Rome encountered aggressive neighbours such as the Samnites, but the Romans of the Roman Empire were themselves aggressive. In this regard it should be remember that Rome conducted many of their military operations in foreign territory. To a Roman the greatest honour was that of victory in war. The Roman state was therefore configured to pursue an aggressive foreign policy.
The Roman Empire was a strong hold over the Mediterranean for many years. As is the goal of most all world leaders, the Romans wanted land along with their power. They set their eyes on the valuable lands around them and the Mediterranean world as well as parts of Northern Europe and Asia. The Roman civilization and culture was much influenced by the Phonetians and Greeks. Later, the Romans were in control of these lands and their people. Three of their prize provinces held at much value to them were Thrace, Macedonia, Greece. These three lands were all located in the same area, providing a throughway to Rome for trade routes from China and the Middle East. Thrace, being on the south western coast of the Black Sea made it easy for the Romans to sail farther inland. Greece was located on the Aegean Sea and Macedonia was to the north of it tying all three provinces together. Before Romans conquered Greece, they were the major civilization. The Greeks had a well developed government system, religion, architectural advances, literature, and art. They were eventually taken over by King Philip V of Macedonia. He made an alliance with Greece and gave them military aid in order for control of their government and people. King Philip’s ambition was to develop Macedonia into a world power and intended on starting in the Mediterranean. Rome had also set these same goals for their future. One of Philip’s allies, Hannibal, betrayed him and fought against him for Macedonia. The Macedonians allied with the Carthaginians and the Romans with the Aetolian League. By 168 B.C. Rome had Macedonia in their command. After this, the Achaean League in Greece sought freedom after the long rule of Macedonia. They tried to fight against the Roman legions, but this only resulted in the destruction of the city, Corinth. In 146 B.C. the Romans had abolished all leagues in Greece, and most trade was stopped in the big port cities. Meanwhile, the Romans realized the value of gold. They soon found out that deposits of gold and other minerals were in the uncultivated land of Thrace. The people of Thrace were for the most part, barbaric, warlike, and unorganized. The Romans did not face significant opposition conquering this land, considering the people weren’t as advanced as the Greeks. Thrace linked Rome closer to Asia through the port city of Byzantium. After the Romans had destroyed the cities of Greece they rebuilt and restored many of the buildings, but they added their own culture to them in the same movement. The emperor Hadrian restored Athens and many other ruins. Later, the emperor Constantine also restored much of Byzantium while he was there in his reign. Eventually, the Romans grew weak and the western portion of their empire fell to the invaders that would soon make their demise. After Constatine had moved to the East ,the empire kept dividing into east and west. While the west was being raided regularly, the Germanic Visigoths crossed the Danube to settle in Roman territory. This tribe became allies with the Romans but soon revolted to crush and defeat the Romans. This defeat made a domino affect that the Romans could not control leading to their fall. During the Roman expansion of the empire, the Romans had to consider what was the best action to take with the defeated cities. After they had conquered a city, the Romans started either making slaves of its citizens or granting them some level of Roman citizenship. Tacitus gives an excellent account of how this process of Romanisation was carried out in the west.
“The following winter passed without disturbance, and was employed in salutary measures. For, to accustom to rest and repose through the charms of luxury a population scattered and barbarous and therefore inclined to war, Agricola gave private encouragement and public aid to the building of temples, courts of justice and dwelling-houses, praising the energetic, and reproving the indolent. Thus an honourable rivalry took the place of compulsion. He likewise provided a liberal education for the sons of the chiefs, and showed such a preference for the natural powers of the Britons over the industry of the Gauls that they who lately disdained the tongue of Rome now coveted its eloquence. Hence, too, a liking sprang up for our style of dress, and the "toga" became fashionable. Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude”.
Although it seems evident that Rome maintained much of its power through the concept of Romanising the Empire, the role of the military must not be ignored. Tacitus’ Histories deals with the later period: namely, from the death of Nero in 69 A.D. through the death of Domitian in 96 (the year before Tacitus himself held the office of consul). In the very beginning of the Histories, Tacitus refers to the better times that began with Nerva and writes that he has set aside these better times to deal with in his old age, should he live so long. He refers to Nerva and Trajan as “a richer and safer material for historical writing, with the rare happiness of an age when you may think what you wish and say what you think.” (Histories I) Rome ended up conquering every civilized society to which it was adjacent, whereas most other empires have had powerful more or less equally civilized neighbours. (However this is with the exception of the Parthian monarchy on Rome’s eastern border. Tacitus makes clear that the Parthians do not give Rome anywhere near as much trouble as the more savage and uncivilized Germans do.) The fact that the Roman Empire had no comparably more important neighbours had important implications for Roman imperial experience in military affairs and military-civil relations. It meant that a relatively small part of the population needed to be armed; and hence that an interest of the military that manifestly contrasted with that of the rest of society could play a key role in imperial politics. Tacitus makes this clear with his references to donatives and military demands for easier discipline and terms of service. Thus the Roman Empire was inherently aggressive because its neighbours are aggressors. As regards to Rome, R.M. Errington concludes that Roman imperialism “aimed to achieve, first and foremost, merely the security of Rome.” Rome gradually became distorted from a peaceful Republic into an aggressive international power, larger and more militarily structured than any society which had gone before it. This is the ultimate legacy of Caesar and the cumulative struggles of the first century BC: a fusion between the high culture of Roman life and the vigorous exposition of power which was frequently displayed by successive emperors both at home and broad. Furthermore, the accord reached after the compromise of Augustus in 30BC was dependent on a strong central figure to bind the two disparate forces of politics and the army.
It is easy for historians today to see the essential frailty of the Roman Republican model as the chief determining factor in the increasing role of the military during the first century BC. Yet the truth is that the ancient world was established in such a way as to make heroes of instigators of military aggression. “That it should have required a hundred years to accomplish the destruction of the republic is a tribute to the roughness of the fibre of its early institutions and the ideals of the constitutional government which they embodied.” More tellingly, the final destruction in the Empire was directly connected to the aggression of these years, revisited upon Rome in the form of increasingly successful barbarian raids after the fourth century AD.
Bilography
Errington, R.M. The Dawn of the Empire: Rome’s rise to World Power (Hamish Hamilton: London, 1971)
Evera, S.V. Causes of War (Cornell University Press: New York, 2001)
Forsythe, G. A Critical History of Early Rome (University of California Press: United States 2006)
Salmon, E.T. A History of the Roman World, 30BC to AD138 (Routledge: London & New York, 1991)
Tacitus (translated and introduction by Kenneth Wellesley), The Histories (Penguin: London, 1964)
Tacitus (translated and introduction by Michael Grant), The Annals of Imperial Rome (Penguin: London, 1996)
Tacitus (translated and introduction by Anthony Birley), Agricola and Germany (Oxford Paperbacks: London, 1999)
Evera, S.V. Causes of War (Cornell University Press: New York 2001(
Forsythe, G. A Critical History of Early Rome (University of California Press: United States 2006)
Salmon,E.T. A History of the Roman World, 30BC to AD138 (Routledge; London & New York, 1991)
Errington,R.M The Dawn of the Empire: Rome’s rise to World Power (Hamish Hamilton; London, 1971)