The Development of Roman Imperialism J.-A. North The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 71 (1981), 1-9. Stable URL: bttp//links jstor.org/sici?sici=0075-4358%281981%2971%3C1%3ATDORIG3E2.0,CO%3B2.N The Journal of Roman Studies is currently published by Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhup://uk,jstor.org/abouvterms.himl. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you ‘may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hup:/Fuk.jstor.org/journalsisprs.himl Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, STOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals, For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact jstor-info@ umich edu, hups/uk jstororg/ “Tuo Jan 20 23:33:23 2008‘THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROMAN IMPERIALISM * By J. A. NORTH. 1 William Harris’ War and Imperialism (Oxford, 1979) has already received a long review in last year’s Journal (70 (1980) 177 f. by A. N. Sherwin White ; but the importance of the book and of its theme clearly justifies further discussion of the essential problems raised. In any case, the review concentrated almost entirely on points of disagreement and hardly stated a position on the general questions raised by Harris’ work. What is more the author and his reviewer, sharp though their disagreements may be, seem to share a range of assumptions about the scope of the problem and the appropriate methods of dealing with it; in my view, these assumptions need to be stated and examined. ‘The first point to be emphasized is that Harris’ book is intended to deal with a specific, limited problem and that Sherwin White’s review accepts its chosen scope as appropriate. ‘They are both locked in a particular academic controversy, whose terms were set by Mommsen, Holleaux and most recently by Badian’s Roman Imperialism. ‘The view has been widely held that the Romans did not have a consciously aggressive policy towards the rest of their world ; that their wars tended to happen either because of their fear of threats to their security, or the security of their boundaries, or in defence of their allies’ interests. ‘They were not therefore conscious imperialists. Moreover—and this is the part of the thesis, especially stressed by Badian in consciously anti-Marxist polemic—they had no economic purposes at all; if economic consequences followed, they were unintended consequences, at least until the late republican period. ‘The net result was that they had no open aspiration to conquest, domination, and expansion. Important evidence for the view is derived from Roman policy towards the East, at least down to 148 n.c. and possibly longer still. Tt is said that they repeatedly conquered kings and peoples, but then took no steps towards the consolidation of imperial rule. ‘Their idea was quick victory, a bag of loot, a string of slaves and back home. A determinant factor in the evolution of these attitudes Was the ius fetiale, the priestly law which controlled the initiation of war-making and which laid it down that wars would not be iusta and therefore not receive the necessary divine support, unless the ‘enemy had (a) performed wrongful and aggressive acts, (b) been given the time and oppor- tunity for proper reparations to be made, (¢) received a formal declaration of war, duly made, with the appropriate ritual gestures and prayers. ‘The major achievement of War and Imperialism is surely that it makes this view virtually untenable in the form in which T have stated it: at the very least, defensive imperialism will need to be re-stated in a new form to deal with Harris’ critique. For this reason alone, the book deserves to be given far more credit that Sherwin White seems prepared to allow it. ‘The thesis as argued may be carried rather too far and some aspects of the defensive view can certainly still be maintained, as T shall try to suggest below ; but the central contentions of the book seem to me to be fully established. I should summarize them as: (x) Both the expectations and the social ethos of Romans of high and low status were geared to regular war-making; they had the attitudes and habits which go with this way of life. (2) Many Romans, including all those who had a major influence on policy decisions, made, and knew they made, large profits out of warfare and out of the expansion of the Empire, (3) Expansion was a publicly stated aim, uninhibited by the supposed ideology of the ius fetiale. Harris’ remarks on this should be read together with Peter Brunt’s discussion in Garnsey and Whittaker’s Imperialism in the Ancient World (1978), 175 f. (4) Roman wars were often aggressive in intention, even if not formally so. Earlier versions of thin paper were. read te ther annual mestng in Wellingborough Tam very ‘Mila’ seminar in Use tnattute of Clasicel_ grateful for eriteal comment on both occasions, Yo the assembled Ancient fistorians at2 JA. NORTH The first three of these propositions are Harris’ own contentions in Chapters I/II; and I would, in general, accept his position, My fourth proposition is much weaker than the position’ Harris argues in Chapter V. ‘This final chapter seems to me much the least ad- mirable part of the book; it surveys methodically the origins of all the major wars of the period, secking to show that in virtually every case the Romans were the aggressors. Sherwin White is here quite right to object that the arguments are sometimes strained, the analysis at a superficial level and the author too close to his subject, losing the overall development of policy while grinding through war after war. At the beginning of any war, identifying the aggressor is a matter of dispute, between the two sides or even between factions on either side; in the case of republican wars, the sources we have are always one- sided, vitiated by prejudice or just inadequately detailed. ‘The project of proving Rome the aggressor in every case is therefore hopeless; but it is also unnecessary for Harris’ case, because it is perfectly possible to believe that Roman aims were in general expansionist ‘without having to believe that the Romans were the aggressors in every single war they ever fought. Wars begin from complex situations, in which aggression, mutual fear, confusion, accident, bad communications, personal and political ambitions ‘and many other factors play a part. Harris seems to be seeking a simple formula which he can apply to every case. ‘What his argument requires is a broader treatment, not only of why the wars started but of, why they continued ; it is far more important to know why the Romans went on fighting in Sicily for over twenty years, than to know why they took one particular decision in 264 8.c. In Harris! perspective the latter question gets pages of (perfectly sensible) discus- sion, the former only a line or two, ‘With these qualifications, Harris’ arguments must force a thorough reconsideration of the thesis of a defensive Roman imperialism. 1 find it very difficult to see what Sherwin White's position is on this basic issue. His general tenor is to defend and re-assert the ‘traditional’ view, but he does not define or elaborate this; his energies turn rather to defending the Romans against the charge of incessant aggressiveness and to demanding that ‘more account should be taken of real-life complexities, of the limitations of manpower and. of the physical environment of the Mediterranean world, However, he holds without ‘question that the picture offered in the earlier chapters of War and Imperialism is to be accepted, indeed regarded as obvious; and he even seeks to strengthen the case for seeing strong economic pressures on the formation of imperial policy, when he emphasizes the importance of the business interest (180), which he complains Harris unduly neglects. It would seem that an emphasis on the importance of the economic factor is one element common to the book and its reviewer, but it is not easy to see how Sherwin White reconciles this with the belief that Roman war-decisions were regularly defensive in character, if that is in fact his view. On one very important issue, Sherwin White has damaging criticisms to make of War and Imperialism; it is on this point that part of the defensive case can and should still be defended. ‘This is the treatment by Rome of those areas which were conquered in the first half of the second century, but not provincialized or methodically exploited. Harris, tries to show that in each case where conquest was not followed by annexation, there were practical reasons, specific to the particular place and time, which would have, or could have, inhibited the Romans from accepting the obligations of permanent control. We should, he argues, be wrong to conclude that there was any settled reluctance to see the empire expand, only a series of pragmatic judgements, which all happened to go the same way. Sherwin White is surely right to complain that this is the result of the author's standing ‘ too close to the subject ". Taking the areas one by one does not close the argument ; there is also the overall fact that, despite extensive conquests, they did not choose to settle down and extract, revenues in any of the newly subdued territories between 200 and 148 8.c. Even in Mace- donia where they did impose a tax, they did so at a relatively low rate (haif that extracted by Perseus previously). ‘The case of Spain is also suggestive ; John Richardson (JRS 66 (1976) 139 f.) has made it seem extremely probable that, in the early days of Roman control, they taxed only in very erratic ways, levying supplies when armies needed feeding ; and similarly they allowed the mines simply to carry on as before, taking a rake-off, but not taking control, cof management until much later. What all this suggests is that there is far more room than Harris allows for muddle, confusion and unclear thinking. It seems certain that the Romans?