 1914, vii–viii.
11  Frank 1914, ix.
12  Frank 1914, 55.
13  Frank 1914, 93 (in reference to the creation of the Sicilian province after 241).
14  Frank 1914, 114 (in reference to the Roman seizure of Sardinia from Carthage in 238/7).
15  Frank 1914, 65–66.
16  Frank 1914, 66 (characterization of the plebs), 91 (jingo leadership). It is probably here
that the Spanish–American War influenced Frank’s thinking (above, n. 8).
17  E.g. Thiel (1954, 129, on Rome’s role in provoking the First Punic War): “Rome was the ag-
gressor, and … the guilt of causing the war was on the Roman side and on the Roman side
alone.” For a summary of other negative judgements, see Gruen 1984, 6–7.