Lecture 29, The Pax Romana: Life in the Roman Empire

Julio-Claudian Dynasty 27 BC - 68 AD

Augustus 27 BC - 14 AD

Tiberius 14 AD - 37 AD

Caligula 37-41

Claudius 41-54

Nero 54-68

Year of Four Emperors 69-70 AD

Flavian Dynasty 70-96 AD

Vespasian 70-79

Titus 79-81

Domitian 81-96

The Antonines 96-180 AD

(the Five Good Emperors)

Nerva 96-98

Trajan 98-117

Hadrian 117-138

Antoninus Pius

Marcus Aurelius

The Augustan Settlement proved to be a workable solution to the problem of imperial rule in the Mediterranean. Utilizing a minimal central bureaucracy and placing reliance at the local level on city councils, Augustus was able to enact legislation and to maintain order for the broadest possible population. He channeled the aggressive energy of the Roman oligarchy to useful pursuits. He ended the abuse of corrupt governors and kept the armies under control. In addition, he reduced the tax burden on the Roman provincials. Through wise use of tax revenues he was able to intervene at the local level throughout the Mediterranean world to assist with calamities such as earthquakes in the Aegean and the lack of food in the burgeoning city of Rome. He established the precedent of doing "more with less" that became the model for his successors.

The one problem that he failed to resolve was a suitable means of succession. Instead of constructing some constitutional process for succession he fell back on more traditional notions of Roman patronage (i.e., the Roman family structure) and selected and groomed members of his immediate family to assume his place. This led to inevitable jockeying for position within the imperial family, known today as the Julio-Claudian dynasty, as well as to reports of conspiracies, intrigues, and even assassinations. Roman sources paint his wife Livia in a very bad light for attempting to secure the throne for her son, Tiberius Claudius Nero, by a previous marriage, possibly by poisoning family rivals more directly in line for the throne.

In any event, Tiberius succeeded Augustus in 14 AD and proved by and large to be an effective administrator, however unpleasant and morose as a personality. He was succeeded in turn by a madman, his great nephew Gaius or Caligula. Caligula attempted to make a mockery of the imperial position and the high status of the Roman aristocracy in a deranged effort to demonstrate personal divinity. After his assassination, he was followed by his uncle, Claudius. This older man was entirely untrained for imperial rule because he suffered from birth from severe physical disabilities and had been kept out of the public eye. However, this scholarly emperor proved once again to be an highly effective, if quirky, administrator. He was followed in turn by his step-son and grand nephew Nero. Having received the best possible education from the celebrated Roman philosopher, Seneca, it was hoped by all that this young emperor would emerge as the greatest ruler of the dynasty. However, he proved to be disinterested in the business of government. Left to his own by Seneca and his mother, Nero developed interests in theater, music, dance, and the arts. He saw himself as the world's greatest performance artist and began to put on shows not only in Rome but in Olympia in Greece. Like Caligula, his extravagances and atrocities made him unpopular and his eventual purges of provincial military commanders incited rebellions. With his death in 69 AD the first Roman dynasty came to an end. A civil war determined imperial succession and reminded the Roman world once again of the "bad old days" of the Late Republic.

The remarkable thing about these developments was that the solution became once again to restore Augustus' "power-sharing" relationship between the Princeps, the Senate, and the Military Commanders on the frontiers. In short, the constitutional architecture of Augustus survived both madmen at the helm and internal civil war to provide a lasting model for organizing the resources and human power of the Mediterranean world. In many respects, the complaints of Roman sources against the Julio-Claudians ring hollow. Effective administrators such as Tiberius and Claudius appear to have been disliked simply because they made the aristocracy pay its fair share of taxes and because they treated the lower orders of Roman society with greater equity. Even the least effective emperors, Caligula and Nero, were wildly popular with the Roman people and the provincials. This suggests that the Roman aristocracy alone suffered as a direct result of its close proximity to the seat of power. The further removed one was from the power struggles of the imperial dynasty, the better life became. This development stands in the inverse proportion to that of the Late Republic. One could even argue that the Roman aristocracy was merely receiving its just dessert for its years of abuse and misuse of power.

The Augustan Settlement proved successful in a number of other ways. It stabilized the military situation and brought accountability and order in the provinces. Roman army generals were selected for command directly by the emperor and worked on his behalf. Increasingly, the Roman legions became based on the borders of Roman territory, far removed from the urban populations, in order to confront neighboring barbarian peoples such as Germanic tribes north of the Rhine and Danube. Eventually, the legions became settled into permanent army camps along the limes -- a line of natural and man-made barriers that defined the boundaries of the Roman Empire. These included the entire length of the Rhine and Danube Rivers in the north.

Augustus likewise curbed the abuses of Roman provincial governors and Roman tax collectors in pacified regions. The end to the constant demands for excessive surplus taxes and requisitions meant that the provincials were able to keep more of their earnings for themselves. One theory holds that despite the imposition of the Roman tithe (approximately 10%), productivity in the Roman Mediterranean actually expanded at this time. Wealthy provincials expanded production in order to reap higher profits over and above the outlay of tithe. With peace and stability guaranteed, people began to invest more extensively in artisan and agricultural production, such as wine and oil for export purposes. The results can be seen in the material record: whereas, in the Late Republican Era (133-27 BC) some 8 to 10 internationally traded transport amphoras circulated throughout the Mediterranean, by the first century AD that number jumped to more than 40. So many amphora types were produced during the Roman Empire, in fact, that archaeologists have still not identified the points of origin for all of them.

The hypothesized result of so much economic activity was a gradually rising curve in material production throughout the Mediterranean at this time. Some scholars argue that productivity attained its peak during the second century AD, and that it stood at a level unmatched anywhere in the globe until the rise of nation states in Early Modern Europe (c. 1600 AD). Why the ancient Mediterranean economy failed to attain the "technological leap" beyond "human and animal power" to an "industrial revolution" remains an important question. This seems particularly so when it is clear that Hellenistic scientists such as Archimedes understood the principle of steam power and the Romans utilized gravity to drive their aqueducts. The answer would appear to lie with the limited dispersal of education in Roman Mediterranean society and the unwillingness of the aristocratic elite to engage in pursuits beyond, "religion, politics, and war." During antiquity the most educated elements viewed anything associated with physical labor as beneath their station in life; hence, they did not apply themselves to the development of labor saving devices. Moreover, the inherent constituency of modern "research and development" was nonexistent in the ancient world. There was no broad-based educated public to absorb new ideas or to devise suitable applications for them. With even fewer educated people in antiquity the likelihood of technological innovations remained remote.

Nevertheless, the order achieved by the Augustan Settlement brought the greatest period of peace and prosperity to the broadest possible population base found anywhere in ancient times. Some 50 to 100 million people existed under the Pax Romana, "the Roman Peace." For nearly 200 years there was but one brief civil war, no piracy, no slave revolts. People and goods could travel safely from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. Cities such as Rome and Alexandria burgeoned to more than 1 million residents. A score of lesser cities, including refounded colonies at Carthage and Corinth, blossomed to become important nodes to provincial order and trade. Rome itself became an open city inundated by upwardly mobile foreigners. Roman critiques complained that the "slime of the Orontes River in Syria was now oozing up the Tiber River to Rome." This served as a pointed observation of the natural success of outsiders in such fields as philosophy, medicine, law, accounting, and trade.

Moreover, these same sources criticize the growing autonomy of Roman women. With the armies enlisted from volunteers, carefully supervised, and kept at considerable distance from the centers of urban population, the enhanced political and social status of the male warrior element declined. In many instances one can detect a growing disinterest on the part of patriarchal elements to bear the burden of local authority to serve in their city councils, or to assume very costly priesthoods. Increasingly, these obligations were assumed by female members of elite provincial families. Many surviving examples of urban infrastructure, such as the monumental gate and mile-long "water trough" of the Perge in Pamphylia, were paid for and constructed by women such as the noble Plancia Magna of Perge.

In Rome proper, not only did imperial consorts such as Livia, Agrippina, and Messalina, obtain unprecedented authority by virtue of their proximity to the seat of imperial power, but women on the streets appear to have obtained greater autonomy as well. In their misogynistic attacks on women, Roman male sources list the reasons for their complaints. Roman women were experiencing greater personal and sexual autonomy; they were working publicly as lawyers, doctors, philosophers, rhetoricians, and teachers. They engaged in marriages of convenience to better control their personal assets and social freedom. To what degree this growing female autonomy extended beyond Rome remains difficult to determine, but evidence such as that provided by the example of Plancia Magna of Perge suggests that it was potentially widespread throughout urban society.

Most of all, Roman rule enabled the assimilation of a fusion of cultural values across the widest possible base of population. The emergence of a fused Greco-Roman culture across the Mediterranean world resulted in the development of a recognized homogeneity of life. One could travel from Antioch in Syria to New Carthage in Spain and expect to see the same social institutions and the same monumental infrastructure. Every major town boasted its temples, its council house, its basilica, its theater, its gymnasium, its stadium, its aqueduct, its bath complex, and in many cases its own amphitheater. Roman practicality and engineering feats brought a consistent standard to the amenities of life throughout the Mediterranean world.

This is not to say that the Roman world was some ideal place to live. Slavery remained a significant component of society. Increasingly, peace and stability enabled Roman society to achieve a two class structure to society, with the wealthy and socially superior honestiores enjoying greater rights and privileges than the masses of the humiliores. The prosperity of the imperial order remained relatively superficial in that any major calamity such as a massive earthquake or a civil war could rapidly reduce imperial revenues into deficits. Not all peoples found a home in the Roman order, as the repeated Jewish revolts of the first and second centuries AD make clear. Policing society in the northwestern provinces of the Gauls and Britain imposed a constant drain on the Roman treasure, and the inhabitants there were far less inclined to assimilate to the mainstream Greco-Roman culture. Overall, it needs to be borne in mind that the Mediterranean stands as one of the easiest climates of the globe for human habitation. The mild climate minimized need for heat and clothing, the non-clay, highly volcanic soils were easiest to cultivate, and the interior lake of the Mediterranean facilitated trade in ways inconceivable for land-based societies. Given its minimal technological advantages, however, there is no denying the remarkably accomplished impact Greco-Roman society had on its environment.