Unit 2 Administration: Running an Empire

Question 1

2.1 Provinciae

Means of ruling them evolved from conquest How?

Answer 1

Provincia - originally used to denote the assignment or a sphere of activity of a Roman official

Mann 1974- ‘Roman history (the structured way the empire developed) is essentially the virtually unique story of a nation trying to catch up with the situations produced by the incredible success of its army’ Britain’s ‘accidental empire’?

Appropriate mechanisms for civil government devised by commanders as they went along Western - new, Eastern - modification of the existing, both - use of the local leaders/aristocracy by Praetors/Governors to run the provinces. This flexibility and pragmatism = longevity

Question 2

2.2 Ideas of empire

The councils called? Infrastructure of a province?

Answer 2

Concilia - provincial councils - kept up contact between local elites in different parts of a province

Principal structures that played a key role in running the empire:-

Taxes- sent back via roads to Rome

Cities - crucial to administration housing the most important institutions

Governors - assisted by administrators (very few considering the empire’s size - Erskine)

Local Elites - running there own territories

Question 3

2.3 Provincial governors and the Roman elite

Senatorial and imperial governed by who and for how long?

Answer 3

Senatorial provinces governed by proconsuls for a year.
Imperial provinces governed by a legate of the emperor for 3-5 years, except Egypt and its corn wealth which was ruled by a ‘prefect’ (Prefects Aegypti)

Roman authorities usually managed to win over the elite sections of conquered/annexed societies using as little disruption to local hierarchies as possible (globes start to appear on coins in the 3rd C indicating world rule)

Cicero (statesman of the late republic 106-43 BC executed as an enemy of Mark Antony as anti Caesar pro Republic) - member of the educated Roman elite/old patrician families and had gone through the courses honerium becoming a quaestor - praetor (magistrate, army commander)) - consul (highest political office). His goal to preserve the established political order against over powerful figures (emperors)

Question 4

2.4 The life of a governor

Pliny?

Answer 4

Pliny - Governor of Bithynia et Pontus in Asia Minor under Trajan in 109CE - well versed in oratory and a writer a ‘safe pair of hands’ sent to restore order after a period of mismanagement

His letters are a good insight into emperor-governor correspondence i.e. financial. infrastructure, military, religious (dealings with the Christians), legal, diplomacy. Trajan replies usually well sometimes irritated that Pliny hasn’t simply acted on his own volition - why send Architects when Greece is full of them?

Question 5

2.5 An empire of cities? I

E.g. How were rural areas run, by which entity?

Answer 5

Local groups spoken of in terms of the names of cities - a very important basic element of Roman administration; that the empire was run through-cities

Rural settlements (vicus and and villas) were all assigned in administrative terms to a nearby city and (along with the cities themselves) organised via urban centres - financial authorities, legislative councils, legal institutions - all city run

Question 6

2.5 An empire of cities? II

Local laws, highest status for a city?

What grades below this?

Answer 6

The laws that bound individual people were those of their local community and the relationship of that community to Rome, defined in there types of Status:-

Colonia - Highest status for a city (originally a veterans’ settlement) then honorary title for existing city of importance. Inhabitants granted Roman citizenship (legally beneficial) bound tightly to Roman laws e.g. Trier, Germany - colonia Augusta Treverorum

Municipium - An already existing city but sometimes newly founded, mainly granted in the western provinces, free inhabitants granted Roman or Latin citizenship (a lesser form of citizenship), could negotiate some of its own laws and religious calendar, e.g. Tongeren, Belgium - municipium Atuatuca Tungrorum

Civitas or civita capita - City with a mixed bag of rights negotiated by case, e.g. Beauvais, France, Caesaromagus - capital of Civitas Bellovacorum

Question 7

2.5 An empire of cities? III

How did Roman government use existing establishment?

Answer 7

Roman government where possible relied on existing administrative or ethnic boundaries to divide up its territory

Used existing local elites to run them on its behalf.

Using local elites was the ‘glue’ that held the empire together linking the ‘man on the provincial street’ with the imperial core.

Existing cities in the east where simply adapted to meet Roman needs

The west involved building new cities from scratch

Question 8

2.6 Running a provincial city

Administrative structures and officers?

Answer 8

Civitas Administrative Structure:-
Duumviri or Duoviri (two mayors) - Highest office in a community (similar to Roman consuls, shared role, holders elected for fixed terms) - justice, manumission, grant rights, change infrastructure

Aediles - Officials for managing public works, infrastructure, temples, sanctuaries, roads, drains, baths, food supplies, standards managing the ‘vigiliae’ (fire brigade)

Quaestores - Officials for managing public finances

Decuriones - City council, 30-450 meters depending on city’s size, similar to Roman Senate

Ordo Decurionum - 3rd social order below senatorial and equestrian order, like those orders, entry gained through a person’s personal wealth 100, 000 sesterii

This structured the way in new cities (East different - adaptation)