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just-late-roman-republic-things · 4 months

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More notes on the development of Roman imperialism and colonialism:

Rome began as a city warring with other cities and city-states in Italy. Its growth was haphazard and, in some ways, accidental. They don't seem to have thought of it as an "empire" in the sense of "our land and sea," until the 1st century BCE.

Before then, the Roman empire was characterized by active military control, not by thinking of lands as "Roman territory." This was not the USA trying to grab all the land it could in manifest destiny; this was a city-state that primarily aimed to enrich and defend itself, and often used military occupation to do so.

The Romans did not like to think of themselves as an expansionist power, but as fighting defensive wars for themselves and their allies. However, the Roman system of alliance building - and sometimes provoking other countries - frequently "pulled" Rome into wars anyway. And Roman generals who really wanted a war could often invent justifications for it. Caesar's conquest of Gaul is one of many wars that started as "protecting an ally from invasion" but which soon became opportunistic power-grabs.

Even so, this self-concept as "defenders" partly explains why the Romans mostly left defeated Italian communities intact, only demanding troop levies and sometimes confiscating part of the land. Draining conquered peoples dry or wiping them out was not the goal, and the Romans actually prided themselves on being relatively "merciful" to their neighbors (by classical standards). However, as Rome's sphere of influence grew, and the distance from Rome to defeated (and potentially rebellious) communities increased, they began stationing permanent military outposts in certain regions.

Roman colonies originated as military outposts. They served a quadruple purpose: 1) to punish communities that had rebelled or fought wars against Rome; 2) to reward Roman veterans; 3) to relieve economic tensions in Rome itself; and 4) to suppress further rebellion by maintaining Roman outposts in the region.

This is in contrast to Greek and Phoenician colonies, which were usually established by traders, and the USA's westward expansion, which aimed to replace indigenous peoples en masse.

Similarly, the word "province" originally referred to a task or assignment, not a geographic area. A proconsul might be assigned the "province" of Spain of Sicily in the sense of "keep this region from revolting."

Economic exploitation came later. The Punic Wars marked a turning point in which Rome stationed generals overseas for extended periods of time to prevent insurgency among subject peoples, not Italian allies who were acknowledged as mostly self-governing. These generals had immense latitude to do as they saw fit, and with the promise of armed protection, Roman businessmen soon saw opportunities for mining, slave plantations, and more. This is also why Spain, Sicily, and certain other regions were abused much more harshly than Italy itself.

In the 1st century BCE we see a slow shift toward conquest of lands being sought for its own sake, rather than as a by-product of war. By the reign of Augustus, writers imagined Rome conquering the whole world.

Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul occurred midway through this ideological shift. Hence he felt the need to justify his conquest by presenting his side of the story in his Commentaries, but the public response to his needless invasion of Britain was overwhelmingly positive. Conquest, if successful, was beginning to justify itself.

However, the Romans also gradually came to see themselves as responsible for the government of long-term provinces, and take measures to curb abuse of provincials. Caesar himself installed one of the biggest reforms limiting corruption. (Yes, he was a bit of a hypocrite...)

The gradual expansion of citizenship across the empire and military recruitment from provincials gradually put pressure on the Romans to value more than just Italian interests. We first see this with Julius Caesar's attempt to extend Latin Rights to Sicily and citizenship to Cisalpine Gauls; it reached its final form when the Edit of Caracalla made all free inhabitants of the empire citizens in 212 CE. The "Romanization" of Europe did not happen by displacing the original inhabitants of provinces, but by incorporating them.

Sources: SPQR by Mary Beard; A Companion to the Roman Republic, ed. Rosenstein and Morstein-Marx, chapters 6-7. See also my previous post on this topic.

#jlrrt reads #a companion to the roman republic #nathan rosenstein #robert morstein-marx #colonialism #imperialism #there were some cases of mass displacement and genocide btw. but at the risk of hair-splitting: these occurred as part of wars #rather than as the goal of roman colonialism per se #jlrrt essays

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