an empire across three continents

introduction
roman historians have a rich collection of sources to go on, which can be classified as:

texts

documents

material remains

textual sources:

histories of the period written by contemporaries (annals)

letters

speeches

sermons

laws

etc…

documentary sources:

inscriptions : a large number survived in both greek and latin as they were cut on
stone.

papyrus:

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 reed-like plant found along the banks of the nile.

processed to produce a writing material.

thousands of contracts, letters, accounts and official documents survived.

published by scholars known as papyrologists.

material remains : discovered by archaeologists through excavation and field survey

buildings

monuments

other structures

pottery

coins

mosaics

landscapes

rome and iran ruled over most of europe, north africa and the middle east between the
birth of christ and the early seventh century.

the romans and iranians were rivals and often fought against each other.

their empires lay next to each other and were separated by a narrow strip of land that ran
along the euphrates.

the mediterranean sea was the heart of rome’s empire.

north : the boundaries of the empire were formed by r.rhine and r.danube.

south : the sahara desert acted as the boundary.

iran controlled the whole area south of the caspian sea down to eastern arabia and large
parts of afghanistan.

rome and iran divided up most of the world that the chinese called ta ch’in (greater ch’in,
roughly the west)

the early empire

the whole period down to the main part of the third century can be called the early
empire.

the roman empire was more culturally diverse than iran.

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 the parthians and sasanians ruled over a largely iranian population.

the roman empire was a mosaic of territories and cultures that were bound together by a
common system of government.

many languages were spoken in the empire.

latin and greek were most widely used for administration.

greek : spoken and written by the upper classes of the east.

latin : spoken and written by the upper classes of the west.

the boundary between greek and latin ran across the middle of the mediterranean,
between tripolitania (latin-speaking) and cyrenaica (greek-speaking).

all those who lived in the empire were subjects of the emperor.

the regime established by augustus, the first emperor in 27 bce, was called the
principate.

although augustus was the sole ruler, the fiction was kept alive that he was only the
leading citizen (princeps in latin).

this was done out of respect for the senate, the body which controlled rome earlier.

the senate had existed in rome for centuries and had been and remained a body
representing the aristocracy.

most of the roman histories in greek and latin were written by people of senatorial
background.

emperors were judged by how they behaved to the senate.

the romans had a paid professional army where soldiers had to put in a minimum of 25
years of service.

the army was the largest single organised body in the empire (60,000 by the fourth
century) and had the power to determine the fate of the emperors.

the soldiers often agitated for better wages and service conditions (often took the form of
mutinies).

the senate hated and feared the army as it was a source of unpredictable violence.

the first two centuries were stable and free from civil wars.

in 69 ce, four emperors mounted the throne in quick succession.

succession to the throne was based on family descent, either natural or adoptive.

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 tiberius was not the natural son of augustus but had been adopted for a smooth transition.

external warfare was much less common in the first two centuries.

roman direct rule was accomplished by absorbing a whole series of dependent kingdoms
into roman provincial territory.

the near east was full of such kingdoms.

by the early second century, those which lay west of the euphrates were swallowed up by
rome.

the denarius was a roman silver coin containing about 4.5 gm of pure silver.

except italy, all the territories of the empire were organised into provinces and subject to
taxation.

carthage, alexandria and antioch were the largest urban centres.

the government was able to tax the provincial countrysides through cities.

the local upper classes actively collaborated with the roman state in administering their
own territories and raising taxes from them.

throughout the second and third centuries, the provincial upper classes supplied most of
the cadre that governed the provinces and commanded the armies.

they came to form a new elite of administrators and military commanders who were
more powerful than the senate as they had the backing of the emperor.

as this new group emerged, the emperor gallienus consolidated their rise to power by
excluding the senate from military command.

a city in the roman sense was an urban centre with its own magistrates, city council and a
territory containing villages which were under its jurisdiction.

villages could be upgraded to the status of a city, and vice versa, as a mark of imperial
favour.

public baths were a striking feature of roman urban life.

urban populations enjoyed a much higher level of entertainment.

one calendar tells us that spectacula (shows) filled 176 days of the year.

the third-century crisis

from the 230s, the empire found itself fighting on several fronts simultaneously.

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 in iran, a new and more aggressive dynasty emerged in 225 and within just 15 years were
expanding rapidly towards 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
antioche.

a whole series of germanic tribal confederacies began to move against the northern
frontiers.

the whole period of 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.

the emperors of this period were constantly in the field against “barbarians”.

gender, literacy, culture

roman society followed the concept of the nuclear family.

slaves were included in the family.

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.

the woman remained a primary heir of her father and became an independent property
owner after her father’s death.

in law the married couple was not one financial entity.

the wife enjoyed complete legal independence.

divorce was relatively easy and required no more than a notice of intent by either
husband or wife.

males married in their late twenties or early thirties.

women were married off in their late teens or early twenties.

marriages were generally arranged.

women were often subject to domination by their husbands.

saint augustine tells us that his mother was regularly beaten by his father and that most
other wives in the town had similar bruises to show.

fathers had substantial legal control over their children.

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 the rates of casual literacy varied greatly between different parts of the empire.

in popei, there is strong evidence of widespread casual literacy.

advertisements on walls of the main streets.

graffiti all over the city.

in egypt, literacy was more widespread among certain categories such as soldiers, army
officers and estate managers.

the cultural diversity of the empire was reflected in the following ways:

in 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).

their patterns of settlement.

aramaic was the dominant language group of the near east.

coptic was spoken in egypt.

punic and berber were spoken in north africa.

celtic was spoken in spain and the northwest.

economic expansion
the empire had substantial economic infrastructure of:

harbours

mines

quarries

brickyards

olive oil factories

etc…

wheat, wine and olive oil were traded and consumed in huge quantities and came mainly
from:

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 spain

the gallic provinces

north africa

egypt

italy (to a lesser extent)

liquids like wine and olive oil were transported in containers called amphorae.

spanish olive oil was a vast commercial enterprise that reached its peak in the years 140 -
160.

the spanish olive oil of this period was mainly carried in a container called dressel 20.

spanish producers succeeded in capturing markets for olive oil from their italian
counterparts.

the big landowners from different regions competed with each other for control of the
main markets for the goods they produced.

olive estates in north africa dominated most of the third and fourth centuries.

in the later fifth and sixth centuries the aegean, southern asia minor (turkey), syria and
palestine became major exporters of wine and olive oil.

most densely settled/wealthiest regions according to writers like strabo and pliny:

campania in italy

sicily

the fayum in egypt

galilee

byzacium (tunisia)

southern gaul (gallia narbonensis)

baetica (southern spain)

best kinds of wine came from campania.

sicily and byzacium exported large quantities of wheat to rome.

galilee was densely cultivated.

spanish olive oil came mainly from numerous estates (fundi) along the banks of the river
guadalquivir in the south of spain.

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 transhumance was widespread in the countryside of numidia (modern algeria).

pastoral and semi-nomadic communities were often on the move, carrying their oven-
shaped huts (mapalia) with them.

the pastures of north african communities were drastically reduced and their movements
more tightly regulated.

in spain, the north was much less developed, and inhabited largely by a celtic-speaking
peasantry that lived in hilltop villages called castella.

modern traits of the roman economy:

diversified applications of water power around the mediterranean.

advances in water powered milling technology.

use of hydraulic mining techniques in the spanish gold and silver mines.

well organised commercial and banking networks.

widespread use of money.

controlling workers
slaves were an investment.

roman agricultural writers advised landowners against using them in contexts where too
many might be required.

based on economic calculations and not empathy.

roman upper classes were often brutal towards their slaves.

ordinary people sometimes showed much more compassion.

as warfare became less widespread, the supply of slaves tended to decline.

users of slave labour had to depend on:

slave breeding

wage labour (easily dispensable)

free labour (extensively used on public works)

slaves had to be fed and maintained throughout the year which made them expensive.

freedmen (slaves who had been set free by their masters) were extensively used as
business managers.

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 masters often gave slaves or freedmen capital to run businesses for them or even of their
own.

columella (first century writer) recommended that landowners should keep a reserve of
stock implements and tools, twice as many as they needed, so that production could be
continuous.

there was a general presumption that without supervision no work would ever get done,
so supervision was paramount.

to make supervision easier, workers were sometimes divided into gangs or small teams.

columella recommended teams of 10 as it was easier to tell who was and was not putting
in effort.

pliny the elder (author of ‘natural history’) condemned the use of slave gangs as they
were usually chained together by their feet.

the elder pliny described conditions in the frankincense factories (officinae) of

alexandria, where no amount of supervision sufficed.

a law of 398 referred to workers being branded so they could be recognised if they ran
away or tried to hide.

many private employers cast their agreements with workers in the form of debt contracts.

they claimed that their employees were in debt to them and thus ensured tighter
control over them.

a lot of the poorer families went into debt bondage in order to survive.

parents sometimes sold their children into servitude for periods of 25 years.

rural indebtedness was even more widespread.

social hierarchies
tacitus described the leading social groups of the early empire as follows:

the senators (patres, lit. fathers).

leading members of the equestrian class.

the respectable section of the people, those attached to the great houses.

the unkempt lower classes (plebs sordida) who were addicted to the circus and
theatrical displays.

the slaves.

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 in the early third century, approx. half the senators came from italian families.

by the late empire, the senators and the equites had merged into a unified and expanded
aristocracy.

at least half of all families were of african or eastern origin.

enormously wealthy.

less powerful than purely military elites.

the middle class now consisted of:

a considerable mass of people connected with imperial service in the bureaucracy

and the army.

the more prosperous merchants and farmers.

humiliores (lower) comprised a rural labour force.

permanent employees of large estates

workers in industrial and mining establishments

migrant workers

self-employed artisans

casual labourers

slaves

the aristocracy based in the city of rome drew annual incomes of up to 4000 lbs of gold
from their estates.

the monetary system of the late empire broke with the silver-based currencies of the first
three centuries.

spanish silver mines were exhausted.

govt. ran out of sufficient stocks of silver.

new monetary system on gold founded by constantine.

the late roman bureaucracy was a comparatively affluent group because it drew the bulk
of its salary in gold and invested it in assets like land.

the extortion of the higher bureaucracy and the greed of the provincial governors were
proverbial.

govt. intervened repeatedly to curb corruption.

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 the roman state was an authoritarian regime.

dissent was rarely tolerated and govt. responded to protest with violence.

a strong tradition of roman law had emerged by the fourth century and acted as a brake
on emperors.

late antiquity
late antiquity - the final period in the evolution and break-up of the roman empire.

developments in religious life:

constantine made christianity the official religion.

rise of islam in the seventh century.

polytheist cultures of greece and rome.

spread of judaism.

emperor diocletian

cut back territories with little strategic or economic value

fortified the frontiers

reorganised provincial boundaries

separated civilian from military functions

granted greater autonomy to military commanders (duces)

constantine introduced a new denomination (solidus).

a coin of 4.5 gm of pure gold.

solidi were minted and circulated on a very large scale.

constantine created a second capital at constantinople, surrounded by water on three

sides.

investments in rural establishments

industrial installations

oil presses

glass factories

newer technologies

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 screw presses

water mills

egypt contributed taxes of over 2.5 million solidi a year in the reign of justinian in the
sixth century.

the east was generally prosperous and the population grew till the sixth century despite
the plague in the 540s.

in the west, the empire fragmented politically as germanic groups from the north took
over all major provinces and established kingdoms.

in the east, the reign of justinian is the mark of prosperity and imperial ambition.

justinian recaptured africa from the vandals.

his recovery of italy left that country devastated and paved the way for lombard
invasions.

by the early seventh century, the war between rome and iran flared up again.

by 642, large parts of both the eastern roman and sasanian empires had fallen to the
arabs.

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