Chapter -2

An Empire Across Three Continents

Why is it called An Empire across Three Continents?

The Roman Empire covered a vast stretch of territory that included most of Europe, a large part of the Fertile Crescent in Asia and major territories of North Africa.

What are the sources available to understand the history of Roman Empire?

1.      Roman historians have a rich collection of sources to study its history which we can broadly divide into three groups: (a) texts, (b) documents  (c) material remains

2.      Textual sources include histories written by contemporaries/ historians of that time  These texts were usually called ‘Annals’, because the narrative was constructed on a year-by-year basis,-letters, speeches, sermons, laws, and so on

3.      Documentary sources include mainly inscriptions and papyri. Inscriptions were usually cut on stone, so a large number survive, in both Greek and Latin languages.

4.      Material remains include a very wide assortment of items that mainly archaeologists discover (for example, through excavation and field survey), for example, buildings, monuments and other kinds of structures, pottery, coins, mosaics, even entire landscapes (for example, through the use of aerial photography).

Explain the Boundaries of Roman Empire

1.      Rome dominated the Mediterranean and all the regions around that sea in both directions,

2.      To the north, the boundaries of the empire were formed by two great rivers, the Rhine and the Danube;

3.      To the south, the Roman Empire was extended up to by the huge expanse of desert called the Sahara.

4.      In the east the Roman Empire was extended up to river Euphrates

5.      In the west  the Roman Empire was extended up to Atlantic Ocean

Divisions in Roman history

1.      The Roman Empire can broadly be divided into two phases, ‘early’ and ‘late’, divided by the third century as a sort of historical watershed between them.

2. In other words, the whole period down to the main part of the third century can be called the ‘early empire’, and the period after that the ‘late empire’.

What is the Third-Century Crisis in Roman history?

If the first and second centuries were by and large a period of peace, prosperity and economic expansion, the third century brought the first major signs of internal strain.

1.      From the 230s, the empire found itself fighting on several fronts simultaneously In Iran a new and more aggressive dynasty emerged in 225 ,called the ‘Sasanians’ within just 15 years sasanians were expanding rapidly in the direction of the Euphrates.

(In a famous rock inscription cut in three languages, Shapur I, the Iranian ruler, claimed he had annihilated a Roman army of 60,000 and even captured the eastern capital of Antioch)

2.      Meanwhile, a whole series of Germanic tribes (Alamanni, Franks ,Goths) began to move against the Rhine and Danube frontiers, from 233 to 280 saw repeated invasions of a whole line of provinces that stretched from the Black Sea to the Alps and southern Germany. The Romans were forced to abandon much of the territory beyond the Danube.

3.      While the emperors of this period were constantly in the field against what the Romans called ‘barbarians’. The rapid succession of emperors in the third century (25 emperors in 47 years!) is an obvious symptom of the strains faced by the empire in third century.

Social, Economic, political and cultural conditions of Early Roman Empire

1.The Roman Empire was culturally much more diverse , it was a mosaic of territories and cultures that were chiefly bound together by a common system of government in Europe, Asia and Africa and various cultures and religions.

2. Many languages were spoken in the empire, but for the purposes of administration Latin and Greek were the most widely used, indeed the only languages. The upper classes of the east spoke and wrote in Greek, those of the west in Latin.

3. The Senate, the body which had controlled Rome earlier, when it was a Republic.The Senate had existed in Rome for centuries, and had remained as a body representing the aristocracy, that is, the wealthiest families of Roman and Italian descent, mainly landowners.

4. The monarchy was established by Augustus, the first emperor, in 27 BCE was called the ‘Principate’. Although Augustus was the sole ruler and the only real source of authority, the fiction was kept alive that he was actually only the ‘leading citizen’ (Princeps in Latin), not the absolute ruler.

5. The other key institution of imperial rule was the army. Romans had a paid professional army where soldiers had to put in a minimum of 25 years of service. Indeed, the existence of a paid army was a distinctive feature of the Roman Empire.

6. To sum up, the emperor, the aristocracy and the army were the three main ‘players’ in the political history of the empire. The success of individual emperor is depended on his control of the army, and when the armies were divided, the result usually was civil war.

7. Succession to the throne was based as far as possible on family descent, either natural or adoptive, and even the army was strongly wedded to this principle.

8. An important characteristic of ERE was the gradual extension of Roman direct rule. This was accomplished by absorbing a whole series of ‘dependent’ kingdoms into Roman provincial territory.

9. Public baths were a striking feature of Roman urban life and urban populations also enjoyed a much higher level of entertainment. For example, one calendar tells us that spectacula (shows) filled no less than 176 days of the year!

Later Roman Empire

 

Gender Role

1.      One of the more modern features of Roman society was the widespread prevalence of the nuclear family. Adult sons did not live with their families, and it was exceptional for adult brothers to share a common household. On the other hand, slaves were included in the family as the Romans understood this.

2. By the late Republic (the first century BCE), the typical form of marriage was one where the wife did not transfer to her husband’s authority but retained full rights in the property of her natal family.
3. While the woman’s dowry went to the husband for the duration of the marriage, the woman remained a primary heir of her father and became an independent property owner on her father’s death.
4. Thus Roman women enjoyed considerable legal rights in owning and managing property. In other words, in law the married couple was not one financial entity but two, and the wife enjoyed complete legal independence.
5. Divorce was relatively easy and needed no more than a notice of intent to dissolve the marriage by either husband or wife.
6. On the other hand, whereas males married in their late twenties or early thirties, women were married off in the late teens or early twenties, so there was an age gap between husband and wife and this would have encouraged a certain inequality.
7. Marriages were generally arranged, and there is no doubt that women were often subject to domination by their husbands.
8.  Augustine*, the great Catholic bishop who spent most of his life in North Africa, tells us that his mother was regularly beaten by his father and that most other wives in the small town where he grew up had similar bruises to show!
9. Finally, fathers had substantial legal control over their children – sometimes to a shocking degree, for example, a legal power of life and death in exposing unwanted children, by leaving them out in the cold to die.

Literacy in Later Roman Empire:

1.      It is certain that rates of casual literacy* varied greatly between different parts of the empire. *The use of reading ,writing and counting in everyday contexts.

2. For example, in Pompeii, which was buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 CE, there is strong evidence of widespread casual literacy. Walls on the main streets of Pompeii often carried advertisements, and graffiti were found all over the city
3. One of the funniest of these graffiti found on the walls of Pompeii says: ‘Wall, I admire you for not collapsing in ruins When you have to support so much boring writing on you.’
4. By contrast, in Egypt where hundreds of papyri survive, most formal documents such as contracts were usually written by professional scribes, and they often tell us that X or Y is unable to read and write.
5.  But even here literacy was certainly more widespread among certain categories such as soldiers, army officers and estate managers.

Culture in Later Roman Empire

•      The cultural diversity of the empire was reflected in many ways and at many levels:

•       The vast diversity of religious cults and local deities;

•      the plurality of languages that were spoken;

•       the styles of dress and costume,

•      the food people ate, their forms of social organisation (tribal/non-tribal),

•      even their patterns of settlement( village/city)

Economic Expansion under later Roman Empire

1. The empire had a substantial economic infrastructure of harbours, mines, quarries, brickyards, olive oil factories, etc.
2. Wheat, wine and olive-oil were traded and consumed in huge quantities, and they came mainly from Spain, the Gallic provinces, North Africa, Egypt and Italy, where conditions were best for these crops.
3. Liquids like wine and olive oil were transported in containers called ‘amphorae’. The fragments and sherds of a very large number of these survive. It has been possible for archaeologists to reconstruct the precise shapes of these containers,  what they carried, and where they were made
4. The Spanish olive oil was mainly carried in a container called ‘Dressel 20’. Finds of Dressel 20 are widely scattered across Mediterranean,
5. This suggests that Spanish olive oil circulated very widely. By using such evidence archaeologists are able to show that Spanish producers succeeded in capturing markets for olive oil from their Italian counterparts.
6. The empire included many regions that had a reputation for exceptional fertility. Italy, Sicily, Egypt, Galilee, Tunisia, southern Gaul and Baetica were all among the most densely settled or wealthiest parts of the empire, according to writers like Strabo and Pliny.
7. Large expanses of Roman territory were in a much less advanced state. For example, transhumance* was widespread in the countryside of Numidia .These pastoral and semi-nomadic communities were often on the move, carrying their oven-shaped huts (called mapalia) with them. As Roman estates expanded in North Africa, the pastures of those communities were drastically reduced and their movements more tightly regulated
8. Diversified applications of water power around the Mediterranean as well as advances in water-powered milling technology,
9.  The use of hydraulic mining techniques in the Spanish gold and silver mines and the gigantic industrial scale on which those mines were worked in the first and second centuries .
10. The existence of well-organised commercial and banking networks, The widespread use of money are all indications of how much we tend to under-estimate the sophistication of the Roman economy. This raises the issue of labour and of the use of slavery.

Controlling Slaves/Workers in Later Roman Empire

 

1.      Slavery was an institution deeply rooted in the ancient world, both in Roman Empire and in the Sasanian Empire.

2.      Christianity (when it was the state religion) did not seriously challenge the slavery.e

3.      The bulk of the labour in the Roman economy was performed by slaves in large parts of Italy in the Republican period.

4.       Under Augustus there were  3 million slaves in a total Italian population of 7.5 million but it was no longer true of the empire as a whole.

5.      Slaves were an investment, and at least one Roman agricultural writer advised landowners against using them in contexts where too many might be required ( for harvests) or where their health could be damaged (by malaria).

6.      These considerations were not based on any sympathy for the slaves but on hard economic calculation.

7.      Roman upper classes were often brutal towards their slaves, ordinary people did sometimes show much more compassion

 

Use of Free and wage labour in later Roman Empire

 

1.      As warfare became less widespread with the establishment of peace in the first century, the supply of slaves tended to decline and the users of slave labour thus had to turn either to slave breeding* or to cheaper substitutes such as wage labour which was more easily dispensable.

2.      Unlike hired workers, slaves had to be fed and maintained throughout the year, which increased the cost of holding this kind of labour.

3.      This is probably why slaves are not widely found in the agriculture of the later period, at least not in the eastern provinces.

4.      In fact, free labour was extensively used on public works  in Rome precisely because an extensive use of slave labour would have been too expensive.

5.      Freedmen , slaves who had been set free by their masters, were extensively used as business managers, where, obviously, they were not required in large numbers.

6.      Masters often gave their slaves or freedmen capital to run businesses on their behalf or even businesses of their own

Management of labour in later Roman Empire

1.                  The Roman agricultural writers paid a great deal of attention to the                                     management of labour.

2.                  Columella, a first-century writer who came from the south of Spain,           recommended that landowners should keep a reserve stock of implements       and tools, twice as many as they needed, so that production could be    continuous, ‘for the loss in slave labour time exceeds the cost of such items’.

3.                  There was a general presumption among employers that without supervision           no work would ever get done, so supervision was paramount, for both free           workers and slaves.

4.                  To make supervision easier, workers were sometimes grouped into gangs or            smaller teams.

5.                  Columella recommended squads of ten, claiming it was easier to tell who was       putting in effort and who was not in work groups of this size. This shows a   detailed consideration of the management of labour.

6.                  Pliny the Elder, the author of a very famous book ‘Natural History’,     condemned the use of slave gangs (as the worst method of organising         production, )mainly because slaves who worked in gangs were usually chained   together by their feet.

7.                  The late-fifth-century emperor Anastasius built the eastern frontier city of   Dara in less than three weeks by attracting labour from all over the East by offering high wages.

 

 

 

Condition of workers in factories of Roman Empire

 

1.      All the practices  in factories look draconian*, but we should remember that most factories in the world today enforce similar principles of labour control.

(Draconian: Harsh 6^th  century BCE Greek lawmaker called Draco, who prescribed death as the penalty for most crimes.)

2.      Indeed, some industrial establishments in the empire enforced even more tighter controls

3.      The Elder Pliny described conditions in the frankincense** factories  of Alexandria, where, he tells us, no amount of supervision seemed to suffice.

(**Frankincense – the European name for an aromatic resin used in incense and perfumes)

4.      A seal is put upon the workmen’s aprons, they have to wear a mask or a net with a close mesh on their heads, and before they are allowed to leave the premises, they have to take off all their clothes.’

5.      Agricultural labour must have been fatiguing and disliked, for a famous edict of the early third century refers to Egyptian peasants deserting their villages ‘in order not to engage in agricultural work’. The same was probably true of most factories and workshops.

6.      A law of 398 referred to workers being branded so they could be recognised if they run away and try to hide.

7.      Private employers cast their agreements with workers in the form of debt contracts to be able to claim that their employees were in debt to them and thus ensure tighter control over them.

8.      An early, 2^nd -century writer tells us, ‘Thousands surrender themselves to work in servitude as slaves although they are free.’ In other words, a lot of the poorer families went into debt bondage in order to survive.

9.      From one of the recently discovered letters of Augustine we learn that parents sometimes sold their children into servitude for periods of 25 years.

Augustine asked a lawyer friend of his whether these children could be liberated once the father died.

Social Hierarchies in Roman Empire

 

1.      Tacitus described the leading social groups of the early empire as follows: senators , leading members of the equestrian class; the respectable section of the people, those attached to the great houses;  the unkempt lower class who, were addicted to the circus and theatrical displays;  and finally the slaves.

2.      Senetors: In the early third century when the Senate numbered roughly 1,000, approximately half of all senators still came from Italian families. By the late empire, during the reign of Constantine I the first two groups (the senators and the equites*) had merged into a unified and expanded aristocracy.

3.      One writer of the early fifth century, the historian Olympiodorus who was also an ambassador, tells us that the aristocracy based in the City of Rome drew annual incomes of up to 4,000 lbs of gold from their estates, not counting the produce they consumed directly

4.      *The equites, (‘knights’ or ‘horsemen’) were traditionally the second most powerful and wealthy group. Originally, they were families whose property qualified them to serve in the cavalry, hence the name. Like senators, most ‘knights’ were landowners, but unlike senators many of them were shipowners, traders and bankers, that is, involved in business activities.

5.      The ‘middle’ class now consisted of the considerable mass of persons connected with imperial service in the bureaucracy and army but also the more prosperous merchants and farmers of whom there were many in the eastern provinces.

6.      Tacitus described this ‘respectable’ middle class as clients of the great senatorial houses. Now it was chiefly government service and dependence on the State that sustained many of these families.

7.      Lower class  Below them were the vast mass of the lower classes known collectively as humiliores (lit. ‘lower’). They comprised a rural labour force of which many were permanently employed on the large estates; workers in industrial and mining establishments; migrant workers who supplied much of the labour for the grain and olive harvests and for the building industry; self-employed artisans who, it was said, were better fed than wage labourers; a large mass of casual labourers, especially in the big cities;

8.      Many thousands of slaves were kept as the last social group. They were still found all over the western empire in later centuries.

cultural transformation of the Roman world in its final centuries

 

1. ‘Late antiquity’ is the term now used to describe the final, fascinating period in the evolution and break-up of the Roman Empire and refers broadly to the fourth to seventh centuries.

2. At the cultural level, the period saw momentous developments in religious life, with the emperor Constantine deciding to make Christianity the official religion

3. Diocletian introduced ‘cut back’ by abandoning territories with little strategic or economic value. Diocletian also fortified the frontiers, reorganised provincial boundaries, He separated civilian from military functions, granting greater autonomy to the military commanders (duces), who now became a more powerful group.

4. Constantine introduced a new denomination, the solidus, a coin of 4½ gm of pure gold that would in fact outlast the Roman Empire itself. Solidi were minted on a very large scale and their circulation ran into millions .

5. He divided the Roman Empire into East and West .The other area of innovation was the creation of a second capital at Constantinople (modern Istanbul in Turkey, previously called Byzantium), surrounded on three sides by the sea.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------