How 'Roman' was the Roman Empire?

Yonks ago, I posted a thread titled 'The Melting Pot?', wherein I put forward the question of whether the world, in this case the geographical area and timeframe depicted in EB, was or not a melting pot of cultures and peoples. I asserted, in that post, that it seemed to to me given the seemingly large numbers of either ethnic minorities that were the result of cross-cultural integration (The Liby-Phoenicians, the Celto-Iberians, the practices of the Baktrian kingdom, etc) or of different peoples and tribes aiding the superior power at a given time (Gaulish tribes aiding the Romans as they were advancing through Italy and Southern Gaul, the Diadochoi empires in general...)

Despite some good input, let's just say things didn't work out on that thread. Now that enough time has passed, I've decided to post forward a related question, albeit dealing with our old friends the Romani.

The title gives away everything here. How 'integrated', for lack of a better word, was the Roman empire? Obviously, Rome was one city with a limited population. It's somewhat ridiculous to say that its armies were always made up of Romans, or that the ruling classes in every region of the Roman empire at its height was made of Romans. That implies some unbelievably superhuman breeding power in the peoples of that city. Not that I'm ruling that out...

How much did Rome encourage its citizens, either from Rome or Italy itself, to colonize distant lands and inter-breed with the local population? Everyone here on EB will have read the quote 'What shore knows not our blood?' but how true is that? Did the Roman empire try to create greater harmony by encouraging its people's to mix and inter-relate and, by proxy, make the empire more stable? Were there ruling classes made up of only 'pure' Romans who refused to mix with the local populations? Could important members of other ethnicities in the empire, such as the Iberians, Gauls, or Greeks, rise to important positions of power within the fully-Roman power structure? History would seem to support this one, as emperors such as Hadrian and Severus are documented as having been from Spain and Libya respectively (Severus has even been described as dark-skinned). However, to me these always seemed to be the exceptions rather than the rule.

So, how well-integrated was the Roman empire? How much power rested in Rome itself, and how much rested in the hands of its subjects? Were its people even willing to mix?

Obviously, the empire was a huge place that lasted for many centuries, so I'm not expecting a simple dry and cut answer. I do think, though, that certain trends would have been evident, or more or less persistent, throughout the empire's existence, even in EB's timeframe when it was forming.

So, who's got any thoughts?

Oh, and of course if this thread gets derailed or off-topic, or degenerates, well...

French, English, Italian, Spanish, and Romanian all have significant Latin elements in their language even 2000 years after the empire, and many of Europe's greatest cities were founded by Romans, so it seems that the local population must have become highly Romanized - culturally at least, if not ethnically. Of course the East became Greek, and eventually Islamic civilization came to dominate North Africa, Egypt and Anatolia. My guess is that long term Romanization existed primarily in the west as many barbarian tribes turned to the catholic church and the existing Roman bureaucracy to help them after their initial conquests. Arguably Rome's influence has outlasted that of other major cultures of the EB time frame such as the Celts in Gaul, the Carthaginians in Africa, or the Greeks in the East. Rome's long term influence is only (in my memory) eclipsed on a world level by the dominance of Chinese culture in China - a geographically different area in its design. India might also be a candidate for having an ancient culture with modern transnational influence.

My opinion (I am not an academic expert) is that Roman cultural influence was profound in Europe 2,000 years ago, and it remains very significant to this day in Europe - although aspects of Roman culture (the Catholic church and Latin language) have had a significant effect on the new world as well. The languages of North and Latin America (LATIN America) are based on the Roman language, and the republican system of the USA includes a Senate.

Ethnically, Rome has had much less influence. There are probably genes from 2,000 year old legionnaires in the populations of most western European countries, and quite likely in Africa and the East as well - but really, only people in the Mediterranean region "look" or "act" in any way similar to Romans now, and I make that statement very loosely (please don't flame me...). Still, I think that there could be some case that if the Romans heavily colonized Spain, and the genetics of the regional people of Iberia weren't too washed out by subsequent invasions (Germans and Arabs) - then the Spanish and Portuguese conquest and colonization of Latin America might to this day guarantee that Roman Genetic influence exists at least a tiny bit over entire continents...

Finally, archaeological evidence suggests that during the height of the Empire Estates and cities followed a plan that was ubiquitous. The cities of Britain followed the same street plan as those of Africa, or Anatolia. The same economy, language, city plan, religion - essentially the same culture was followed throughout the empire. At its height, I would say that the Roman Empire as a whole was, on the surface at least, pretty Roman.

Romans were pretty much Hellenized Celts.

..Or Celticized Greeks...who knows?

Barbaroi, nonetheless.

Satalexton's posts can be summed on a single catchphrase: Romaioi Barbaroi.

you're opening a huge subject here J.Alco... socioeconomic Roman history offers a massive amount of things to chew on and absorb because of the empire's sheer spatial expansion and time span ...

there is a great book by Fernard Braudel (very influential historian) called the "memories of the Mediteranean" ... the book deals with how different ancient civilisations around the Mediteranean region were formed and organised... each chapter more or less offers a very brief account of a civilisation (Greek,Roman, Carthaginean and so on)... i was really impressed by the chapter on Carthage's trade and economics... (note however that ancient history was NOT Braudel's specialty) ... if you feel like learning more i would suggest getting your hands on some of the numerous other historians/sources etc Braudel uses all throughout the book ...

this book though is good for a start... plus it's rather easy to find within a decent sized uni library ...

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French, English, Italian, Spanish, and Romanian all have significant Latin elements in their language even 2000 years after the empire, and many of Europe's greatest cities were founded by Romans

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Well i will add the portuguese language, wich is the language with more latinisms in his gramar today. I will add also, catalan, and alot others. Even polish wich is a slavic language but still has latin influences.

If we talk about genetics i can say for sure the portuguese population, as well In spain. 80% of the genes come from people of the Paleolithic, the rest 20% is romans, sarmatians, Visigoths,Vandalls, Arabs, Moorish, berbers, alans, slavs, etc.Total. What i say is roman people didnt breed more then the others... lol some may have colonize other parts of the empire of course mainly veteran legionares and his families, on these new lands, but was a minority, the power of the empire was translated by its culture and and his legions not by is demographic entenicty. It never is in history. So yes we can see roman briges, romans roads, romans aquaducts etc, in all cornners of the empire.
As we all kown the roman citezenship was given to other peoples for instance on the course of the time.
I wouldnt call Romans helenistic celts. they werent that. The helenist influnces come alot after, if at all the romans have alot of Etruscans influences. Their culture, their art, the tradition of the triumphs... these were Etruscan traditions, not greek. Its interisting, becouse they absorve alot of cultures, in the course of time. Its a caraterictic in this warrior and militaristic society, who rely his survival on military expansion.
At the same time was expanding to survive, the same time was absorving other cultures, like the greeks, like the carthaginian cultures, and iberian cultures. this we can all view in EB, if you can take attention, on military reforms, as well on the naval descriptions. Example: The use of the falcata,the gladius the use of Iberian tactics etc etc. not to mention greek architecture, alphabet, etc.

So we can say for sure,and there is hard evidences all around that the roman empire was indeed roman in culture, and not in ethenicity.


Im sorry for my unperfect english..was on a hurry.

Also i cant see any problem of being a barbaroi. i kown the génesis of the word might not be ofensive, still why you people saying it? wish i kewn the word used by celts and such to describe others peoples. So i can use in this forum. Dont kown if manny people would like that though.

Like Alexander said, "for me every good barbarian is a greek , and every bad greek is a barbarian."

I could be very wrong (I studied political science in college, not history, as interested as I was in the latter) but from what I read the Roman Empire's culture seems as "Roman" as American culture is "English". That is, some pretty heavy cultural influences but very little ethnically (probably some 10% of Americans are of "English" ethnicity but 80% speak English as their first language).

Romans are the Americans fom back then, Uncivilized, Imperialist Barbaroi who have absolutely zero culture and are constantly boasting about their miltary might. Eat worthless food and say they are the best of the best. And they have plebeians and patricians, you can only become senator with enough money for bribes etc.

It's the same really. And they both have the Capitol. Both a fake democracy, both an emperor. Both have "Allies" (read puppet states) and they both look down on other peoples (Greeks and Carthaginians for Romans, Blacks and Hispanics for Americans)

Ther are very few differences if you sum it up.

:inquisitive: right.....

Come to think of it, Romans were heavily influenced by greece early in it's history, then spread it to as much of the (known) world as possible. The Romans are like the italian greeks.. They turned back to greece when the east lost most of the orient.

I think the romans were quite pragmatic in their romanisation.... Those people that saw the benefits of the roman system and had abilities were integrated into the bureaucracy and/or military.... Ethnically the roman empire was very diverse. Also local traditions were kept in place by the romans if they did not hinder them....

I'd like to add one other thing. quite a few people on here seem to visualize the roman empire as a modern Nation State, and I think that is wrong. The idea of a nation state, is quite new and only started to gain ground in the 19th century. The definition of a nation state as taught in history is that it's a territorial entity whose inhabitants feel connected through language and culture. Following this definition one might even argue that a lot of modern states in Africa and Asia are not nation states at all.... Now Latin quickly became the langua franca (quite obvious) but culturally the empire was very diverse. It's only to easy to look at the roman empire in the context of the world today, but I don't think that's very useful. Just some food for thought

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Originally Posted by Skullheadhq

Romans are the Americans fom back then, Uncivilized, Imperialist Barbaroi who have absolutely zero culture and are constantly boasting about their miltary might. Eat worthless food and say they are the best of the best. And they have plebeians and patricians, you can only become senator with enough money for bribes etc.

It's the same really. And they both have the Capitol. Both a fake democracy, both an emperor. Both have "Allies" (read puppet states) and they both look down on other peoples (Greeks and Carthaginians for Romans, Blacks and Hispanics for Americans)

Ther are very few differences if you sum it up.

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that was a typical argument made by Academia and political theorists during the 90's , when the US became the one undisputed superpower surviving the Cold War... back then it seemed like the USA would establish a global hegemony based on military/cultural/economic suppremacy and shape a world under the "western moral standards" ... i think the pinacle of those visions of PAX AMERICANA was the 1998 NATO operation at Kosovo... today with the US fighting rearguard wars all over Asia i think we are safe to say that the Romans proved infinitely more politicaly wise...

At least the Romaioi tryed to justify all their wars by saying they defended allies. Classical Wars were always tryed to be justified in some way, nowadays we just attack and go for the oil.

Caesar was really good in justifiying his wars. Just read his Comentarii de bello Gallico, Everything he tries to justify what he does.

1) Leave modern politics out of this. If you feel you absolutely have to bash Americans or whoever, sign up for the Backroom.

2) No "Romans are Barbarians" spam. Keep this on topic, please.

[QUOTE=Ludens;2279105]1) Leave modern politics out of this.

Indeed:2thumbsup:

Very predictable, but hard to take seriously. I am certain somewhere there is a forum where you can take out your hatred of America, but this is not the place, so stuff it if you please. Perhaps also read some history and learn that the world is not so simple black and white as you depict it, search some enlightenment.

And I am no lover of America, but I am also not a hater.

Now, I also suggest the OP do the same; search enlightenment, read books. Numerous tomes has been written on the subject. The Internet is not the place to search enlightenment and by installing EB you have agreed to read more history. I suggest you go do so. Any general Roman history book will have a chapter dealing with the subject and a literature list.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

No "Romans are Barbarians" spam. Keep this on topic, please.

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Indeed to this also, was mildly amusing at first. Now it is tiresome opening a thread on the Romans, knowing 50% of the posts will be these.

errr, ok back to the topic ...
The fundemental building block of the Roman empire was the "Polis"(=city) with its surrounding agricultural areas (="hora")... those "Poleis" varied in populace, strategic importance and wealth but stretched by the hundreds from one side of the empire to the other... they were politicaly autonomous in regard to their internal affairs/governing and each polis had her own "Vouli" (=a micrography of the Roman senate) which dealed with all the local issues (like wellfare, education, social inequalities and so on) ... the polis was also responsible for maintaining and building infrastructure (roads, aquadects,didaskaleia(=schools) ,gymnasiums, temples and so on) within its "hora"(which could stretch for hundreds of klms) ... those works were largely financed by the local aristocracy (essentialy the "vouli" ) in the form of obligatory commisions imposed on the region's wealthiest citizens...

A very important aspect was that within the empire (the numerous provinces as well as Rome) the aristocratic titles were NOT hereditary but rather based on income... so basicaly everyone wealthy enough could ascend to the higher echelons of regional (or Roman )nobility.This also meant that some families who had declined economicaly gave way to nouveau-riches thus progress,social vitality and costant aristocratic regeneration became possible... this system of aristocratic merit tied to income was called "timocracy"...

As said before the "poleis' varied in their importance and significance... the most important of them would elevate to the position of provincial capital housing the bulk of Rome's administrators in that region... needles to say that there was A LOT OF CONTEST AND ANTAGONISM between neighboring poleis which usually involved MAJOR LOBBYING in Rome itself... contested areas and strategic resources (like mines) between cities (remember that within the empire war between cities was not an option=PAX ROMANA) , imperial funds (=dorees), "cultural" prestige were typical causes of such antagonisms...

the local councils and self-regulation of poleis enabled Rome to drasticaly ECONOMISE by reducing the numbers of needed "public functionairies" to the absolute minimum... the majority of the empire's gentilia (greatest proportion of civil servants) was of native origin and was FOR FREE (pretty neat,huh???) ... needless to say that this provincial aristocracy enjoyed greater popularity amongst the natives...this native aristocracy was multi layered into higher aristocrats (ultra rich and usually living in the city) and various degrees of petty nobles (living in the countryside and enjoying prestige amongst the peasant populations)... client relationships between higher and petty gentilia was the order of the day... the petty tribal leader of a small peasant village would pledge allegiance to the city's aristocrat who would in return be dependant of a senate member in Rome... so a continuous chain of client relationships ( =favors, protection of mutual interests, mutual support amongst outsiders and so on) stretched from Rome to even the most insignificant corner of the empire...
Emperor > Senate > Higher Local nobility > Petty Local Nobility (OR Rome> Poleis > Villages)... this system allowed favors to be asked for by both sides: the centre as well as the periphery... as usual it involved a quid-pro-quo kind of mutual satisfaction ...

On to the ethnological issues : Romans typicaly sent Italic or Roman colonisers ... those could be granted fertile lands or permission to conduct trade or exploit some kind of profitable regional resource ... urban living however encouraged mixed marriages ... why??? the Romanism was essentialy an "Urban Lifestyle"... poleis made avalaible at least a minimum of this "urban lifestyle " which the natives were encouraged to share too ... (the benefits of civilisation over barbarous living blah blah blah) ... gymnasiums, didaskaleia, Roman baths, city fests and worshipping of Roman deities, obedience to the law and civic duty were seen as manifestations of this Romanism ... an other important aspect was that the local nobility was oftenly rewarded with the honorary title of ROMAN CITIZENSHIP for exceptional services or after a succesful carreer in a city's administration (this also involved some connections in the right paces though)... those CITIZENSHIPS WERE HEREDITARY (passed from father to sons ) so basicaly Italic colonisers and city gentilia became merged under the title ROMANI... the subject of Roman citizenship is sooooooo big on its own you could write a number of massive books abt it but the general idea is that as time progressed citizenship was granted to more and more people until by the third century with the CONSTITUTIO ANTONIANA it was awarded to "to all free male inhabitants of the Empire" ...

The empire centered in Rome lasted about 12 centuries from 748 BCE to 476 CE. As such the chronological majority occured before the time of the Augustan Empire. Imperial era historians like Livy often demonstrated an attitude of pessimism towards the newfound splendour of the Empire, Livius in his preface refers calls it "haec nova" (these new things) and says that the energies of the Roman people are near exhausting themselves (1.5). Similarly Florus used a senectitude analogy to describe Roman history with the Regal period marking the childhood of the populus Romanus, the Early to mid-Republic marking the flower of adolescence and adulthood, and the high imperial period its old age. I agree with Florus' analogy and see the SPQR as modifying its disposition over time regarding citizenship and cultural assimilation/exclusion.
I view Rome basically as a Helleno-Trojan city dedicated to a central ideal of military might (Roma being cognate with Hellenic Rome- might and ronnumi -to grow mighty) and essentially an experiment in extreme militarism. As such early regal-era citizenship standards were extremely liberal for that time, runaway slaves, brigands, renegades, soldiers of fortune were all embraced only be they willing to accept the laws and become strong and vigorous (strenuus ac fortis, a phrase often used in old Roman history to represent the basic Roman ideal of manhood.) So at this time in the early kingship I think Rome was highly assimilationist, a melting pot with a radically militaristic twist.
After the "childhood" of the populus Romanus under the kings then they entered their "adolescence" in which as Sallust observed Romans sought not luxury but rather military decorations and horses, and "virtus omnia domuerat"- manhood overcame all things. Cicero and other Romans recalled the early Romans as a "durum genus" (hard race) and during this period the Roman people as a whole resolved their basic character and recognized the superior brutal qualities and discipline that qualified them to steadily overpower all their neighboring populations in perrenial war and maintain hegemony over the other Latin cities and slowly and inexorably extend their imperial hegemony over the Etruscans, Sabines, Aequi, Volsci etc. So during this period Rome ceased to be a melting pot and became more of an ethnocultural supremacist, waging wars for total unconditional subjection of all rights and property to the dictum of the senate and Roman people. The ultimate manifestation of this was the voluntary self-subjugation of the opulent city of Capua to Rome in order for the Capuans to gain Rome's protection against Samnite invasion c 340 BCE.
The Samnite war marks the high point of Roman ethnocultural supremacism, when Titus Manlius Torquatus famously executed his own son for transgressing consular imperium during a campaign waged to prevent the Latins from assuming Roman citizenship rights and gaining the right to elect one consul. With the subjugation of the Samnites and decisive victories over the Sabines, Etruscans and Gauls, and establishment of military colonies throughout much of Italy, Rome became the hegemonic power of Italy and entered into its "mature adulthood" during which it became less ethnocentrist and progressively more merciful towards its military opponents, since Rome fought less and less for survival and preservation of family, and more and more for empire, hegemony, and economic advantage.
The invasion of Sicily which initiated the first Punic War was in a sense the poisoned apple, the matter was hotly disputed at great length in the senate, and ultimately definitively signified the beginning of Rome's relentless drive towards hegemony which became the full time obsession of the upper nobility. During this period I view Rome becoming more culturally assimilationist, they destroy Carthage and then adopt its agricultural systems, destroy the Celtiberians and adopt their swords, "protect" the Hellenes and hire/purchase Hellenic pedagogues. Following the dissolution of the Roman agrarian tradition and the decline of vigor among the urban populace Rome became increasingly dependent on non-Roman Italian manpower to fill the legions leading to the revolts of the Social War (91-88 BCE) and the Lex Iulia that extended Roman citizenship to many Italian and Latin cities.
As for the Augustan period, Archippos has already discussed that well, so I would only add that in my opinion the Caracallan decree/Constitutio Antoniana which extended Roman citizenship throughout the Imperial boundary, signified the final genetic merging of the ancient Roman ethnos with the general population masses that the Romans had conquered through the previous centuries so that the ancient ethnic supremacism which the Romans asserted during the early Republic no longer had any basis in fact. This is to say that the ancient inhabitants of the city of Rome during the Republican Era were in fact more disciplined, more austere, more indefatigable and more virtuous than other men, and the Antonine era residents of the city of Rome were nothing of the sort. And though the legions were still fairly well manned, drawing soldiers from throughout the vast empire, the essential virtues of the old Roman mos maiorum were no longer consistently maintained in any civilian population in the Empire. This moral dissolution, which was well foreseen by earlier historians such as Livius, would ultimately lead to the military disasters of the 3rd century CE and the definitive military collapse of Rome following the rise of the Huns.

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Originally Posted by Geticus

The empire centered in Rome lasted about 12 centuries from 748 BCE to 476 CE. As such the chronological majority occured before the time of the Augustan Empire. Imperial era historians like Livy often demonstrated an attitude of pessimism towards the newfound splendour of the Empire, Livius in his preface refers calls it "haec nova" (these new things) and says that the energies of the Roman people are near exhausting themselves (1.5). Similarly Florus used a senectitude analogy to describe Roman history with the Regal period marking the childhood of the populus Romanus, the Early to mid-Republic marking the flower of adolescence and adulthood, and the high imperial period its old age. I agree with Florus' analogy and see the SPQR as modifying its disposition over time regarding citizenship and cultural assimilation/exclusion.
I view Rome basically as a Helleno-Trojan city dedicated to a central ideal of military might (Roma being cognate with Hellenic Rome- might and ronnumi -to grow mighty) and essentially an experiment in extreme militarism. As such early regal-era citizenship standards were extremely liberal for that time, runaway slaves, brigands, renegades, soldiers of fortune were all embraced only be they willing to accept the laws and become strong and vigorous (strenuus ac fortis, a phrase often used in old Roman history to represent the basic Roman ideal of manhood.) So at this time in the early kingship I think Rome was highly assimilationist, a melting pot with a radically militaristic twist.
After the "childhood" of the populus Romanus under the kings then they entered their "adolescence" in which as Sallust observed Romans sought not luxury but rather military decorations and horses, and "virtus omnia domuerat"- manhood overcame all things. Cicero and other Romans recalled the early Romans as a "durum genus" (hard race) and during this period the Roman people as a whole resolved their basic character and recognized the superior brutal qualities and discipline that qualified them to steadily overpower all their neighboring populations in perrenial war and maintain hegemony over the other Latin cities and slowly and inexorably extend their imperial hegemony over the Etruscans, Sabines, Aequi, Volsci etc. So during this period Rome ceased to be a melting pot and became more of an ethnocultural supremacist, waging wars for total unconditional subjection of all rights and property to the dictum of the senate and Roman people. The ultimate manifestation of this was the voluntary self-subjugation of the opulent city of Capua to Rome in order for the Capuans to gain Rome's protection against Samnite invasion c 340 BCE.
The Samnite war marks the high point of Roman ethnocultural supremacism, when Titus Manlius Torquatus famously executed his own son for transgressing consular imperium during a campaign waged to prevent the Latins from assuming Roman citizenship rights and gaining the right to elect one consul. With the subjugation of the Samnites and decisive victories over the Sabines, Etruscans and Gauls, and establishment of military colonies throughout much of Italy, Rome became the hegemonic power of Italy and entered into its "mature adulthood" during which it became less ethnocentrist and progressively more merciful towards its military opponents, since Rome fought less and less for survival and preservation of family, and more and more for empire, hegemony, and economic advantage.
The invasion of Sicily which initiated the first Punic War was in a sense the poisoned apple, the matter was hotly disputed at great length in the senate, and ultimately definitively signified the beginning of Rome's relentless drive towards hegemony which became the full time obsession of the upper nobility. During this period I view Rome becoming more culturally assimilationist, they destroy Carthage and then adopt its agricultural systems, destroy the Celtiberians and adopt their swords, "protect" the Hellenes and hire/purchase Hellenic pedagogues. Following the dissolution of the Roman agrarian tradition and the decline of vigor among the urban populace Rome became increasingly dependent on non-Roman Italian manpower to fill the legions leading to the revolts of the Social War (91-88 BCE) and the Lex Iulia that extended Roman citizenship to many Italian and Latin cities.
As for the Augustan period, Archippos has already discussed that well, so I would only add that in my opinion the Caracallan decree/Constitutio Antoniana which extended Roman citizenship throughout the Imperial boundary, signified the final genetic merging of the ancient Roman ethnos with the general population masses that the Romans had conquered through the previous centuries so that the ancient ethnic supremacism which the Romans asserted during the early Republic no longer had any basis in fact. This is to say that the ancient inhabitants of the city of Rome during the Republican Era were in fact more disciplined, more austere, more indefatigable and more virtuous than other men, and the Antonine era residents of the city of Rome were nothing of the sort. And though the legions were still fairly well manned, drawing soldiers from throughout the vast empire, the essential virtues of the old Roman mos maiorum were no longer consistently maintained in any civilian population in the Empire. This moral dissolution, which was well foreseen by earlier historians such as Livius, would ultimately lead to the military disasters of the 3rd century CE and the definitive military collapse of Rome following the rise of the Huns.

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Gaaaah use enter button!!!


But still, very nice information. I don't agree with the idea of Helleno-Trojan city though, because there's no real historical evidence at all that the Romans were related to the Trojans. The Romans were just an Indo-European tribe at first, little different from their neighbors and constantly adapting to the current situation.

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Originally Posted by Olaf The Great

Romans were pretty much Hellenized Celts.

..Or Celticized Greeks...who knows?

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Rasna weren't quite Celts, homes. :book:

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Originally Posted by Geticus

The empire centered in Rome lasted about 12 centuries from 748 BCE to 476 CE. As such the chronological majority occured before the time of the Augustan Empire. Imperial era historians like Livy often demonstrated an attitude of pessimism towards the newfound splendour of the Empire, Livius in his preface refers calls it "haec nova" (these new things) and says that the energies of the Roman people are near exhausting themselves (1.5). Similarly Florus used a senectitude analogy to describe Roman history with the Regal period marking the childhood of the populus Romanus, the Early to mid-Republic marking the flower of adolescence and adulthood, and the high imperial period its old age. I agree with Florus' analogy and see the SPQR as modifying its disposition over time regarding citizenship and cultural assimilation/exclusion.
I view Rome basically as a Helleno-Trojan city dedicated to a central ideal of military might (Roma being cognate with Hellenic Rome- might and ronnumi -to grow mighty) and essentially an experiment in extreme militarism. As such early regal-era citizenship standards were extremely liberal for that time, runaway slaves, brigands, renegades, soldiers of fortune were all embraced only be they willing to accept the laws and become strong and vigorous (strenuus ac fortis, a phrase often used in old Roman history to represent the basic Roman ideal of manhood.) So at this time in the early kingship I think Rome was highly assimilationist, a melting pot with a radically militaristic twist.
After the "childhood" of the populus Romanus under the kings then they entered their "adolescence" in which as Sallust observed Romans sought not luxury but rather military decorations and horses, and "virtus omnia domuerat"- manhood overcame all things. Cicero and other Romans recalled the early Romans as a "durum genus" (hard race) and during this period the Roman people as a whole resolved their basic character and recognized the superior brutal qualities and discipline that qualified them to steadily overpower all their neighboring populations in perrenial war and maintain hegemony over the other Latin cities and slowly and inexorably extend their imperial hegemony over the Etruscans, Sabines, Aequi, Volsci etc. So during this period Rome ceased to be a melting pot and became more of an ethnocultural supremacist, waging wars for total unconditional subjection of all rights and property to the dictum of the senate and Roman people. The ultimate manifestation of this was the voluntary self-subjugation of the opulent city of Capua to Rome in order for the Capuans to gain Rome's protection against Samnite invasion c 340 BCE.
The Samnite war marks the high point of Roman ethnocultural supremacism, when Titus Manlius Torquatus famously executed his own son for transgressing consular imperium during a campaign waged to prevent the Latins from assuming Roman citizenship rights and gaining the right to elect one consul. With the subjugation of the Samnites and decisive victories over the Sabines, Etruscans and Gauls, and establishment of military colonies throughout much of Italy, Rome became the hegemonic power of Italy and entered into its "mature adulthood" during which it became less ethnocentrist and progressively more merciful towards its military opponents, since Rome fought less and less for survival and preservation of family, and more and more for empire, hegemony, and economic advantage.
The invasion of Sicily which initiated the first Punic War was in a sense the poisoned apple, the matter was hotly disputed at great length in the senate, and ultimately definitively signified the beginning of Rome's relentless drive towards hegemony which became the full time obsession of the upper nobility. During this period I view Rome becoming more culturally assimilationist, they destroy Carthage and then adopt its agricultural systems, destroy the Celtiberians and adopt their swords, "protect" the Hellenes and hire/purchase Hellenic pedagogues. Following the dissolution of the Roman agrarian tradition and the decline of vigor among the urban populace Rome became increasingly dependent on non-Roman Italian manpower to fill the legions leading to the revolts of the Social War (91-88 BCE) and the Lex Iulia that extended Roman citizenship to many Italian and Latin cities.
As for the Augustan period, Archippos has already discussed that well, so I would only add that in my opinion the Caracallan decree/Constitutio Antoniana which extended Roman citizenship throughout the Imperial boundary, signified the final genetic merging of the ancient Roman ethnos with the general population masses that the Romans had conquered through the previous centuries so that the ancient ethnic supremacism which the Romans asserted during the early Republic no longer had any basis in fact. This is to say that the ancient inhabitants of the city of Rome during the Republican Era were in fact more disciplined, more austere, more indefatigable and more virtuous than other men, and the Antonine era residents of the city of Rome were nothing of the sort. And though the legions were still fairly well manned, drawing soldiers from throughout the vast empire, the essential virtues of the old Roman mos maiorum were no longer consistently maintained in any civilian population in the Empire. This moral dissolution, which was well foreseen by earlier historians such as Livius, would ultimately lead to the military disasters of the 3rd century CE and the definitive military collapse of Rome following the rise of the Huns.

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:2thumbsup:

Romanian has many latin aspects as well, right?

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Originally Posted by Havok.

Romanian has many latin aspects as well, right?

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Oh yes alot. And if you listening portuguese and romanian, you will notice very similaries.
Like portuguese and spanish, italian , and even french. theres alot of similaries betwen this languages. Their gramatical basis was founded from latin gramar. thats why we call this languages latin languages.


For instance number 4 in portuguese quatro. In romanian sounds the same.

It's weird how Romanian sounds very siilar to Latin, but was probably the province in Europe that was under their control for the least amount of time.

Apart from a certain part of Germany...

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Originally Posted by Macilrille

Apart from a certain part of Germany...

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Damn Varus....

:wall:

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Originally Posted by satalexton

Barbaroi, nonetheless.

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If you just insert Romaioi barbaroi in your sig it would save you all the time you spend writing.:2thumbsup:

~Fluvius

Romaioi Barbaroi...

I'l write it many times:

Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis
Romaioi Barbaroi barbarizing Barbaropolis


:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Fluvius Camillus

If you just insert Romaioi barbaroi in your sig it would save you all the time you spend writing.:2thumbsup:

~Fluvius

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Nah, there are times when the romaioi are not being barbaric. When they're dead, for example. Of course, better still, a dying Romaioi that tells you where the rest of his mates are!

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Originally Posted by satalexton

Nah, there are times when the romaioi are not being barbaric. When they're dead, for example. Of course, better still, a dying Romaioi that tells you where the rest of his mates are!

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:wall::wall::wall:

Hmmm... I am trying had to remember the last time Sata contributed a useful post, and I am failing. I seem to recall some strategical advice sometime in the past, but it is all distant in the spam of "Hail Makedonia" and "Down with Rome" posts. Maion contributes usefully and despite a bit of a temper is a nice enough fellow, you Sata...

Using your time here spamming and annoying people instead of useful contributions, perhaps time to revise your ways? You probably have lots to contribute with- I think- so please do so, for your own opinion of people spending their time being a nuisance is probably not too high is it?

I do not know if you care, but you are close to my ignore function. Which is hard to get, only other person there is IrishHitman who called me a liar.

Useful posts please...

Well...

Forgive my spam and let's continue the suject.

The Roman empire was in theory, a singular body. In my opinion, I think that each province is practically its own nation and the "Empire" is just a union, saying who has what. The Govenors had almost complete rule and all they had to do was declare loyalty to rome. It is as if the provinces were treated ad allied states.

The romans, as I have said before, were Influenced by other peoples, notably the greeks. The romans had used modified greek architecture. The romans have copied many of the statues of the city states. They even used the sword of another nation (Gladius Hispanesis). By the time the roman empire started to decline, it was considerably different politically and militarily from the republic. The Empire was just a evolution that aquired many infuences, even though the customs of the natives were trampled by it's own.

Not to mention the fact that later Byzantine Greeks still called themselves Ρωμιοί or Ρωμαίοι, which means "Romans". This is just a small example on how well the Romans were able to absorb other people into their growing Empire. Basically, what the Romans did was to allow some kind of autonomy and slowly introduce "Roman" customs. Sometimes this inevitably caused a future rebellion, but there was always the fear of a Roman Legion.

Maion

Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων wasn't Ῥωμαίων at all, more Αχαιων

Hardly. The Roman society was well-integrated into what we call "Byzantine Empire" today. The very word "Byzantine" is something only we use to describe the Eastern Roman Empire, while they themselves still viewed themselves as Romans. Not to mention their customs and fighting techniques, which were clearly Roman. The only Greek was probably the official language of the State, as even the local populance spoke a hodge-podge of Greek, Slavic, Latin etc.

Maion

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Originally Posted by Maion Maroneios

Hardly. The Roman society was well-integrated into what we call "Byzantine Empire" today. The very word "Byzantine" is something only we use to describe the Eastern Roman Empire, while they themselves still viewed themselves as Romans. Not to mention their customs and fighting techniques, which were clearly Roman. The only Greek was probably the official language of the State, as even the local populance spoke a hodge-podge of Greek, Slavic, Latin etc.

Maion

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If they are Roman, why didn't they speak Latin?
Romans without Rome aren't Romans,
:yes:

That doesn't count as an argument in my book. Constantinople was officially called "Nova Roma", which means "New Rome". And as I said, Greek was indeed the official language after some point. But that is mainly because the majority of the population was more familiar with Greek, especially in Greece where the population spoke some kind of Greek dialect and where the Empire itself was based.

Oh, and just for you to know, during the years of the Republic or early years of the Empire (at least that's the extend of my knowledge on the specific subject) cities like Athens and Alexandria still used Greek. Not to mention a "good" education of any Roman included Greek after some point. It's called influence. Not to mention the fact that Latin was probably only used as an official language in writing and quoting laws etc., local languages of conquered tribes especially in very autochthonous areas probably outlived any Latin influence long after the split and disintegration of the Empire.

Maion

:2thumbsup: Maion, you are right on point.

As I said at the start of this thread, numerous good books has been written on the subject. I would suggest enlightenment by reading these instead of limited posts in an I-net forum however informative they are.
Nothing compares to books.

In fact when you install EB you agree to do just that; read more history.

I couldn't agree more to that.

Maion

Plus, it is damn fascinating and interesting.

That's subjective, I guess.

Maion

Back on initial topic:

It is known that Julius Caesar tried to stimulate the melting pot effect. He wanted his veterans to settle in foreign lands, to make sure that the local population got used and mixed up with the Romans. (That's why Caesar was ahead of his time: he thought in terms of Empire and provinces and not in terms of the city).

Secondly, Romans always let the conquered civilizations keep their gods, and add them to the Roman '' book of gods ''. This way, even religion mixed, which is again proof for the statement that Romans tried to mix up cultures as much as possible.

I am Romanian , proud member of the only nation that kept this name (Romani in Romanian) for 2000 years.Also, Romanian is considered the language with the most arhaic latin vocabulary and the closest to old vulgar latin spoken all over the emmpire.
My opinion is that the Roman empire was Roman all over the provinces in what concerns the state institutions : administration and the army.
Latin language imposed itself as lingua franca through the presence of roman administration and of roman legions on the ground.
Three factors were very important : Administration,Army and Culture.
Barbarian tribes took fast the benefits of roman culture and language - Spain,Gaul, Trace.
Advanced cultures like Greeks all over the east were good enough for roman use, so they werent imposed roman language in administration, greek was also in use.

Roman legions were very present in Provincia Dacia during 106- 274 AD , short time, but at times even 4 legions were serving...the reason was the huge gold mines from the Western Carpathians, modern day transilvania.
The gold was the reason for Trajan's 2 campaigns of 101-102 and 105-106 AD which led to the distruction of the Dacian kingdom. Well, there was also a barbarian habit of these Dacians to invade and plunder all the way from Danube to Greece :D .
Roman settlers were installed in the province, which hapens to be the center of old greater Dacia streching from river Tisa to the river Nistru. Even after the withdrawal of 274, the Romanised population spread the latin language all around the carpathians, leading to the romanisation of all Dacians outside the empire. So now you have no Dacian remainents , like the Gauls or Basc minority in Spain.

Unlike Romania, modern Albania (Iliria) kept their language which is related to the tracian-dacian because the roman army was not concentrated there , an interior pacified long time province.

I think that all the succesor nations are actually local populations turned into Romans by mean of cultural asimilation.

A branch of the Romanian people live in the Balkans, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, they call themselves Arm'ni , meaning Aromani, Aromanians, but they also call themselves "Makidoni" and they cherish the flag of ancient Macedonia, the red sun and have songs about it in their tradition, songs about Alexander and so on.

This tells me that they are local Macedonian shepards turned into Romans by language 2000 years ago.

Same with Romanians, our tradition, folk , old stories are of mountain shepards, not of roman colonists. We are Dacians talking a latin language. There is even an old story talking of the union of a Troian (Trajanus ?) and an old lady called Dokia (Dacia ? ) Oral tradition talking of roman conquest as a colaboration kept alive for 2000 years.



Example of similar words in Romanian and Italian:

Italian- Romanian-English

Casa-casa-House
Uno,due, tre, quatro - Unu,Doi,Trei, patru = one, two, three
Monte negro - Munte negru - Mountain black

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Originally Posted by Traveler

modern Albania (Iliria)

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That's about the only part I disliked strongly about your entire post. And one of the most unbased and unconsidered posts I've seen in general. Plus that thing about "Macedonian" shephards turning Roman or blahblahdieblahblah something. Oh, and it's Illyria.

Maion

Well, I think there's an interesting and worthwhile question behind this thread, if you can manage to sift through all the... *ahem*, spam-posts. It's a shame you need to sift through all of that at all. But in any case, here's some points that I can add on what's been said.

Ethnically speaking, I don't recall any great movements by the Roman Senate or the later Emperors to promote inter-marriage between different ethnicities. In fact, I would say that the Roman ethnic footprint left across the Empire and the world today is rather small. The Iberians, French, Italians and Romanians all have different ethnic compositions that can vary quite heavily from region to region even within their own countries (for example, in the skin tones of the Northern French vs. the Southern French).

Linguistically, Latin's impact on the world is staggering! But I do wonder how much of it is *really* thanks to the Romans themselves. In the context of EB's timeframe it's almost weird to think of the "Barbarian" tribes just dropping their languages in favour of Latin so that they might profit from it. Undoubtedly there was a great usefulness in knowing and speaking Latin. With Latin, a Celtiberian could travel to the eastern Spanish coastline and speak with the Iberian-speaking people there, or head north to the Aquitanians and, again, communicate with them in Latin. Knowing Latin didn't just let you, as an individual, communicate with the Roman elites but also with people of any other ethnicity who needed to do so as well. Just for the sake of comparison, I remember having to translate an administrative document from Ptolemaic Egypt, concerning an Egyptian man's complaint of being treated unlawfully because he did not Hellenize - meaning, he did not speak Greek. There was clearly an advantage to knowing Greek under the Ptolemies, but still it had trouble catching on.

I think the Roman Empire's linguistic influence is being overestimated by many of the posts here. The influence of Latin on Europe came from the advent of Judaeo-Christianity. The religion effectively "conquered" the Roman Empire, and the religion ascribed great importance to the written word. I think Christianity is what marked Latin's transition from being a useful language to being an absolutely vital language. Under the pre-Christian Roman Empire, Latin was probably primarily a language of trade - but still a second language to many of its subjects. Christianity is what would've really changed this.

As for culturally, well, I think I'll have to defer back to my paragraph on ethnicity. With the exception of the Italic peoples, non-Roman subjects probably did not so much assimilate to Roman culture as they did absord it into their own. Most of Europe's greatest cities are pre-Roman after all. And as far as I remember, the Romans were not keen of urbanizing the provinces. Rather, they sought to exploit them of their resources. Portugal, Spain, France, Romania and even some parts of Italy (like Sicily) are largely descended from slave-populations.

So I guess my supposed answer to the questions is "not very 'Roman' at all, at least not until Christianity popped up".

The Roman Empire was Roman in language only, no major population movements or intermariages.

The chrurch did play an important part in protecting the linguistic influence of the former empire with one exception, Romanian , which was under the Orthodox Church of slavonic language. So the church language was not an esential factor.
Latin was the church language in Britain, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Baltic lands without turning them into romanised nations, not even Austria and Hungary.

The essential factor in the creation of Romance languages and nations was how Romanised in language was the region before the ending of the Empire.

English and German, though not descended from Latin, both have undergone considerable Latin influence because of Latin's importance in religion and later in scholarship.

Romanian may very be an exception, but I have to admit that the development of Romanian national identity (and language) is not terribly well understood by me. I'd imagine Thraco-Dacians speaking populations were still active in Romania and the rest of the Balkans during the middle period of the Empire though. And though Romania is presently an Orthodox nation, at the time it had fallen under the influence of Latin, whereas the souther Balkans had fallen under the influence of Greek. This situation of course changed by the Dark Ages.

Why is Romainian so close to Latin, or even have any relationship at all, considering most of it was not under Roman rule for very long? You'd think something Slavic or Avar would be more dominant.

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Originally Posted by Subotan

Why is Romainian so close to Latin, or even have any relationship at all, considering most of it was not under Roman rule for very long? You'd think something Slavic or Avar would be more dominant.

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It mostly stems from the fact that Trajan didn't want another Decebalus-type incident, so after he conquered the region, he enslaved or relocated almost the entire population and replaced them with Roman settlers.

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Originally Posted by option

It mostly stems from the fact that Trajan didn't want another Decebalus-type incident, so after he conquered the region, he enslaved or relocated almost the entire population and replaced them with Roman settlers.

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Couple that with the relative inaccessibility of the region's heartlands to foreign influence due to mountain chains, the danube, and so on, and you have the reason why Romanian preserved (vulgar) Latin almost wholesale, except for phonetic changes. On the other hand the early Italian, Spanish, and French dialects of Latin were greatly influenced not only by Germanic lexicon, but also by the native languages that outlasted the Romaioi.

If you ask me, it would've been much easier if everyone stuck with Kione. Then we wouldn't have all these bastard offspring of early Germanic and mutated Greek.

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Originally Posted by Traveler

I am Romanian , proud member of the only nation that kept this name (Romani in Romanian) for 2000 years.Also, Romanian is considered the language with the most arhaic latin vocabulary and the closest to old vulgar latin spoken all over the emmpire.
My opinion is that the Roman empire was Roman all over the provinces in what concerns the state institutions : administration and the army.
Latin language imposed itself as lingua franca through the presence of roman administration and of roman legions on the ground.
Three factors were very important : Administration,Army and Culture.
Barbarian tribes took fast the benefits of roman culture and language - Spain,Gaul, Trace.
Advanced cultures like Greeks all over the east were good enough for roman use, so they werent imposed roman language in administration, greek was also in use.

Roman legions were very present in Provincia Dacia during 106- 274 AD , short time, but at times even 4 legions were serving...the reason was the huge gold mines from the Western Carpathians, modern day transilvania.
The gold was the reason for Trajan's 2 campaigns of 101-102 and 105-106 AD which led to the distruction of the Dacian kingdom. Well, there was also a barbarian habit of these Dacians to invade and plunder all the way from Danube to Greece :D .
Roman settlers were installed in the province, which hapens to be the center of old greater Dacia streching from river Tisa to the river Nistru. Even after the withdrawal of 274, the Romanised population spread the latin language all around the carpathians, leading to the romanisation of all Dacians outside the empire. So now you have no Dacian remainents , like the Gauls or Basc minority in Spain.

Unlike Romania, modern Albania (Iliria) kept their language which is related to the tracian-dacian because the roman army was not concentrated there , an interior pacified long time province.

I think that all the succesor nations are actually local populations turned into Romans by mean of cultural asimilation.

A branch of the Romanian people live in the Balkans, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, they call themselves Arm'ni , meaning Aromani, Aromanians, but they also call themselves "Makidoni" and they cherish the flag of ancient Macedonia, the red sun and have songs about it in their tradition, songs about Alexander and so on.

This tells me that they are local Macedonian shepards turned into Romans by language 2000 years ago.

Same with Romanians, our tradition, folk , old stories are of mountain shepards, not of roman colonists. We are Dacians talking a latin language. There is even an old story talking of the union of a Troian (Trajanus ?) and an old lady called Dokia (Dacia ? ) Oral tradition talking of roman conquest as a colaboration kept alive for 2000 years.



Example of similar words in Romanian and Italian:

Italian- Romanian-English

Casa-casa-House
Uno,due, tre, quatro - Unu,Doi,Trei, patru = one, two, three
Monte negro - Munte negru - Mountain black

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Lol, you're funny.

There's a related thing that occasionally comes to my mind, especially when pushing the "enslave" button, something I call "The Great Roman Sperm Machine"
Whenever the Romans conquered a city I imagine the entire legion being allowed to take personal spoils, i.e. raping the shit out of everything. In a time before condoms or survivable abortion, there would be a lot of half breed popping up, anyone have any ideas on this?
Would these "children of the legion" be treated in any different way, perhaps even form the first wave of "civilisation"?
What would the effect be on a community to be conquered first and then have your son resemble the guy that killed your husband?

Children that were the product of rape were universally considered bastards. I don't know any society that actually welcomed them or treated them like the rest of the population. And if you think of it, half-breeds were generally (and sometimes still are) viewed with suspicion. I myself am a halfbreed, but due to the fact that my father is Greek I'm respected. At University, I have a fellow student whose father if african and mother Greek. I hear only racist remarks from people who don't know him (and he's a fairly nice and quitet guy, BTW).

It's sad, but it's true. Even more so back those days when race and tribe played an important role and xenophobia was generally more the norm than the exception. I hardly doubt the best way to integrate a newly conquered area is to "rape the shit out everything". This would only lead to a deep hatred against the conquering force, creating a "wound" that may take many generations to heal. The best way to integrate and absorb a conquered area, is to allow them autonomy and slowly introcuce [non violent] customs of your own. Slowly expose them to your culture, until they are deeply affected by it.

Maion

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Originally Posted by Maion Maroneios

I hardly doubt the best way to integrate a newly conquered area is to "rape the shit out everything". This would only lead to a deep hatred against the conquering force, creating a "wound" that may take many generations to heal. The best way to integrate and absorb a conquered area, is to allow them autonomy and slowly introcuce [non violent] customs of your own. Slowly expose them to your culture, until they are deeply affected by it.

Maion

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I don't think the meeting between an army and a newly conquered area has much to do with exchanging non-violent customs. Looting and raping is always a part of war, I think. On the other hand, this has little to do with long term integration. Romans weren't that fanatical about colonizing were they? Legions recieved lands mostly in Italy and all fame and political influence lay in Rome, so how much actual contact was there between Romans and the people they subjucated?

Then again, what is a Roman? Someone exclusively from Rome, or also people from the rest of Italy? Pontius Pilate was Samnite, most of Caesar's troops Spaniards. Rome's great power was it's adaptability (is that a word?) so the definition of Roman changes through time.
The ideal Roman was probably a cheap, sour faced old farmer on a moralist's trip.

I don't think that in any empire there is a singular culture that obliterates all others. Both conqueror and conquered change in the contact, look at ol' Megas Alexandros, he brought hellenic culture to Persia, but became half Persian in the process.

Anyway, these are just some barely historically founded thoughts, I wonder what you think of it, or just continue bitching against romaioi

There is a huge difference between peaceful intermingling between people (conquered and conquerors) and "raping the shit out of everything" as you put it in the beginning. Of course looting and raping is a part of war, uneducated soldiers tend to focus a lot on satisfying their more "carnal" and materialistic needs. Good generals are those who think of the needs of their soldiers.

As for the definiton of "Roman" and the nationality of large empires, I agree completely with you. Large empires either find a way to integrate their people so that there is a sense of unity between them, or face rebellions in the long run. Especially when the "hard times" come (and those are plentiful), when less loyal subjects always seek to gain their freedom again.

Maion

It's important to notice that Roman coin did a far better work in "convincing" local populations than any Roman legion ever did. The masters of lies, the Romaioi, were always keen on bribing people into submission before resorting to arms :clown:.

Also, take in mind that unlike Alexander's, the Roman conquest was more of an accident (which I will try to portray in my AAR). There was no "grand plan" or ambition, for most of the earlier time it was simply due to political necessity and for stability that certain patches of land were annexed (such as to prevent enemies like Carthage from getting too large and strong again, the reason why Iberia was invaded), and also only because many times local resistance was too pathetic, as when Pompey conquered the East. Whenever the Romans met strong resistance, as in Carrhae, the prospect of conquest was immediately left behind, more so when Caesar died and with him the imperial dream - The Romaioi then just became content at settling down at a well defined boundary and getting their eagles back.

While I agree with some parts, take into mind there are many people who probably disagree with what you say. Saying Roman conquest was an accident and that they abandoned the prospect of conquest upon meeting strong resistance is something I personally disagree with. Carthaginians, Gauls, Britons, Iberians and Dacians are bright examples of people who resisted them but were ultimately conquered. Partly or totally.

Maion

That is true, there are always exceptions as there was sometimes a plan to deliberately annex this or that land, but that was not the case many times. It took many battles and two wars before they considered permanently annexing Macedonia, and ditto for Carthage. It was never in the intention of many, including P. Cornelius Scipio, to deliberately erase Carthage off the map after they had been definitely weakened by war - It was only Cato's antics about an external threat that built a respectable following around it, and so much later they conquered Carthage once and for all.

Notice the important part here: whenever there was a visible threat, like in Hannibal or Mithridates, the Romans didn't spare efforts, but conquering merely for the sake of it was often done later and by private individuals seeking fortune, e.g. Caesar in Gaul, Crassus in Parthia, Pompey on the East and so on. If the Gallic resistance to Caesar had been more fierce and succeeded as the German one did later, then it is doubtful on whether Gaul would be a part of the Republic at all.

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Originally Posted by A Terribly Harmful Name

That is true, there are always exceptions as there was sometimes a plan to deliberately annex this or that land, but that was not the case many times. It took many battles and two wars before they considered permanently annexing Macedonia, and ditto for Carthage. It was never in the intention of many, including P. Cornelius Scipio, to deliberately erase Carthage off the map after they had been definitely weakened by war - It was only Cato's antics about an external threat that built a respectable following around it, and so much later they conquered Carthage once and for all.

Notice the important part here: whenever there was a visible threat, like in Hannibal or Mithridates, the Romans didn't spare efforts, but conquering merely for the sake of it was often done later and by private individuals seeking fortune, e.g. Caesar in Gaul, Crassus in Parthia, Pompey on the East and so on. If the Gallic resistance to Caesar had been more fierce and succeeded as the German one did later, then it is doubtful on whether Gaul would be a part of the Republic at all.

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True, but then Caesar would probably have led his legions to somewhere else. For as you say: If Roman conquest (after a certain date) was more a matter of individuals seeking to enrich themselves, it wasn't exactly an accident, but rather the logical result of a political system forcing (some already rich) opportunists to further enrich themselves. Whether some of these opportunists failed miserably or not is hardly important, since there would always be more of them than there were (weakened) tribes or people to be conquered.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by A Terribly Harmful Name

It's important to notice that Roman coin did a far better work in "convincing" local populations than any Roman legion ever did. The masters of lies, the Romaioi, were always keen on bribing people into submission before resorting to arms :clown:.

Also, take in mind that unlike Alexander's, the Roman conquest was more of an accident .

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When talking about the "Romanisation" of the empire, the "soft method" might give more insight.
I'm from the Netherlands and the Romans chose the Rhine as their northern border, so technically only half of "my country" was conquered. Yet tribes living north of the rhine did engage in trade and changed over time, you might say they became more "metropolitan capitalists". On the other hand, many "free" tribes had to pay tribute, even so much that they had to sell their wives and children (of course, resulting in rebellion, see Gaius Julius Civilis). Roman culture spread much further than just the borders of the empire, just as hellenic culture spreaded into India (I love these Alexandros comparisons)

As for the "Accidental Empire" I never bought that, sounds to me like creative history, justification in hindsight. In a culture where a military parade is the highest honor you can get, I don't think many Roman politicians waited for an "accidenti", they made one for themselves, just in time for consular elections.

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Originally Posted by Maion Maroneios

That doesn't count as an argument in my book. Constantinople was officially called "Nova Roma", which means "New Rome". And as I said, Greek was indeed the official language after some point. But that is mainly because the majority of the population was more familiar with Greek, especially in Greece where the population spoke some kind of Greek dialect and where the Empire itself was based.

Oh, and just for you to know, during the years of the Republic or early years of the Empire (at least that's the extend of my knowledge on the specific subject) cities like Athens and Alexandria still used Greek. Not to mention a "good" education of any Roman included Greek after some point. It's called influence. Not to mention the fact that Latin was probably only used as an official language in writing and quoting laws etc., local languages of conquered tribes especially in very autochthonous areas probably outlived any Latin influence long after the split and disintegration of the Empire.

Maion

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I think Greek was made into the official language early in the 7th century through the reforms of Heraclius (which also included military reorganization), when some say the Eastern Roman Empire "turned into" the Byzantine empire, so for most of its history it seems to have had Greek as its language. That, and even when the Roman empire was unified, Greek was always the majority language in the eastern provinces, so its influence remained strong. I'm sure they thought of themselves as Romans even until the end of their time, but I wonder how many actual Romans still survived in Greece and the east by the fall of Constantinople. However, I remember reading that many Byzantine refugees fled to Italy after the Turks took it, meaning that they might have seen Italians as old kindred people, even though they were divided along the lines of religion for centuries.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Traveler

I am Romanian , proud member of the only nation that kept this name (Romani in Romanian) for 2000 years.Also, Romanian is considered the language with the most arhaic latin vocabulary and the closest to old vulgar latin spoken all over the emmpire.
My opinion is that the Roman empire was Roman all over the provinces in what concerns the state institutions : administration and the army.
Latin language imposed itself as lingua franca through the presence of roman administration and of roman legions on the ground.
Three factors were very important : Administration,Army and Culture.
Barbarian tribes took fast the benefits of roman culture and language - Spain,Gaul, Trace.
Advanced cultures like Greeks all over the east were good enough for roman use, so they werent imposed roman language in administration, greek was also in use.

Roman legions were very present in Provincia Dacia during 106- 274 AD , short time, but at times even 4 legions were serving...the reason was the huge gold mines from the Western Carpathians, modern day transilvania.
The gold was the reason for Trajan's 2 campaigns of 101-102 and 105-106 AD which led to the distruction of the Dacian kingdom. Well, there was also a barbarian habit of these Dacians to invade and plunder all the way from Danube to Greece :D .
Roman settlers were installed in the province, which hapens to be the center of old greater Dacia streching from river Tisa to the river Nistru. Even after the withdrawal of 274, the Romanised population spread the latin language all around the carpathians, leading to the romanisation of all Dacians outside the empire. So now you have no Dacian remainents , like the Gauls or Basc minority in Spain.

Unlike Romania, modern Albania (Iliria) kept their language which is related to the tracian-dacian because the roman army was not concentrated there , an interior pacified long time province.

I think that all the succesor nations are actually local populations turned into Romans by mean of cultural asimilation.

A branch of the Romanian people live in the Balkans, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, they call themselves Arm'ni , meaning Aromani, Aromanians, but they also call themselves "Makidoni" and they cherish the flag of ancient Macedonia, the red sun and have songs about it in their tradition, songs about Alexander and so on.

This tells me that they are local Macedonian shepards turned into Romans by language 2000 years ago.

Same with Romanians, our tradition, folk , old stories are of mountain shepards, not of roman colonists. We are Dacians talking a latin language. There is even an old story talking of the union of a Troian (Trajanus ?) and an old lady called Dokia (Dacia ? ) Oral tradition talking of roman conquest as a colaboration kept alive for 2000 years.



Example of similar words in Romanian and Italian:

Italian- Romanian-English

Casa-casa-House
Uno,due, tre, quatro - Unu,Doi,Trei, patru = one, two, three
Monte negro - Munte negru - Mountain black

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That's true, some aspects of the language and grammar in Romanian have survived hundreds of years are very close to Latin. Like we don't have the word "the" (like la or le); instead it's included in the actual noun as an ending, like Latin. Also, for plurals, we use the letter i at the end, instead of s like Spanish, French, and Portuguese. And alb, the word for white, sounds closer to the Latin albus than blanc or bianco. There's still people with names like Virgiliu, Aureliu, and Ovidiu after all these years, although they're not as common anymore. But even though the languages are similar, I don't know how many actual Romans colonized the place or survived over the centuries. It's an interesting topic anyway.