Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (37 page)

ficacy of the Roman army; it is that the military aspect of insurgency

and counter insurgency, and of empire itself, is only the tip of the ice-

berg. The Romans ruled because their social relationships reached

every where—or at least, they reached far. Those relationships could be

manipulated by anyone. Postulating a tense and dynamic network of

relationships in which al actors vigorously pursue what they believe to

be their own interests—a network that may have gaps and holes, and

in which alternative networks only loosely connected to the dominant

one also operate—might be the most effective way to envision empire.

In its foreign policy, the United States faces problems similar to

those of al ancient and modern empires. In particular, the occupation

178 Mattern

of overseas territory is always expensive and difficult, and the “ruling”

power always governs as a tiny minority. It has become fashionable in

the last decade to look to the Roman Empire for lessons applicable to

modern times. Some of this has seeped outside the universities and the

Beltway and into popular culture.48 Fundamental economic, technologi-

cal (imagine the Romans with nuclear weapons), demographic, and so-

cial differences between the modern and premodern worlds make this

lesson-seeking a very chal enging activity, and not everyone agrees that

the analogy is appropriate or the scholarly endeavor justified. I myself

have expressed skepticism on this question.49 But when I am asked to

comment on the practical lessons of Roman history, my response, with

these caveats, focuses on the critical role of social institutions in holding

the Roman Empire together. The Romans ruled because, as a col ective

“state” and as individuals, the ruling class’s network of dependencies,

favors owed, and negotiated relationships extended everywhere. Where

the Roman social network did not extend, or where part of the ruling

class chose to deploy its own network against the interests of another

part, there trouble arose. Rome succeeded because it drew on, or built,

a common social and cultural language with the elites of the territories

subject to it, and because many powerful elements of its subjects’ popu-

lations found it in their best interest to recognize Roman authority. The

nearest modern paral el may be the “global vil age” created by telecom-

munications technology, financial institutions, free trade, and the con-

sumer tastes and interests that link international communities today. A

focus on shared economic and cultural interests rather than on ideology

is a promising direction for foreign policy in the future.

Further Reading

The subject of revolt and insurgency has received inadequate attention from scholars.

Two articles by Stephen Dyson, “Native Revolts in the Roman Empire” (
Historia
20

[1971]: 239–74) and “Native Revolt Patterns in the Roman Empire” (
Aufstieg und Nieder-

gang der römischen Welt
[Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975], 2, 3:138–75), are stil important.

On banditry, the work of Brent D. Shaw, especial y his classic “Bandits in the Roman

Empire” (
Past and Present
105 [1984]: 3–52), has been most influential. Benjamin Isaac has

done much to cal attention to the function of Rome’s army as an occupying force, con-

trol ing the population and policing for banditry and other smal -scale threats:
The Limits

of Empire: The Roman Army in the East
, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992). On the Jewish

Counterinsurgency 179

revolt, the most influential study is by Martin Goodman,
The Ruling Class of Judaea: The

Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome, a.d. 66–70
(New York: Cambridge University

Press, 1987); and now see his more general work,
Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient

Civilizations
(New York: Knopf, 2007). On personal power in the Roman Empire, impor-

tant works are Richard P. Sal er,
Personal Patronage under the Early Empire
(Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1982); Brent D. Shaw, “Tyrants, Bandits and Kings: Personal

Power in Josephus” (
Journal of Jewish Studies
49 [1993]: 176–204); the essays col ected in

Patronage in Ancient Society
, ed. Andrew Wal ace-Hadril (London: Routledge, 1989); and

Fergus Mil ar’s
The Emperor in the Roman World
, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornel University

Press, 1992). J. E. Lendon,
Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World

(Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), is critical to understanding how personal power operated.

Erich S. Gruen’s
The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome
, 2 vols. (Berkeley and

Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984) revolutionized our understanding of

Roman imperialism by refocusing attention on the institutions and political struggles

of its future subjects, showing how only a thorough understanding of these can explain

how Rome became involved in a region and the shape that its domination took. Other

important works on nonmilitary aspects of Roman imperial control are Greg Woolf,

Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul
(Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1998), and Clifford Ando,
Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the

Roman Empire
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000).

notes

1 On population, see most recently Walter Scheidel, “Demography,” in
The Cam-

bridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
, ed. Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and

Richard Saller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 45–49. On the size of

the army, for a summary of arguments, see Susan P. Mattern,
Rome and the Enemy:

Imperial Strategy in the Principate
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California

Press, 1999), 82–83. On taxes as a fraction of GDP, for a summary of arguments see

Elio Lo Cascio, “The Early Roman Empire: The State and the Economy,” in Scheidel

et al.,
The Cambridge Economic History
, 622–25. On subsistence levels and per capita in-

come, Jongman argues that overall per capita income was relatively high for antiquity,

though very low by modern standards (Willem M. Jongman, “The Early Roman Em-

pire: Consumption,” in Scheidel et al.,
The Cambridge Economic History
, 592–619), but

wages for unskilled workers still barely exceeded, or failed to meet, subsistence levels

for a family, even if women and children also worked (Walter Scheidel, “Real Wages in

Early Economies: Evidence for Living Standards from 2000 BCE to 1300 CE,” Version 1.0,

March 2008, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics).

2 The classic study of Ramsay MacMullen,
Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman

Empire
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), is still important. See also

Benjamin Isaac,
The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East
, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clar-

endon, 1992), chaps. 3 and 6; Richard Alston,
Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt: A Social

History
(London: Routledge, 1995), chap. 5.

180 Mattern

3 On the difficult topic of Romanization, see Greg Woolf,
Becoming Roman: The Ori-

gins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);

Ramsay MacMullen,
Romanization in the Time of Augustus
(New Haven, CT: Yale Uni-

versity Press, 2000) (for the figure 200,000, 132); and see Alston,
Soldier
, chap. 3.

4 On the size of the Roman government, see J. E. Lendon,
Empire of Honour: The Art

of Government in the Roman World
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 2–4.

5 Keith Hopkins, “Taxes and Trade in the Roman Empire (200 B.C.–A.D. 400),”
Jour-

nal of Roman Studies
70 (1980): 101–25; Woolf,
Becoming Roman
; Clifford Ando,
Imperial
Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University

of California Press, 2000).

6 On this last point, see Mattern,
Rome
, chap. 3.

7 Thomas Pekáry, “
Seditio
. Unruhen und Revolten im römischen Reich von Augus-

tus bis Commodus,”
Ancient Society
18 (1987): 133–50.

8 Brent Shaw, “Bandits in the Roman Empire,”
Past and Present
105 (1984): 3–52, dis-

cussed further below.

9 The most influential study of the Jewish revolt is still Martin Goodman,
The Rul-

ing Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome, a.d. 66–70
(New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1987).

10 On revolts, see Mattern,
Rome
, 100–104 and 191–94 with references. Scholarly

consensus now places the Battle of Teutoburg at Kalkreise in Lower Saxony. On this

much-studied event, see recently Adrian Murdoch,
Rome’s Greatest Defeat: Massacre in

the Teutoburg Forest
(Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton, 2006).

11 Isaac,
Limits
, chap. 2; Stephen Dyson, “Native Revolts in the Roman Empire,”
His-

toria
20 (1971): 239–74; see also Woolf,
Becoming Roman
, 30–33. On Roman representa-

tions, see Greg Woolf, “Roman Peace,” in
War and Society in the Roman World
, ed. J. Rich

and G. Shipley, 171–94 (London: Routledge, 1993).

12 Stephen Dyson, “Native Revolt Patterns in the Roman Empire,” in
Aufstieg und

Niedergang der römischen Welt
, II.3, 138–75.

13 False Neros: see Pekáry, “
Seditio
,” under the years 69, 79–81, and 88–89 CE. Trajan’s

edict: Pliny the Younger
Letters
10.34, and see 10.117. Christians: Pliny the Younger
Let-

ters
10.96.

14 On genocide, see Mattern,
Rome
, 120–21, 192–94 for references. On Tiberius’s and

Germanicus’s wars of revenge, see ibid., 90, 120, 189.

15 Mutilation: Dio Cassius 53.29 (Spain). Deportation: Dio Cassius 53.29 (Spain). The

Bar-Kokhba revolt: Dio Cassius 69.14.1, and see Mattern,
Rome
, 193–94, for further refer-

ences. Calgacus’s speech: Tacitus
Agricola
30. Polybius on how Romans sacked cities:

10.15–17. Josephus on the invincibility of the Romans:
Jewish War
, 2.365–87.

16 On the size of the Roman army and the commitment of troops, see Mattern,

Rome
, 81–109.

17 See Richard A. Horsley, “The Sicarii: Ancient Jewish ‘Terrorists,’”
Journal of Reli-

gion
59 (1979): 435–58, quotation at 440.

18 Horsley, “Sicarii,” 442–44; Josephus,
Jewish War
, 7.253–55.

19 For what follows, see Shaw, “Bandits,” 3–52. This and other studies of Roman-era

banditry have been deeply influenced by the classic work of Eric J. Hobsbawm,
Bandits
,

Counterinsurgency 181

first published in 1969 (4th ed., New York: New Press, 2000), and his description of the

“social bandit.”

20 On banditry in Judaea, see Isaac,
Limits
, 77–89, and idem, “Bandits in Judaea and

Arabia,”
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
88 (1984): 171–203. Isaac argues subtly from

rabbinic evidence that most Judaean banditry had an ideological or political element of

resistance to Rome. On the caves, see Isaac,
Limits
, 84–85. Also on banditry in Judaea,

see Brent D. Shaw, “Tyrants, Bandits and Kings: Personal Power in Josephus,”
Journal of

Jewish Studies
49 (1993): 176–204. On Isauria, see idem, “Bandit Highlands and Lowland

Peace,”
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
33, no.2 (1990): 199–233,

and 33, no.3 (1990): 237–70. On banditry in Egypt, including the
Boukoloi
, see Alston,

Soldier
, 81–86.

21 Hunting: e.g., Dio Cassius 75.2.4 (Shaw, “Bandits,” 43), and see next note.

22 See Fronto
To Antoninus Pius
8 (discussed in Shaw, “Bandits,” 10–12) for Julius

Sextus, a friend noteworthy for his “military zeal in hunting and suppressing bandits”

whom Fronto will bring with him to his province of Asia; see also
Digest
1.18.13 (dis-

cussed in Shaw, “Bandits,” 14) on the duty of a governor to hunt bandits; on hired assas-

sins, see Shaw, “Bandits,” 16–18 with n. 35.

23 Shaw, “Bandits,” 19.

24 Shaw, “Bandits,” 37–38.

25 Suetonius
Augustus
32 and
Tiberius
37; Shaw, “Bandits,” 33–34.

26 Roads: Isaac,
Limits
, 102–15; Alston,
Soldier
, 81–83. Frontier systems: Shaw, “Ban-

dits,” 12 with n. 26, and see Mattern,
Rome,
113–14 for further references. Cilician inner

frontier: Shaw, “Bandit Highlands,” 237–38.

27 Shaw, “Bandits,” 12–14 and n. 26 for references to military commands against ban-

dits. Cicero’s campaigns are attested in his letters; for references and discussion, see

Shaw, “Bandits,” 14; idem, “Bandit Highlands,” 223–26. Tacitus
Annals
6.41, 12.55; Shaw,

“Bandit Highlands,” 230.

28 On hiring, see Shaw, “Tyrants,” 199–200, for a case attested in Josephus; on recruit-