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The Edinburgh History of Rome
Imperial Rome AD 193 to 284
The Roman empire during the period framed by the accession of Septimus Severus in 193 and the rise of Diocletian in 284 has conventionally been regarded as one of 'crisis'. Between 235 and 284, at least eighteen men held the throne of the empire, for an average of less than three years, a reckoning which does not take into account all the relatives and lieutenants with whom those men shared power. Compared to the century between the accession of Nerva and the death of Commodus, this appears to be a period of near unintelligibility. The middle of the century also witnessed catastrophic, if temporary, ruptures in the territorial integrity of the empire. At slightly different times, large portions of the eastern and western halves of the empire passed under the control of powers and principalities who assumed the mantle of Roman government and exercised meaningful and legitimate juridical, political and military power over millions. The success and longevity of those political formations reflected local responses to the collapse of Roman governmental power in the face of extraordinary pressure on its borders. Even those regions that remained Roman were subjected to depredation and pillage by invading armies. The Roman peace, which had become in the last instance the justification for empire, had been shattered. In this pioneering history Clifford Ando describes and integrates the contrasting histories of different parts of the empire and assesses the impacts of administrative, political and religious change.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 20, 2012
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June 10, 2020
A political history of the Bad Century of Roman history — between Caracalla and Diocletian — where schisms and assassinations and usurpation became the norm, as emperors succumbed entirely to the army, often being murdered by their troops or, when victorious, using their military victories to lay claim to the title of emperor. From 235 to 284, almost everyone who claim (or had bestowed) this title ended up dead within anywhere from three months to three years. Some of these people were extremely colorful (e.g. the seemingly transsexual Heliogabulus). Meanwhile the weakness of the Roman state emboldened enemies along all the borders, and also led to breakaway provincial governments under aspiring would be emperors.
Ando makes clear that the fundamental problem was a lack of any legitimation mechanism other that victory in battle AND (often fictive) claims of lineal descent from previous emperors. Meanwhile the administrative aspects of the Roman state decayed further and further, though given the political chaos at the top and in the regions, the continuity of operations (particularly with respect to tax collection and infrastructure development) seems quite remarkable. Indeed the continuity of administrative commitment is what would eventually allow Diocletian and Constantine to reunified the empire in the late third and early fourth centuries.
Strictly political history. Not a social history. Nor interested in the larger historical forces that precipitated the political crises (plagues, environmental disruptions, etc).
Ando makes clear that the fundamental problem was a lack of any legitimation mechanism other that victory in battle AND (often fictive) claims of lineal descent from previous emperors. Meanwhile the administrative aspects of the Roman state decayed further and further, though given the political chaos at the top and in the regions, the continuity of operations (particularly with respect to tax collection and infrastructure development) seems quite remarkable. Indeed the continuity of administrative commitment is what would eventually allow Diocletian and Constantine to reunified the empire in the late third and early fourth centuries.
Strictly political history. Not a social history. Nor interested in the larger historical forces that precipitated the political crises (plagues, environmental disruptions, etc).
March 8, 2021
I truly enjoyed this work by Clifford Ando. Though a short work, considering the length of time which the topic covers, Ando's discussion of the third century 'crisis' and the transformation of the Roman Empire in this period is very well argued and detailed.
Beginning his work on the eve of the death of Commodus, though often discussing much earlier periods, he outlines the gradual decent of the Empire into what would be the 'Crisis of the Third Century'. A primary reason for the instability following the death of Commodus being the lack of state apparatus for the selection of a new Emperor, leaving the matter to a contest of swords and winner take all but from which succeeding Emperors had difficulty in creating personal and dynastic stability, whilst damaging the reverence once held for the position. These issues were exacerbated by external invasion, economic difficulties and increasing usurpations or 'failed emperors' who attempted to gain the throne or ruled a section of the Empire successfully for several years before being overthrown of defeated.
In contrast to the traditional scenes of chaos in the form of war and iron and rust, Ando also presents a very well grounded argument for the increase in state control over the population in the same period, though not necessarily intentionally, particularly via the 'Antonine Constitution', making all free inhabitants citizens, but also certain edicts such as those on the duty of all Romans to sacrifice to the gods for the good of the empire.
Where the imperial government is not intrusive or their reach is limited, the uptake of 'Roman' practices, such as the use of Latin in local settings for inscriptions, the display of citizenship on these inscriptions, but also of the uptake of Roman over local law, point to a recognition by society at large of a state, independent of the figure of the emperor. It was this independent view of the state as existing independently of the ruler which was a saving grace for the empire, allowing it to gradually reunite with ease under stronger leadership towards the end of the century.
While short, the work can be a dense read in some sections, particularly those concerning law and religion, where some background knowledge might be useful to the general reader. However they do not diminish the usefulness or enjoyableness of this introduction as a whole to the Roman world in the third century. It certainly has a place in my Ancient History library.
Beginning his work on the eve of the death of Commodus, though often discussing much earlier periods, he outlines the gradual decent of the Empire into what would be the 'Crisis of the Third Century'. A primary reason for the instability following the death of Commodus being the lack of state apparatus for the selection of a new Emperor, leaving the matter to a contest of swords and winner take all but from which succeeding Emperors had difficulty in creating personal and dynastic stability, whilst damaging the reverence once held for the position. These issues were exacerbated by external invasion, economic difficulties and increasing usurpations or 'failed emperors' who attempted to gain the throne or ruled a section of the Empire successfully for several years before being overthrown of defeated.
In contrast to the traditional scenes of chaos in the form of war and iron and rust, Ando also presents a very well grounded argument for the increase in state control over the population in the same period, though not necessarily intentionally, particularly via the 'Antonine Constitution', making all free inhabitants citizens, but also certain edicts such as those on the duty of all Romans to sacrifice to the gods for the good of the empire.
Where the imperial government is not intrusive or their reach is limited, the uptake of 'Roman' practices, such as the use of Latin in local settings for inscriptions, the display of citizenship on these inscriptions, but also of the uptake of Roman over local law, point to a recognition by society at large of a state, independent of the figure of the emperor. It was this independent view of the state as existing independently of the ruler which was a saving grace for the empire, allowing it to gradually reunite with ease under stronger leadership towards the end of the century.
While short, the work can be a dense read in some sections, particularly those concerning law and religion, where some background knowledge might be useful to the general reader. However they do not diminish the usefulness or enjoyableness of this introduction as a whole to the Roman world in the third century. It certainly has a place in my Ancient History library.
March 10, 2024
Titles that would better capture what this book actually is:
* Topics in the Political History of Third-Century Rome
* Empire: The Roman Constitution in the Crisis of the Third Century
Anyway, the point is that this book is a strange volume in a series which (according to the series editor's preface) "covers not only the political and military history of that shifting and complex society, but also the contributions of the economic and social history of the Roman world to that change and growth and the intellectual contexts of these developments." This book glances at the social and religious history, but almost exclusively insofar as they illuminate Ando's main interest: the politics of empire. Certainly intellectual and military history are afforded no time at all, while Ando politicizes the economic history so completely that his analysis of Aurelian's coinage reforms boils down to "probably he just wanted his face on the coins, and maybe he wanted to standardize them, and oh also there was inflation." This isn't a a bad thing, just know what you're getting into. Within this framework I think Ando does a spectacular job, especially on the topics he's best at (law and the nature/structure/operation of government).
Sources: Ando is EXTREMELY skeptical of the traditional sources other than Dio (Historia Augusta, Herodian, Eutropius, Zosimus, &c), and so relies HEAVILY on papyri, oracles, and above all inscriptions. (The Sibiline Oracles get a lot of space, probably because David Potter wrote the definitive edition and Ando cites Potter INCESSANTLY--almost as much as he cites himself!) This leads to a pretty iconoclastic history book. Ando writes in the no-holds barred style of a Suetonius, but unlike Suetonius doesn't really have praise for anyone at all, except Shapur and Diocletian. As a result I think if you're not already familiar with the period, this is a bad place to start, especially since the narrative is not only non-traditional but quite tightly compressed.
Style: Academical and dense. Lots of talk of homology and interpellation; sentences run long and complicated. Ando is a legal scholar and he does not hesitate to use obscure Latin legal jargon in running text. Interspersed are moral castigations that wouldn't sound out of place in the Historia Augusta; witness:
Introduction: In retrospect, the claims made here are a little lofty w/r/t what this book will actually do; the chapters do not "describe developments in social and cultural conduct." On the other hand, Ando is near his sharpest here: he astutely breaks down the Senate-emperor relationship in the late second century; he takes a rational stance on the question of crisis and maintains it throughout the book. Most impressive is his analysis of the political role of the army, where he makes the fascinating point that Augustus essentially invented the modern political conception of the army as tool-of-civilian-government. But his brief mention at disease, population dynamics, and climate change savors badly given that he never comes back to these topics.
2, Severus pt. I: Narrative. Ando's comments on Roman legalism are sharp, and his economic reading of emperor-city & emperor-army relations is the first of many such analyses. He wisely quotes Dio in full, and spends a lot of time (I think profitably) on imperial titulature.
3, Severus pt. II: Narrative. The heavy legal analysis begins here. Ando's treatment of the Antonine constitution runs like a slow boil, building up the picture of what it was and what it meant.
4, Law: Analysis: The legal analysis is at its densest but most rewarding. Ando's answer to the classic question "Why wasn't the Antonine Constitution a huge deal?" is "it didn't do what you think it did and it took time to trickle down." Ando does a lot of political-legal theory in this chapter, some of which hits and some of which misses, but almost all of which is interesting; e.g. exactly what laws were subjects/citizens subject to? what courts? what does that mean for the structure of government? of empire? This chapter contains one of the few points in this book that failed to be convincing for me: the idea that the right to appeal to roman courts had a normative effect on the population as a whole doesn't, I think, rise to his usual standard of evidence.
5, Philip: Narrative: Probably the funniest chapter; Ando spares no punches for the incompetence of all involved in this 20-year period.
6, Religion: Analysis: I think the most uneven chapter. Being a political history, Ando hamstrings himself by not letting himself include any concrete information about the changing religious landscape. He won't even give the Manicheans more than a line or two! Some of his points are great, like his observation that "the great revolution of the high Roman empire in the religious domain is not its conversion to Christianity, but its conversion to an understanding of religion in which conversion was meaningful." His analysis of member rolls is interesting, but his analysis of the edict on sacrifice is soo politicized I feel it misses much. It is also, remarkably, highly papyrological! I also don't think he adequately makes all the points he sets out to make in this chapter (e.g. "[religion in Rome and religion in Antioch] had evolved such that each existed in a relation of fractal reduplication with the other.") It's frustrating, because Ando has the makings of a Steely-eyed missile man in the domain of religious history (cf. e.g. "I deliberately do not use the term 'belong' in reference to a religion when speaking of the classical period")
7, Gallienus: Narrative. I'm biased, because Gallienus is my favorite, but I think Ando is a little harsh on my guys here. The thematic question is "Why didn't everything get better?" Ando's answer is "They weren't that great and at least it didn't get worse."
8, Governmentality: Analysis. Probably the weakest chapter. Ando does something cool reading Foucault's concept governmentality against the grain, but does something lame by not letting himself use the economic/social arguments that would really make this good. Within this constraint he wants to argue for the influence of the government over the lives of individuals but all he can muster is inscriptions of gubernatorial rescripts and road markers. Not exactly governmentality. He's much better in straight government analysis: who held government position, size, scope, and change. He also issues a call for (someone else to do ) a localized rescript-evaluation, which frankly I'm not sold on the need for.
9, Reconquest: Narrative: How can you be so cynical about Aurelian? The lack of military history also sticks out like a sore thumb in this chapter, the perfect place to talk about the emergence of the proto-feudal structure that characterizes the late antique West. Cool history of Zenobia though. It's in this chapter that Ando is most unambiguous: the crisis, at least politically, was a result of smashing together one-man-rule over an empire with the legitimating power of the army. I think his nontraditionalism is most effective at the end of this chapter, where he effectively questions the traditional narrative that the crisis ended with Aurelian. If you ignore the literary sources fluff, it's clear that it did not. It ended with Diocletian.
10, Conclusion: Reiterates the governmentality argument its its most persuasive form (Roman institutions had penetrated so deeply that even in their absence, substitutes were just Roman government clones); Reiterates rational position on crisis argument (essentially taking the position that crisis nay-sayers don't give empire enough credit, which is real convenient given that's his research area i.e. what he gets paid for); Tantalizes with economic and social stuff he's never gonna spend any time on.
----
Good and fun; read in Nero or between pomodoros or at night. Slow, but not too long; dense, but not hard; fun, but stimulating. Just with it were a little more broad.
* Topics in the Political History of Third-Century Rome
* Empire: The Roman Constitution in the Crisis of the Third Century
Anyway, the point is that this book is a strange volume in a series which (according to the series editor's preface) "covers not only the political and military history of that shifting and complex society, but also the contributions of the economic and social history of the Roman world to that change and growth and the intellectual contexts of these developments." This book glances at the social and religious history, but almost exclusively insofar as they illuminate Ando's main interest: the politics of empire. Certainly intellectual and military history are afforded no time at all, while Ando politicizes the economic history so completely that his analysis of Aurelian's coinage reforms boils down to "probably he just wanted his face on the coins, and maybe he wanted to standardize them, and oh also there was inflation." This isn't a a bad thing, just know what you're getting into. Within this framework I think Ando does a spectacular job, especially on the topics he's best at (law and the nature/structure/operation of government).
Sources: Ando is EXTREMELY skeptical of the traditional sources other than Dio (Historia Augusta, Herodian, Eutropius, Zosimus, &c), and so relies HEAVILY on papyri, oracles, and above all inscriptions. (The Sibiline Oracles get a lot of space, probably because David Potter wrote the definitive edition and Ando cites Potter INCESSANTLY--almost as much as he cites himself!) This leads to a pretty iconoclastic history book. Ando writes in the no-holds barred style of a Suetonius, but unlike Suetonius doesn't really have praise for anyone at all, except Shapur and Diocletian. As a result I think if you're not already familiar with the period, this is a bad place to start, especially since the narrative is not only non-traditional but quite tightly compressed.
Style: Academical and dense. Lots of talk of homology and interpellation; sentences run long and complicated. Ando is a legal scholar and he does not hesitate to use obscure Latin legal jargon in running text. Interspersed are moral castigations that wouldn't sound out of place in the Historia Augusta; witness:
Events now entered the domain of the burlesque.
Macrinus ranks among those third-century emperors whose only talents were murder and bribery and whose only useful act--and very nearly only act--was his own death.
The next two months were to expose the folly of his position, the weakness of the Senate, the imbicility of Maximus and the fragility of armies on the move - the staggering idiocy, one might say, of the entire imperial system. Had it not involved enormous suffering, the situation might be named bathetic. &c &c.
Introduction: In retrospect, the claims made here are a little lofty w/r/t what this book will actually do; the chapters do not "describe developments in social and cultural conduct." On the other hand, Ando is near his sharpest here: he astutely breaks down the Senate-emperor relationship in the late second century; he takes a rational stance on the question of crisis and maintains it throughout the book. Most impressive is his analysis of the political role of the army, where he makes the fascinating point that Augustus essentially invented the modern political conception of the army as tool-of-civilian-government. But his brief mention at disease, population dynamics, and climate change savors badly given that he never comes back to these topics.
2, Severus pt. I: Narrative. Ando's comments on Roman legalism are sharp, and his economic reading of emperor-city & emperor-army relations is the first of many such analyses. He wisely quotes Dio in full, and spends a lot of time (I think profitably) on imperial titulature.
3, Severus pt. II: Narrative. The heavy legal analysis begins here. Ando's treatment of the Antonine constitution runs like a slow boil, building up the picture of what it was and what it meant.
4, Law: Analysis: The legal analysis is at its densest but most rewarding. Ando's answer to the classic question "Why wasn't the Antonine Constitution a huge deal?" is "it didn't do what you think it did and it took time to trickle down." Ando does a lot of political-legal theory in this chapter, some of which hits and some of which misses, but almost all of which is interesting; e.g. exactly what laws were subjects/citizens subject to? what courts? what does that mean for the structure of government? of empire? This chapter contains one of the few points in this book that failed to be convincing for me: the idea that the right to appeal to roman courts had a normative effect on the population as a whole doesn't, I think, rise to his usual standard of evidence.
5, Philip: Narrative: Probably the funniest chapter; Ando spares no punches for the incompetence of all involved in this 20-year period.
6, Religion: Analysis: I think the most uneven chapter. Being a political history, Ando hamstrings himself by not letting himself include any concrete information about the changing religious landscape. He won't even give the Manicheans more than a line or two! Some of his points are great, like his observation that "the great revolution of the high Roman empire in the religious domain is not its conversion to Christianity, but its conversion to an understanding of religion in which conversion was meaningful." His analysis of member rolls is interesting, but his analysis of the edict on sacrifice is soo politicized I feel it misses much. It is also, remarkably, highly papyrological! I also don't think he adequately makes all the points he sets out to make in this chapter (e.g. "[religion in Rome and religion in Antioch] had evolved such that each existed in a relation of fractal reduplication with the other.") It's frustrating, because Ando has the makings of a Steely-eyed missile man in the domain of religious history (cf. e.g. "I deliberately do not use the term 'belong' in reference to a religion when speaking of the classical period")
7, Gallienus: Narrative. I'm biased, because Gallienus is my favorite, but I think Ando is a little harsh on my guys here. The thematic question is "Why didn't everything get better?" Ando's answer is "They weren't that great and at least it didn't get worse."
8, Governmentality: Analysis. Probably the weakest chapter. Ando does something cool reading Foucault's concept governmentality against the grain, but does something lame by not letting himself use the economic/social arguments that would really make this good. Within this constraint he wants to argue for the influence of the government over the lives of individuals but all he can muster is inscriptions of gubernatorial rescripts and road markers. Not exactly governmentality. He's much better in straight government analysis: who held government position, size, scope, and change. He also issues a call for (someone else to do ) a localized rescript-evaluation, which frankly I'm not sold on the need for.
9, Reconquest: Narrative: How can you be so cynical about Aurelian? The lack of military history also sticks out like a sore thumb in this chapter, the perfect place to talk about the emergence of the proto-feudal structure that characterizes the late antique West. Cool history of Zenobia though. It's in this chapter that Ando is most unambiguous: the crisis, at least politically, was a result of smashing together one-man-rule over an empire with the legitimating power of the army. I think his nontraditionalism is most effective at the end of this chapter, where he effectively questions the traditional narrative that the crisis ended with Aurelian. If you ignore the literary sources fluff, it's clear that it did not. It ended with Diocletian.
10, Conclusion: Reiterates the governmentality argument its its most persuasive form (Roman institutions had penetrated so deeply that even in their absence, substitutes were just Roman government clones); Reiterates rational position on crisis argument (essentially taking the position that crisis nay-sayers don't give empire enough credit, which is real convenient given that's his research area i.e. what he gets paid for); Tantalizes with economic and social stuff he's never gonna spend any time on.
----
Good and fun; read in Nero or between pomodoros or at night. Slow, but not too long; dense, but not hard; fun, but stimulating. Just with it were a little more broad.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews