Roman expansion and

imperialism
 Questions

“If Fabius was constantly ridiculed for his
personality/military strategies, why was he
consul five times and dictator twice?”

Choices made by Plutarch on content

Not believing in gods / human sacrifice

“What type of corruption were the Vestal
Virgins charged with?”
Roman expansion and
imperialism
 Readings for Thursday

1) Livy’s description of the debate on the

Oppian Law, 195 BCE
2) Livy on the banned Bacchanalian rites
3) The inscription called the Senatus
Consultum de Baccanalibus, 186 BCE
(NOT written by Livy!)
Found 1640 in Tiriolo (Southern Italy)
 Readings/lectures

• How do the Romans see their interactions

with other cultures? The impact of other
cultures on them?
• How do Romans see the arc of their own
history?
• What kinds of interactions does Rome find
unthreatening? Threatening?
 Today’s themes
• Conquering Carthage and turning east
• Methods of control
– Provinces, extended magistracies
– Client kingdoms
– Publicani (tax farmers)
– Cultural influence/extension of citizenship
• Impacts on Rome
– Changes due to the Second Punic War?
– Political consequences
– Religious influences
– Cultural influences
 General phases
• Expansion within Italy
– Rome vs. the Latins (?-338 BCE)
– Samnite wars (343-290 BCE)
– Pyrrhic war (280-275 BCE)
• Expansion in the western Mediterranean
– Punic wars (264-146 BCE)
• Expansion in the eastern Mediterranean
– Illyrian and Macedonian wars (229-168 BCE)
– Syrian war (192-189 BCE)
– Achaean war (146 BCE)
The Treaty
Aftermath of Second Punic War
• Overseas war – longer campaigns
• Rome was firmly into extra-Italian
expansion
• Provinces in Spain and Sicily
• Damage to fields and farmers in 2nd war
– Movement from farms into the city
– Farms increasingly owned by large land-
holders rather than family farmers
 The Eastern Mediterranean
• 500s – 400s BCE, domination
of Greek city-states; Persia
• Long, established history of
political and cultural
importance
• Philip II and Alexander the
Great (death of Alexander:
323 BCE)
• Rearrangement of power
structures – ‘Successor
Kingdoms’
• After 2nd Punic War, Rome is
one of many regional powers
Rome and the East
 The Eastern Mediterranean
• Greek city states (Aetolian
League, Achaean League)
• Northern Greek kingdoms:
Macedonia (Antigonids),
Epirus, Illyria (not Greek or
Macedonian)
• Eastern kingdoms:
Ptolemies (Egypt), Seleucids
(‘Asia’), Attalids (Pergamum)
• Further east: Parthia, Greco-
Bactrian kingdoms, Mauryan
Empire (India)
 Second Macedonian War 200-196
• Rome sends army to
Greece on request of
Aetolian league,
Pergamum
• T. Quinctius Flamininus
defeats Philip V at
Cynoscephalae in 197
• Declares ‘freedom of
the Greeks’ in 194 –
what does this mean?
 Syrian War 192-189
• Antiochus III, Seleucid king, tries to
expand into Greece
 Syrian War 192-189
• L. Cornelius Scipio,
brother of
Africanus, defeats
Antiochus at
Magnesia in 189
• Peace of Apamea:
Has to give up Asia
Minor, which is
distributed among
Roman allies
Third Macedonian War 171-168
• After attempted expansion
by Macedonia, king of
Pergamum complains to
Rome
• Perseus, son of Philip V,
defeated at Pydna by L.
Aemilius Paullus in 168
BCE
• Macedonia dismantled,
Aeolian and Achaean
Leagues punished, send
hostages (including
Polybius)
 Third Punic War 149-146
• Conflict between Carthage
and Masinissa in Numidia –
breaks treaty
• Cato the Elder: “Carthage
must be destroyed”
(Carthago delenda est)
• Scipio Aemilianus
• Total destruction after siege
• Roman province of Africa
 Achaean War
• Achaean confederacy
revolts
• Total destruction of
Corinth in 146 BCE
• L. Mummius
• Confederacy
dissolved, large
amounts of art, etc.
back to Rome
 Methods of control
• Provinces
– Sicily in 211, Africa in 146, Asia in 133 BCE
– Technically, the territory which a magistrate with imperium was
assigned
– Consuls and then additional numbers of praetors
– Eventually, promagistrates – imperium lasts longer than one year
 Methods of control
• Client kingdoms
– Mostly it was easier for Rome
not to have direct control
– Would leave a loyal member
of the royal family in control
– As long as Rome got troops
and money, worked well for
them
– Not necessarily a fixed status
 Methods of control
• Extension of citizenship
– Earlier on, expansion of citizenship to entire
communities, but this slows down/stops
– Occasional citizenship for foreign elites, after service in
Roman army
• Publicani (tax farmers)
– Earlier on, unclear but partially private system of
collecting taxes
– At the end of the middle Republic, especially in the
east, primary method of taxation in the east is selling
contracts to collect taxes
 Impacts on Rome
• Political consequences
– Overseas wars mean
long-term wars
– Longer military
commands, repeated
commands in times of
emergency, regular
promagistracies
– Tension in the
expansion of a system
meant for a small city to
now ruling a huge and
varied area
 Impacts on Rome
• In the aftermath of the Second Punic War
especially (maybe): shift from citizen
farmer to latifundia (large farming business
operated by slaves)
• Growth of urban plebs/urban poor
• Increased wealth disparities
• Eventual shortage of soldiers
 Impacts on Rome
• Hellenism
– Increased and direct
influence of Greece on
Rome culturally
– Literature, art, philosophy
etc.
– Scipionic Circle
(including Polybius)
 Impacts on Rome
• Hellenism and wealth
– Especially after the destruction
of Corinth by Mummius in 146
BCE, huge amounts of art and
wealth imported into Rome
– Orientalism: both Greece and
later Rome have perceptions of
‘the east’ as wealthy, luxurious,
effeminate, corrupting
– Fear of change to Rome’s
traditional moral principles and
religious practices
 Sallust on problems
“But when our country had grown great through toil and the
practice of justice, when great kings had been vanquished
in war, savage tribes and mighty peoples subdued by force
of arms, when Carthage, the rival of Rome's sway, had
perished root and branch, and all seas and lands were
open, then Fortune began to grow cruel and to bring
confusion into all our affairs. Those who had found it easy
to bear hardship and dangers, anxiety and adversity, found
leisure and wealth, desirable under other circumstances, a
burden and a curse. Hence the lust for money first, then for
power, grew upon them; these were, I may say, the root of
all evils.”

- Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 10