Roman Empire

I

Introduction

Roman Empire, political system established by Rome that lasted for nearly five centuries. Historians usually date the beginning of the Roman Empire from 27 bc when the Roman Senate gave Gaius Octavius the name Augustus and he became the undisputed emperor after years of bitter civil war. At its peak the empire included lands throughout the Mediterranean world. Rome had first expanded into other parts of Italy and neighboring territories during the Roman Republic (509-27 bc), but made wider conquests and solidified political control of these lands during the empire. The empire lasted until Germanic invasions, economic decline, and internal unrest in the 4th and 5th centuries ad ended Rome’s ability to dominate such a huge territory. The Romans and their empire gave cultural and political shape to the subsequent history of Europe from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the present day.

In 44 bc Gaius Julius Caesar, the Roman leader who ruled the Roman Republic as a dictator, was assassinated. Rome descended into more than ten years of civil war and political upheaval. After Caesar’s heir Gaius Octavius (also known as Octavian) defeated his last rivals, the Senate in 27 bc proclaimed him Augustus, meaning the exalted or holy one. In this way Augustus established the monarchy that became known as the Roman Empire. The Roman Republic, which had lasted nearly 500 years, was dead, never to be revived. The empire would endure for another 500 years until ad 476 (See Ancient Rome).

The emperor Augustus reigned from 27 bc to ad 14 and ruled with absolute power. He reestablished political and social stability and launched two centuries of prosperity called the Roman Peace (Pax Romana). Under his rule the Roman state began its transformation into the greatest and most influential political institution in European history. During the first two centuries ad the empire flourished and added new territories, notably ancient Britain, Arabia, and Dacia (present-day Romania). People from the Roman provinces streamed to Rome, where they became soldiers, bureaucrats, senators, and even emperors. Rome developed into the social, economic, and cultural capital of the Mediterranean world. Despite the attention given to tyrannical and often vicious leaders like the emperors Caligula and Nero, most emperors ruled sensibly and competently until military and economic disasters brought on the political instability of the 3rd century ad.

The Roman Empire encompassed a huge amount of territory, but also allowed people of many different cultures to retain their heritage into modern times. The empire helped to perpetuate the art, literature, and philosophy of the Greeks, the religious and ethical system of the Jews, the new religion of the Christians, Babylonian astronomy and astrology, and cultural elements from Persia, Egypt, and other eastern civilizations. The Romans supplied their own peculiar talents for government, law, and architecture and also spread their Latin language. In this way they created the Greco-Roman synthesis, the rich combination of cultural elements that for two millennia has shaped what we call the Western tradition.

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The Romans formed that synthesis during the longest continuous period of peaceful prosperity that the Mediterranean world has ever known. Even after a German invader in ad 476 deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor residing in Rome, emperors who called themselves “Roman” (although they are known historically as Byzantine) continued to rule in Constantinople until ad 1453 (See Byzantine Empire). The impact of the Roman people endures until the present day.

II

The Foundations of Empire

After the founding of Rome in 753 bc, powerful kings ruled until, according to patriotic legend, the Romans expelled the last foreign monarch in 509 bc and established a more representative form of government known as the Roman Republic. In the five centuries the republic existed, Rome expanded from a small community on the hills beside the Tiber River into the major power of the Mediterranean world. After centuries of warfare the Romans conquered other peoples who lived in the surrounding regions and by 266 bc controlled the entire Italian Peninsula.

The Romans then embarked on their conquest of the rest of the Mediterranean basin. First they defeated their great rival, Carthage, whose possessions, including Sicily, Spain, and North Africa, became Roman provinces. During the 2nd and 1st centuries bc, Rome’s military forces, known as legions, fought against kings and city-states in the eastern Mediterranean to bring Greece, Asia Minor (roughly modern Turkey), Syria, Judea, and Egypt under Roman control. In the west, Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, which included all of modern France, so that the Roman frontiers extended from the Sahara to the North Sea and from Spain to the Near East.

This remarkable military achievement transformed the Romans themselves. Roman imperialism introduced extremes of wealth and poverty that sharpened social and economic conflict within the Roman state. The flood of military plunder and captured slaves dramatically changed the countryside as small farms gave way to large plantations, and landless peasants migrated to Rome and other cities. Immense wealth inflamed the ambitions of Roman nobles who struggled for personal domination rather than collective rule. The historian Sallust expressed the view of later Romans who believed that the wealth of empire corrupted the once noble Roman people. Nearly a century of intermittent civil war, which extended from the rule of the Gracchi, beginning about 133 bc, to the death of Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 bc, threatened to destroy the unity and prosperity of Rome itself (See also Gracchus, Gaius Sempronius and Gracchus, Tiberius Sempronius).

In 49 bc Caesar, who had held many of the highest political offices in Rome, marched into Italy to challenge the leaders of the republic. After defeating his enemies, he ruled as dictator until his murder on the Ides of March (March 15 by the Roman calendar) in 44 bc. Caesar’s assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, hoped to restore the republic, but it was no longer possible. Neither the urban masses nor the military would allow the old aristocracy to regain control.

Rome needed a strong hand to administer the state and control the army, since the old system of government was unsuitable to rule an empire of 50 million subjects. If Rome wanted to maintain its dominance, the government needed to create new administrative and military institutions. Caesar planned to transform the Roman state, but his few years in power were insufficient. His followers included his longtime military deputy, Mark Antony, and his great-nephew (and adopted son), Octavian. They first defeated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, a city of ancient Macedonia, in 42 bc before turning on each other. By 30 bc Octavian was the unchallenged successor to Caesar and the master of Rome. Three years later the Senate proclaimed him Augustus, the supreme ruler.

III

The Empire Under Augustus

Octavian’s victory over Antony made him master of Rome, but it did not resolve the conflicts that had destroyed the Roman Republic. His most pressing tasks included demobilizing the huge armies, safeguarding their future loyalty, and ensuring the safety of the European frontiers that Rome had neglected during long civil wars in the east. He also needed to make the Italians an integral part of Roman social, cultural and political life. Rome had conquered people of various cultural and linguistic backgrounds who inhabited the Italian Peninsula and had only granted citizenship sparingly, causing some bitter feelings. Augustus worked to reduce class hostility and civil unrest in the capital and established an administrative apparatus to govern the empire. To accomplish these changes, he devised a new form of monarchy.

His first step was to repair the bitter wounds of civil war. On January 13 of 27 bc, Octavian, in his own words, “transferred the Republic from my own power to the authority of the Senate and the Roman people.” This action showed shrewd political planning, as Augustus used it purely for public show. The Senate awarded him the name of Augustus, and mobs demanded that he retain power. Augustus carefully retained the titles of traditional offices to disguise his absolute power. He kept only the offices of consul and proconsul and claimed that he held no more power than his colleagues. Some Romans complained that the loss of liberty was too great a price to pay for peace, but most recognized that under the so-called liberty of the Roman Republic, a few hundred men had divided the spoils of empire while the workers and the provincials suffered. The majority of Romans welcomed the peace and stability of the Augustan Age.

A

Government

Augustus did not derive his power from any single office, but from the authority of his name and his victory. In fact, he carefully pieced together a patchwork of powers that allowed him to be an absolute ruler and yet avoid the hatred Caesar aroused as dictator. In Latin, the name Augustus implies both political authority and religious respect. The Romans had for some time called Octavian imperator, a title once awarded to victorious generals that soon became associated with the ruler and thus led to the English word emperor. In 27 bc he was first called princeps (leading man of the state), which later became the official title of the Roman emperors. His imperium, or military authority, extended throughout the empire and was greater than the power of any other governor or general.

Augustus, in reality, held as much power as any absolute dictator, but wisely disguised it with traditional names so that the other Roman officials, and particularly senators, would still feel pride in their positions. The Senate was not an elected body; it drew its membership from the Roman aristocratic classes, primarily former magistrates who had served in important administrative posts. To be a senator was a matter of status, not a formal job. Under the republic, the Senate held great authority as the institution that preserved Roman knowledge and tradition and became the dominant force in religion, public policy, and foreign affairs. Senators jealously guarded the power and the wealth that resulted from their role in Roman government.

Augustus resigned the consulship in 23 bc as a gesture to satisfy senators who were anxious to receive consular honors themselves. He rarely held that title again. Augustus instead assumed the powers of a tribune, the republican official who represented the people and had the power to propose or veto legislation. The Romans heaped other honors upon him, including the office of censor, which enabled him to control the membership of the Senate. They also made him pontifex maximus, the head of the state religion, and finally pater patriae or “father of the country.” These offices and titles gave Augustus no real additional power, for he already controlled every aspect of religious, civil, and military life.

Augustus’s main task was to create and staff new administrative structures for the empire. During the republic, the government had ruled the provinces ineffectively. Provincial governorships were seen as opportunities for enrichment or as stepping-stones to higher office. Augustus was determined to improve imperial administration by making senators managers rather than politicians. He focused primarily on the talents of the individual senators who became policy advisors, provincial governors, military commanders, and senior administrators. An advisory council of senators set the legislative agenda and made recommendations to the emperor. This system allowed him to work with many senators whom he might later select for high office.

Augustus worked to reinvigorate the senatorial order, whose membership had declined as a result of political persecutions and civil war. Like any politician, he turned first to supporters who had proved their loyalty. During the civil wars, the Italians were his most devoted followers, and he generously included them in the new regime. Gaius Maecenas, who was descended from an Etruscan noble family, became the emperor’s closest domestic advisor, and the general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who was also of Italian descent, married the emperor’s daughter, Julia. Augustus even brought talented but landless Italians into the Senate by giving them the land or money necessary to meet the minimum property qualification for senators, which was 1 million sesterces (small silver coins used by the Romans).

An empire of 50 million people needed more administrators than the Senate could provide. Augustus turned to the equestrian order—those citizens with a high level of property or wealth (over 400,000 sesterces)—and asked them to perform a wide range of administrative tasks. The members of the order, known as equites, filled financial positions in Rome and abroad. They even acted as governors in some smaller provinces such as Judea, where the equestrian Pontius Pilate ruled. The highest equestrian offices commanded so much power that Augustus preferred not to entrust them to ambitious senators. These posts included the prefect, or commander, of the grain supply, the prefect of Egypt, and the praetorian prefect, who controlled troops in Rome and Italy.

In addition to establishing a basic administrative structure, Augustus also had to monitor the everyday issues of taxation and local services. As a result of the civil war, the state treasury was empty. Augustus, after his conquest of Egypt, had personally received the accumulated treasure of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra and her predecessors as well as a vast ongoing income from Egyptian production, trade, and taxes. He contributed large amounts of this income to the treasury, which he carefully recorded in his public memoirs. He also replaced the corrupt private tax collectors with state employees and managed to balance Rome’s budget. For the first time, he established public police and fire protection for Rome and kept close control over grain distribution and the water supply.

People in the provinces outside of Rome welcomed the new regime of Augustus with enthusiasm. Augustus planned to integrate the Italians into all aspects of Roman life. When he came to power, the people of Italy remained a mixture of different cultures. Many southern Italians still used Greek, people in the mountain areas spoke different Italic languages, and the Etruscan language had only recently died out. The economic growth that followed the long period of civil war enriched the towns and drew Italy together, but Augustus truly unified ancient Italy culturally, politically, and economically. Under his rule the provinces fared better than they had under the corrupt governors and greedy tax collectors of the republic.

In the east, Augustus initially followed the republican tradition of allowing the rulers of conquered peoples, often called subject kings, to remain in power and to administer their own territories. This policy allowed Rome to send her legions elsewhere. Eventually, however, local squabbles over royal succession led the emperors to turn kingdoms like Judea, Armenia, and Galatia into Roman provinces. In those areas the former royal estates then became the emperor’s personal property, while the province as a whole was regarded as territory of the Roman state. The emperor governed the provinces that had a large military presence—western Asia, Africa, and Gaul —through his deputies. Egypt became the most reliable source of food for Italy because it was so agriculturally productive. As a result, the Roman emperors kept Egypt as personal property, governed by a prefect, and the Egyptians worshiped the emperors as successors to their own great kings, the pharaohs. See also Thematic Essay: Roman Political and Social Thought.

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