Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
A/N: The following article is drawn almost entirely from Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome by Arthur Eckstein. Eckstein's thesis was very persuasive to me, and so I wrote down what I see as a summarization of his major thoughts.
There's a particular strain of thought, and I myself have been a victim of it in the past- the idea that Rome is exceptional in its aggressiveness and bellicosity, to almost a memetic level. A term that has been used in the past is "psychotic swamp hicks". But after some research and some reading I am beginning to believe that this is an entirely unfair reading of the twelvehill. This is not to say that Rome was not bellicose, not militaristic, not aggressive, but that it developed as much in the environment of classical Italy and the Mediterranean, where every war was existential, where peace was fleeting, and where the opacity of relations between states meant constant feelings of fear and terror- where most states were fragile in their governance, so that the loss of a single war could mean their end. This was an environment of fear, hatred, and war, and could hardly have encouraged peacefulness is anyone involved in it.
Let me first go into why the idea of Rome as the uber-aggressive state comes from, and also introduce some terms. Firstly, the origin of this is long, and goes back to some ideas by later Romans such as Tacitus who specifically attempted to criticize Rome- much of his writings involve a chastising of the Roman way of war and life, and "desert called peace" quote is one that he put into the mouth of a British chief. This line of thought has continued for a long time, exaggerated by admirers such as Napoleon, much like some Romans were obsessive of Alexander and constantly compared themselves to him.
In its modern interpretation, this has taken on a distinctly anti-imperialist narrative bent. Its main proponent is William Harris in War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327-70 bce. Published in 1985, the book argued that Rome was exceptionally violent among the states of the Mediterranean, and that this violence and aggression, to which there could be no effective response as the Romans simply were absolutely obstinate in war beyond reason, was the primary reason for Rome's success. Harris argues an almost pathological aptitude for war among the Romans. Recently, proponents of this theory have moderated it- they say that yes, Rome was not pathologically adapted for war, but the stresses of its environment and early traumas made it exceptionally violent. Many scholars mark the year 348 BCE- when a treaty between Carthage and Rome emphasizes Rome's new primary position among the latin states- as the beginning of "true" Roman expansionism and imperialism. Rome is now a predator, and the world can only watch in horror as the force of nature descends upon them. Rome destroys the culturally rich Greek cities, she lays waste to peaceful Carthage and brutalizes her, Rome destroys the stable state system in the Eastern Mediterranean for its own aggressive aims.
The goal of this is to challenge that. To do that I will first introduce some terms from Realist international relations theory. I won't go too far into realism as a theory- suffice it to say that realism believes that power is the primary motivator in state relations, and interstate conflict, rather than unit attributes (ie, the internal mechanisms of one state) is what determines international relations. Within the system there are generally two types of international systems; hierarchical systems and anarchies. An example of a hierarchical system would be the Holy Roman Empire, ideally- every duke, prince, count, baron, archbishop, and such knows their place, and at the head of the whole conglomeration is the emperor. Hierarchical systems are generally more stable because they have clearly defined rules, generally, and there's a higher power which can arbitrate and intervene in disputes.
By contrast there is the anarchy. In the anarchy there is no overarching hierarchy. This does not mean the absence of international law, but in the case of the Mediterranean world it did, as we will look at below. The anarchy is generally violent and chaotic, but there are a plethora of ways to prevent conflict- but none of these apply to the ancient Mediterranean. The system of anarchies are complex. You can have a unipolar system- the Roman republic circa 150 BCE would be an example of this. By this point Rome is capable of intervening in war with any power without any allies- she has no equals. Then there is a bipolar system, such as the US vs the USSR. Some scholars differentiate a Tripolar systems, with three equal powers. An example of this might be Mameluke Egypt, Safavid Persia, and the Ottoman Turks circa. 1510 right before the Ottomans said "fuck off equality" and conquered one of the three prongs of the system. Then you have multipolar systems, with more than three equal powers. Needless to say such systems are chaotic and complex. In some cases they can be peaceful with great effort- the renaissance peace in Italy was an accomplishment of a balancing act of Naples, Venice, Milan, Florence, and the Papal states. None of these powers could individually dominate the others. More often, though, such systems have continuous war.
One more note on terms- there are three types of states in a system. A status-quo state is satisfied with things as they are and does not want to change the balance of power. A limited revisionist state, like Willhemine Germany, wants to change things to improve its position within the system. And an unlimited revisionist state is one in which it wants to overthrow the entire system due to total dissatisfaction. The best examples are Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany.
With all this in mind...
Let's address the major claims of "Rome as exceptionally warlike."
1. Rome was exceptionally culturally militaristic- glorifying war. This does not hold up to scrutiny. The cultures of the Mediterranean were all essentially honor-based and put heavy emphasis on glory in war. Contrary to anti-semitic stereotypes, the Carthaginians were very warlike and did not shy away from fights. Hannibal did not sprout from nothing, and it would be very peculiar for such a "peaceful people" to have fought the Greeks in Sicily over and over again, often at their own initiation. Around Rome, you had the Etruscans, who practiced regular human sacrifice and were headhunters who likely produced gladiatorial combat- there was no unwalled Etruscan city. The Samnites were similar, with the chronic overpopulation of the Appenines forcing them to expand- they even had a special festival, the ver sacrum, where young men were urged to make their way in the world by leaving their villages and going on the warpath. The Celts were seen as warlike even for the other states of Italy, and made constant, repeated incursions into the peninsula- the threat of the Celts was seen as so great, and fear of them so much, that there was a special, extreme draft in the case of a Celtic invasion of Latium. The mere rumor of a Celtic force going down the Tiber could cause the calling of this draft, which included a huge portion of the fighting men and was economically damaging.
Beyond Italy and the Western Mediterranean, Darius I of Persia praised himself for his skill with all weapons. In classical Greece, Sparta and the melian dialogue is famous, but Perikles was not a stranger to war and the Athenians made repeated attacks against their neighbors and brutalized revolting allies. They also had several aggressive military ceremonies, and all the Greeks put up victory monuments at the sites of battles where they were victorious- war was a fact of life in both classical and Hellenistic Greece. The Diadochi took this a step further- there were regular dedications to Nike, the goddess of victory. Philip V of Macedon actively compared himself to Alexander and made repeated campaigns against everyone around him. The kings of the Hellenistic age almost always fought with their soldiers in the manner of Alexander- it was how they proved their worth, in the absence of more traditional forms of legitimacy. Glory and honor were the name of the day.
By contrast, some of the Roman ceremonies, such as the censorial praying for the "increase of the city" seem rather mild. It is pointed out that the prayer, done by an office concerned with public safety, could simply mean civic increase, not a military one, and in general the glorification of war is a later phenomenon. This should not be a surprise, because compared to many states Rome suffered absolutely horrific losses and population loss. The number of citizen males recorded in the census as reported by Livy fell from 280,000 from the first half of the third century BCE to about 110,000 by 200 BCE. When Rome had to decide to intervene in Macedon in 200 BCE, many citizens were extremely opposed on the basis of war weariness. There were many voices against war in the senate on many opportunities. This was partly self-serving, and I am not saying that Rome was not warlike, but that it was not considerably more warlike than many of its competitors, and indeed the extreme harshness of Roman wars meant that it was harder for them to glorify war than many of their neighbors, because the nature of it meant that such glory could man the lives of thousands of voting citizens. Rome had to consider her constituents.
2. Rome was a predator; she expanded her realm against weaker powers who could do nothing against her. This was not the case. Roman history is full of examples of utter military disaster, and more often than not Rome was not the initiator of hostilities. However, a word must be said about diplomacy in this period. There was no haggling, or concessions, or negotiation. This seems utterly insane to us, but in the honor-bound world of the classical Mediterranean, almost all diplomacy was compellance diplomacy; these were unalterable ultimatums that demanded severe things and were rarely meant to provide an equitable solution- they often led to conflict more often than not, as the recipient could no more afford a loss to their honor by such a concession than the sender could by reducing the terms.
With this in mind, Roman history is full of failed compellance diplomacy. In many cases Rome did not really want to go to war, but the circumstances forced her. The case of Sagantum that led to the Second Punic war was illustrative. The small city was a breach of the Roman agreement with Carthage to respect Carthage's boundary in Spain as the Ebro- the city was south of the Ebro. However, Hannibal would have lost little by simply letting the city exist, as it was tiny and did little to stop Carthaginian expansion. Meanwhile, the Romans could have simply allowed it to fall to the Carthaginian siege that Hannibal initiated, but they were incapable of haggling or negotiating, and the end-result was the war which has been immortalized through games, legends, stories, art, and so on. The point here being that the Second Punic War did not start because Rome was exceptionally bellicose in provoking Carthage, but rather that neither side was able to read the other due to the complete primitiveness of their diplomatic tools, and without any concession, the only option could be war.
Another example illustrates how, often, Rome was not the aggressor. The First Samnite War was perhaps provoked by Rome, but the expansionist power in this case was actually the Samnites. They had been expanding into Campania for some time, and had a treaty with Rome that marked their boundary as the Middle Liris in Southern Latium. However, a city in Campania appealed to Rome- and Rome obliged. Why was this? Rome was an insecure state with very few real boundaries. For a good portion of her history her greatest rival, Veii, was a mere 30 miles from Rome. Pyrrhus, the Greek general who helped the Greek cities of south Italy fight Rome had gotten within 50 miles of the city during his campaigns. The existential threat of a crowded, hostile Italy meant that Rome was constantly on the hunt for allies- and because there was no embassies or ambassadors or even real envoys, they were unaware that this would provoke a furious response from the Samnites. The resulting war was fought almost completely in Campania, which would be a peculiar location for Rome to fight a war considering that Campania was Rome's territory that Samnium was invading, not Samnite territory that Rome was invading.
This is not to say that Rome wasn't the aggressor many times. During the mercenary revolt after the First Punic War in Carthage, Rome annexed Sardinia, an unilateral action that was decried by some senators at home, but was done at the time where Carthage looked about to collapse (an example of how fragile even the strongest states were after a major defeat). Rome also broke treaties- they abrogated one with the Samnites in 321 BCE. They also broke one with Taras that provoked the Pyrrhic wars. But importantly, this was not exceptional. One of the most egregious examples of the disrespect for much of real law in the ancient world was the case of the Achaean League, which controlled a good portion of the Peloponnese in the Hellenistic age. One Achaean city, to fund its wars, enslaved athletes that were on their way to the Panhellenic games at Nemea. Beyond a simple diplomatic treaty, this was a breach of a sacred rite, but the city got no sanction.
The world of Hellenistic interstate anarchy had no room for unenforcable treaties, and the Romans were thus not unique in this respect.
3. Rome was exceptionally obstinate and stubborn- she had different definitions of defeat. This is one particular one that is quoted here a lot- but I believe it is incorrect. The idea that Rome thought only in terms of subjugation and destruction while other states were more nuanced is completely unfair. The other states of the Mediterranean had absolutely no qualms about large-scale state destruction. Two related claims are here- that Rome was more suicidally stubborn, and that Rome was less able to accept smaller gains. Both shall be dealt with examining different cases. The first is the First Punic War.
It is often pointed out that Rome lost many navies and armies in the war but still kept fighting. Peculiarly, there is no mention of the fact that Carthage also lost many navies and armies and kept fighting. That Carthage eventually folded before Rome did is not a symbol that Rome was more obstinate- it was a symbol that Rome was more resilient as a state because of its more robust manpower reserves. But this had little to do with mentality. States did not just fight piecemeal- there were very few "half-hearted" wars in the Mediterranean. The Etruscans, despite being defeated over and over again by Rome, came back and attacked them again and again. Indeed, had it not been for Celtic pressure, Rome might have been destroyed by the Etruscans earlier on and the Etruscans may have risen to prominence. It's hard to say. All across the Mediterranean Interstate Anarchy, cities and peoples fought for their lives. There was no exceptionalism in Rome.
And neither was her territorial aggrandizement particularly unique. There is an old idea that before Rome, there was a stable and peaceful tripolar system in the Eastern Mediterranean between Macedonia, Ptolemaic Egypt, and the Seleukids. However, such a belief should not be taken seriously. The most illustrative example of why this claim is a farce is the crisis that shook the entire eastern Mediterrean in 207 BCE when the Ptolemys, under siege by a native uprising that had crowned their own pharoah, entered an unstable regency for a six year old. Suddenly, one of the pillars of the tripolar system had collapsed. Presumably, if this had been a "peaceful and orderly triumvarite" as said by one scholar, the other diadochi would have jumped to Egypt's aid, extracted some concessions, and stabilized the region.
This is not the case. Instead, Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus III of the Seleukids triggered an absolute panic and international crisis when they made a purported pact, the "Kings' Pact", to partition Ptolemaic Egypt. This resulted in a broad coalition of smaller states who had benefited from the previous system to appeal to Rome, which had just beaten Carthage, to help them. Philip V and Antiochus III were unlimited revisionists- they sought to completely remake the power structure to suit their needs. Both aspired to be like Alexander and identified with him- Antiochus even referred to himself as megas. Both were capable battle commanders.
And both were ready to overturn the system. The result was Rome's intervention- but at first it did not want to stay involved, and after destroying Philip V's army at Cynosephelae, mostly withdrew its forces from Greece. The result was a disaster in which Antiochus exploited the power vacuum, and although at Roman insistence he stayed out of Egypt, encroached on Greece. Due to the vagaries of Roman diplomacy, they had alienated one of the Greek leagues in the area, and in 195 BCE, Antiochus III was invited by it to liberate Greece. He did so.
He lost. And with that, so did the last power capable of standing against Rome. But this story does not illustrate Roman aggression and expansionism in an exceptional manner- though Rome was completely capable of such, but rather that every other state in the Mediterranean was just as interested in expansion, and had no real "limited" gains. There was no one to sanction them for what they had won by right of conquest. The nature of an interstate anarchy with no laws, where every state is opaque to the other, and where security can only be achieved by military strength is one where every power is expansionist.
4. Rome was exceptionally brutal. The scale of Rome's brutality is large and I've examined it myself in the past. I don't think it's exceptional in anything except for the fact that Rome was able to crack the most eggs- that is, had it been Carthage or the Seleukids in the position of world conquerer, there would have been no question of similar treatment and actions. In the ancient world no city was really safe. The Carthaginians destroyed many cities- they wiped out Sagantum, they were terrible in their actions to the Greek Sicilian cities of Selinous and Himera in their late 5th century BCE campaigns. The Greeks were no better to themselves. Athens' actions are evident in examples like the Melian dialogue, but this was not an isolated case. The Greek Italian city of Krotone destroyed the city of Sybaris in 510 and left almost no one alive. Siris, another city in Italy, was wiped out by a coalition against it as well. The successors sacked cities constantly, as they were great sources of loot and there was no real compunction not to. The Samnites sacked Capua and Cumae in the 5th century BCE, and the Celts were practically typecast as sackers of cities in the fears of the northern Italian cities.
What is the point of all this, then? The point is to suggest an alternative view of Rome. That Rome was not exceptionally warlike. They were not "psychopathic swamp hicks". They were simply the state that through a variety of factors fought its way successfully, though with many horrific missteps, through the Mediterranean anarchy.
The real difference between Rome and its competitors?
Rome won.
There's a particular strain of thought, and I myself have been a victim of it in the past- the idea that Rome is exceptional in its aggressiveness and bellicosity, to almost a memetic level. A term that has been used in the past is "psychotic swamp hicks". But after some research and some reading I am beginning to believe that this is an entirely unfair reading of the twelvehill. This is not to say that Rome was not bellicose, not militaristic, not aggressive, but that it developed as much in the environment of classical Italy and the Mediterranean, where every war was existential, where peace was fleeting, and where the opacity of relations between states meant constant feelings of fear and terror- where most states were fragile in their governance, so that the loss of a single war could mean their end. This was an environment of fear, hatred, and war, and could hardly have encouraged peacefulness is anyone involved in it.
Let me first go into why the idea of Rome as the uber-aggressive state comes from, and also introduce some terms. Firstly, the origin of this is long, and goes back to some ideas by later Romans such as Tacitus who specifically attempted to criticize Rome- much of his writings involve a chastising of the Roman way of war and life, and "desert called peace" quote is one that he put into the mouth of a British chief. This line of thought has continued for a long time, exaggerated by admirers such as Napoleon, much like some Romans were obsessive of Alexander and constantly compared themselves to him.
In its modern interpretation, this has taken on a distinctly anti-imperialist narrative bent. Its main proponent is William Harris in War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327-70 bce. Published in 1985, the book argued that Rome was exceptionally violent among the states of the Mediterranean, and that this violence and aggression, to which there could be no effective response as the Romans simply were absolutely obstinate in war beyond reason, was the primary reason for Rome's success. Harris argues an almost pathological aptitude for war among the Romans. Recently, proponents of this theory have moderated it- they say that yes, Rome was not pathologically adapted for war, but the stresses of its environment and early traumas made it exceptionally violent. Many scholars mark the year 348 BCE- when a treaty between Carthage and Rome emphasizes Rome's new primary position among the latin states- as the beginning of "true" Roman expansionism and imperialism. Rome is now a predator, and the world can only watch in horror as the force of nature descends upon them. Rome destroys the culturally rich Greek cities, she lays waste to peaceful Carthage and brutalizes her, Rome destroys the stable state system in the Eastern Mediterranean for its own aggressive aims.
The goal of this is to challenge that. To do that I will first introduce some terms from Realist international relations theory. I won't go too far into realism as a theory- suffice it to say that realism believes that power is the primary motivator in state relations, and interstate conflict, rather than unit attributes (ie, the internal mechanisms of one state) is what determines international relations. Within the system there are generally two types of international systems; hierarchical systems and anarchies. An example of a hierarchical system would be the Holy Roman Empire, ideally- every duke, prince, count, baron, archbishop, and such knows their place, and at the head of the whole conglomeration is the emperor. Hierarchical systems are generally more stable because they have clearly defined rules, generally, and there's a higher power which can arbitrate and intervene in disputes.
By contrast there is the anarchy. In the anarchy there is no overarching hierarchy. This does not mean the absence of international law, but in the case of the Mediterranean world it did, as we will look at below. The anarchy is generally violent and chaotic, but there are a plethora of ways to prevent conflict- but none of these apply to the ancient Mediterranean. The system of anarchies are complex. You can have a unipolar system- the Roman republic circa 150 BCE would be an example of this. By this point Rome is capable of intervening in war with any power without any allies- she has no equals. Then there is a bipolar system, such as the US vs the USSR. Some scholars differentiate a Tripolar systems, with three equal powers. An example of this might be Mameluke Egypt, Safavid Persia, and the Ottoman Turks circa. 1510 right before the Ottomans said "fuck off equality" and conquered one of the three prongs of the system. Then you have multipolar systems, with more than three equal powers. Needless to say such systems are chaotic and complex. In some cases they can be peaceful with great effort- the renaissance peace in Italy was an accomplishment of a balancing act of Naples, Venice, Milan, Florence, and the Papal states. None of these powers could individually dominate the others. More often, though, such systems have continuous war.
One more note on terms- there are three types of states in a system. A status-quo state is satisfied with things as they are and does not want to change the balance of power. A limited revisionist state, like Willhemine Germany, wants to change things to improve its position within the system. And an unlimited revisionist state is one in which it wants to overthrow the entire system due to total dissatisfaction. The best examples are Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany.
With all this in mind...
Let's address the major claims of "Rome as exceptionally warlike."
1. Rome was exceptionally culturally militaristic- glorifying war. This does not hold up to scrutiny. The cultures of the Mediterranean were all essentially honor-based and put heavy emphasis on glory in war. Contrary to anti-semitic stereotypes, the Carthaginians were very warlike and did not shy away from fights. Hannibal did not sprout from nothing, and it would be very peculiar for such a "peaceful people" to have fought the Greeks in Sicily over and over again, often at their own initiation. Around Rome, you had the Etruscans, who practiced regular human sacrifice and were headhunters who likely produced gladiatorial combat- there was no unwalled Etruscan city. The Samnites were similar, with the chronic overpopulation of the Appenines forcing them to expand- they even had a special festival, the ver sacrum, where young men were urged to make their way in the world by leaving their villages and going on the warpath. The Celts were seen as warlike even for the other states of Italy, and made constant, repeated incursions into the peninsula- the threat of the Celts was seen as so great, and fear of them so much, that there was a special, extreme draft in the case of a Celtic invasion of Latium. The mere rumor of a Celtic force going down the Tiber could cause the calling of this draft, which included a huge portion of the fighting men and was economically damaging.
Beyond Italy and the Western Mediterranean, Darius I of Persia praised himself for his skill with all weapons. In classical Greece, Sparta and the melian dialogue is famous, but Perikles was not a stranger to war and the Athenians made repeated attacks against their neighbors and brutalized revolting allies. They also had several aggressive military ceremonies, and all the Greeks put up victory monuments at the sites of battles where they were victorious- war was a fact of life in both classical and Hellenistic Greece. The Diadochi took this a step further- there were regular dedications to Nike, the goddess of victory. Philip V of Macedon actively compared himself to Alexander and made repeated campaigns against everyone around him. The kings of the Hellenistic age almost always fought with their soldiers in the manner of Alexander- it was how they proved their worth, in the absence of more traditional forms of legitimacy. Glory and honor were the name of the day.
By contrast, some of the Roman ceremonies, such as the censorial praying for the "increase of the city" seem rather mild. It is pointed out that the prayer, done by an office concerned with public safety, could simply mean civic increase, not a military one, and in general the glorification of war is a later phenomenon. This should not be a surprise, because compared to many states Rome suffered absolutely horrific losses and population loss. The number of citizen males recorded in the census as reported by Livy fell from 280,000 from the first half of the third century BCE to about 110,000 by 200 BCE. When Rome had to decide to intervene in Macedon in 200 BCE, many citizens were extremely opposed on the basis of war weariness. There were many voices against war in the senate on many opportunities. This was partly self-serving, and I am not saying that Rome was not warlike, but that it was not considerably more warlike than many of its competitors, and indeed the extreme harshness of Roman wars meant that it was harder for them to glorify war than many of their neighbors, because the nature of it meant that such glory could man the lives of thousands of voting citizens. Rome had to consider her constituents.
2. Rome was a predator; she expanded her realm against weaker powers who could do nothing against her. This was not the case. Roman history is full of examples of utter military disaster, and more often than not Rome was not the initiator of hostilities. However, a word must be said about diplomacy in this period. There was no haggling, or concessions, or negotiation. This seems utterly insane to us, but in the honor-bound world of the classical Mediterranean, almost all diplomacy was compellance diplomacy; these were unalterable ultimatums that demanded severe things and were rarely meant to provide an equitable solution- they often led to conflict more often than not, as the recipient could no more afford a loss to their honor by such a concession than the sender could by reducing the terms.
With this in mind, Roman history is full of failed compellance diplomacy. In many cases Rome did not really want to go to war, but the circumstances forced her. The case of Sagantum that led to the Second Punic war was illustrative. The small city was a breach of the Roman agreement with Carthage to respect Carthage's boundary in Spain as the Ebro- the city was south of the Ebro. However, Hannibal would have lost little by simply letting the city exist, as it was tiny and did little to stop Carthaginian expansion. Meanwhile, the Romans could have simply allowed it to fall to the Carthaginian siege that Hannibal initiated, but they were incapable of haggling or negotiating, and the end-result was the war which has been immortalized through games, legends, stories, art, and so on. The point here being that the Second Punic War did not start because Rome was exceptionally bellicose in provoking Carthage, but rather that neither side was able to read the other due to the complete primitiveness of their diplomatic tools, and without any concession, the only option could be war.
Another example illustrates how, often, Rome was not the aggressor. The First Samnite War was perhaps provoked by Rome, but the expansionist power in this case was actually the Samnites. They had been expanding into Campania for some time, and had a treaty with Rome that marked their boundary as the Middle Liris in Southern Latium. However, a city in Campania appealed to Rome- and Rome obliged. Why was this? Rome was an insecure state with very few real boundaries. For a good portion of her history her greatest rival, Veii, was a mere 30 miles from Rome. Pyrrhus, the Greek general who helped the Greek cities of south Italy fight Rome had gotten within 50 miles of the city during his campaigns. The existential threat of a crowded, hostile Italy meant that Rome was constantly on the hunt for allies- and because there was no embassies or ambassadors or even real envoys, they were unaware that this would provoke a furious response from the Samnites. The resulting war was fought almost completely in Campania, which would be a peculiar location for Rome to fight a war considering that Campania was Rome's territory that Samnium was invading, not Samnite territory that Rome was invading.
This is not to say that Rome wasn't the aggressor many times. During the mercenary revolt after the First Punic War in Carthage, Rome annexed Sardinia, an unilateral action that was decried by some senators at home, but was done at the time where Carthage looked about to collapse (an example of how fragile even the strongest states were after a major defeat). Rome also broke treaties- they abrogated one with the Samnites in 321 BCE. They also broke one with Taras that provoked the Pyrrhic wars. But importantly, this was not exceptional. One of the most egregious examples of the disrespect for much of real law in the ancient world was the case of the Achaean League, which controlled a good portion of the Peloponnese in the Hellenistic age. One Achaean city, to fund its wars, enslaved athletes that were on their way to the Panhellenic games at Nemea. Beyond a simple diplomatic treaty, this was a breach of a sacred rite, but the city got no sanction.
The world of Hellenistic interstate anarchy had no room for unenforcable treaties, and the Romans were thus not unique in this respect.
3. Rome was exceptionally obstinate and stubborn- she had different definitions of defeat. This is one particular one that is quoted here a lot- but I believe it is incorrect. The idea that Rome thought only in terms of subjugation and destruction while other states were more nuanced is completely unfair. The other states of the Mediterranean had absolutely no qualms about large-scale state destruction. Two related claims are here- that Rome was more suicidally stubborn, and that Rome was less able to accept smaller gains. Both shall be dealt with examining different cases. The first is the First Punic War.
It is often pointed out that Rome lost many navies and armies in the war but still kept fighting. Peculiarly, there is no mention of the fact that Carthage also lost many navies and armies and kept fighting. That Carthage eventually folded before Rome did is not a symbol that Rome was more obstinate- it was a symbol that Rome was more resilient as a state because of its more robust manpower reserves. But this had little to do with mentality. States did not just fight piecemeal- there were very few "half-hearted" wars in the Mediterranean. The Etruscans, despite being defeated over and over again by Rome, came back and attacked them again and again. Indeed, had it not been for Celtic pressure, Rome might have been destroyed by the Etruscans earlier on and the Etruscans may have risen to prominence. It's hard to say. All across the Mediterranean Interstate Anarchy, cities and peoples fought for their lives. There was no exceptionalism in Rome.
And neither was her territorial aggrandizement particularly unique. There is an old idea that before Rome, there was a stable and peaceful tripolar system in the Eastern Mediterranean between Macedonia, Ptolemaic Egypt, and the Seleukids. However, such a belief should not be taken seriously. The most illustrative example of why this claim is a farce is the crisis that shook the entire eastern Mediterrean in 207 BCE when the Ptolemys, under siege by a native uprising that had crowned their own pharoah, entered an unstable regency for a six year old. Suddenly, one of the pillars of the tripolar system had collapsed. Presumably, if this had been a "peaceful and orderly triumvarite" as said by one scholar, the other diadochi would have jumped to Egypt's aid, extracted some concessions, and stabilized the region.
This is not the case. Instead, Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus III of the Seleukids triggered an absolute panic and international crisis when they made a purported pact, the "Kings' Pact", to partition Ptolemaic Egypt. This resulted in a broad coalition of smaller states who had benefited from the previous system to appeal to Rome, which had just beaten Carthage, to help them. Philip V and Antiochus III were unlimited revisionists- they sought to completely remake the power structure to suit their needs. Both aspired to be like Alexander and identified with him- Antiochus even referred to himself as megas. Both were capable battle commanders.
And both were ready to overturn the system. The result was Rome's intervention- but at first it did not want to stay involved, and after destroying Philip V's army at Cynosephelae, mostly withdrew its forces from Greece. The result was a disaster in which Antiochus exploited the power vacuum, and although at Roman insistence he stayed out of Egypt, encroached on Greece. Due to the vagaries of Roman diplomacy, they had alienated one of the Greek leagues in the area, and in 195 BCE, Antiochus III was invited by it to liberate Greece. He did so.
He lost. And with that, so did the last power capable of standing against Rome. But this story does not illustrate Roman aggression and expansionism in an exceptional manner- though Rome was completely capable of such, but rather that every other state in the Mediterranean was just as interested in expansion, and had no real "limited" gains. There was no one to sanction them for what they had won by right of conquest. The nature of an interstate anarchy with no laws, where every state is opaque to the other, and where security can only be achieved by military strength is one where every power is expansionist.
4. Rome was exceptionally brutal. The scale of Rome's brutality is large and I've examined it myself in the past. I don't think it's exceptional in anything except for the fact that Rome was able to crack the most eggs- that is, had it been Carthage or the Seleukids in the position of world conquerer, there would have been no question of similar treatment and actions. In the ancient world no city was really safe. The Carthaginians destroyed many cities- they wiped out Sagantum, they were terrible in their actions to the Greek Sicilian cities of Selinous and Himera in their late 5th century BCE campaigns. The Greeks were no better to themselves. Athens' actions are evident in examples like the Melian dialogue, but this was not an isolated case. The Greek Italian city of Krotone destroyed the city of Sybaris in 510 and left almost no one alive. Siris, another city in Italy, was wiped out by a coalition against it as well. The successors sacked cities constantly, as they were great sources of loot and there was no real compunction not to. The Samnites sacked Capua and Cumae in the 5th century BCE, and the Celts were practically typecast as sackers of cities in the fears of the northern Italian cities.
What is the point of all this, then? The point is to suggest an alternative view of Rome. That Rome was not exceptionally warlike. They were not "psychopathic swamp hicks". They were simply the state that through a variety of factors fought its way successfully, though with many horrific missteps, through the Mediterranean anarchy.
The real difference between Rome and its competitors?
Rome won.
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