The rule of empires : those who built them, those who endured them, and why they always fall by Timothy H. Parsons Read Free Book Online Page B

reported that Titus Quinctius Flamininus,
    who defeated Philip V in the Second Macedonian War, showcased
    a staggering amount of wealth during his three-day triumph in
    194 b.c.:
    On the fi rst day, Flamininus put armour, weaponry, and statues of
    bronze and marble on display. . . . On the second he displayed gold and
    silver wrought, unwrought, and coined. There were 18,270 pounds
    of unwrought silver. . . . In coined silver 84,000 “Attic” coins. . . . There
    were 3,714 pounds of gold, a shield made of solid gold and 14,514
    gold Philippics. On the third day 114 golden crowns which had been
    gifts from the city-states were carried in the procession. . . . Before the
    triumphal chariot there were many prisoners and hostages of noble
    birth, including Demetrius, son of king Philip, and Armenes the Spartan, son of the tyrant Nabis.10
    Ambitious men such as Flamininus turned over most of this
    wealth to imperial coffers, but they also were careful to give their
    common soldiers a healthy share of the plunder.
    Unlike the empire builders of later eras, the Romans did not enjoy
    a signifi cant technological advantage over their opponents. Most classical Mediterranean armies used similar equipment, and the Romans’
    victories came from the superior organization, training, and aggression
    of their legions. Consisting of fi ve thousand citizens subdivided into
    cohorts and centuries, the republican legion was a highly trained fi ghting
    force. Roman commanders augmented the regular army with auxiliary
    cohorts consisting of non-Roman subjects and offi cered by aristocratic
    Romans. These auxiliaries usually earned Roman citizenship if they
    survived their full term of service. The need to keep the legions busy
    and out of politics spurred military adventures on the frontiers.
    Those who resisted Roman expansion did so at their peril. The
    Greek historian Polybius recorded in graphic detail how Scipio Africanus made an example of New Carthage in 209 b.c. by ordering his
    men to slaughter the entire population of the city. “They do this,
    30 THE RULE OF EMPIRES
    I think, to inspire terror, so that when towns are taken by the Romans
    one may often see not only the corpses of human beings, but dogs cut
    in half, and the dismembered limbs of other animals.”11 Roman forces
    similarly destroyed Corinth sixty-three years later. The Romans
    nevertheless were inclined to treat surrendering rulers generously.
    The same Scipio who destroyed Carthage was magnanimous toward
    Heraclea in Asia Minor: “We shall endeavor, now that you have come
    under our protection, to take the best possible care of you. . . . We
    grant freedom, with the right to administer all your affairs yourselves, under your own laws.”12 The fate of Heraclea demonstrated
    that it was safer and wiser to be within the empire than outside it.
    Imperial expansion eventually destroyed the republic, but in the
    short term the resulting plunder brought marked benefi ts to Rome:
    citizens paid no taxes. In Italy allied states were liable for taxes and
    military service until their revolt in the Social War of 90 b.c. forced
    the Romans to grant them citizenship. This set a precedent for the
    wider empire. In Greece, where the greatest returns were through
    commerce rather than crude extortion, Rome enfranchised the entire
    population of cooperative city-states. In the west, tribal leaders could
    earn citizenship, but their small numbers ensured that this generosity did not reduce the fl ow of tribute.
    The actual mechanisms of Roman imperial administration, which
    seem so familiar as the standard template of imperial rule, evolved
    gradually over time. Sovereignty in republican Rome rested with the
    consuls, the Senate, and the citizenry, but their infl uence was limited by the ancient world’s realities of time and distance. The Senate
    exercised authority over remote territories by assigning consuls or
    magistrates who had fi nished their term in offi ce to complete