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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2015
Interstate politics in the ancient Mediterranean was for centuries what political scientists term a multipolar anarchy – a world consisting of a plurality of independent states all contending with each other for survival and hegemony. The most successful of these was, of course, Rome. But did the tremendous victories of 196 and 188 BC over the Antigonid monarchy and then the Seleucid monarchy – which followed the defeat in 201 of the Carthaginian Republic in the West – mean that Rome established an empire in the eastern Mediterranean? That the Roman Republic established an empire in the Greek East from 188 BC is asserted by some scholars. I will argue differently here. The emergence of Rome as a true imperial metropole was haphazard and long-delayed. After the defeat of Carthage, Macedon and the Seleucids, Rome by 188 had certainly achieved what political scientists term ‘unipolarity’: in the Mediterranean state-system of states, the preponderance of power was now in the hands of a single entity. But does the emergence of even greater inter-state asymmetry of power equal the establishment of an ‘empire’? This is the complicated question I will address.
1 See e.g. Derow, P.S., ‘Polybius, Rome, and the East’, JRS 69 (1979) 1–15Google Scholar; ‘Pharos and Rome’, ZPE 88 (1991) 261-70Google Scholar; “The Arrival of Rome: From the lilyrian Wars to the Fall of Macedon’, in Erskine, A. (ed.), A Companion to the Hellenistic World (Oxford 2003) 51–70Google Scholar; Mandeli, S., “The isthmian Proclamation and the Early Stages of Roman Imperialism in the Near East’, CB 65 (1989) 89–94Google Scholar; ‘Roman Dominion: Desire and Reality’, AW 22 (1991) 37–42Google Scholar.
2 For this definition of unipolarity (admittedly imprecise), see Mastanduno, M., ‘Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold War’, International Security 21 (1997)52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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5 On the long and hesitant process by which a formal Roman administrative apparatus eventually emerged in European Greece and western Asia Minor, see Kallet-Marx, R., Hegemony to Empire: The Development of the Roman Imperium in the East from 148 to 62 BC (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1995)Google Scholar.
6 Doyle, M., Empires (Ithaca 1986) 30Google Scholar (emphasis added), cf. 45.
7 For Doyle's wide influence, see e.g. Rosen, S.P., ‘Imperial Choices’, in Bacevich, A.J. (ed.), The Imperial Tense: Prospects and Problems of American Empire (Chicago 2003) 211Google Scholar. Explicit statement of the concept of ‘informal empire’ goes back to Gallagher, J. and Robinson, R., “The Imperialism of Free Trade’, Econ. Hist. Review N.S. 6 (1953) 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the ultimate source is probably Lenin, V.I., Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (Moscow 1920)Google Scholar.
8 Doyle, , Empires (n. 6) 30–47Google Scholar; see esp. the chart on 44. On one stage of informal but effective subordination as seeking merely to ‘set limits’ on another state's foreign relations, see the groundbreaking discussion of Murphy, G., ‘On Satelliteship’, Journ. Econ. Hist. 21 (1961) 641-51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Thus scholars of antiquity often refer to Roman methods of both direct and indirect ‘control’ with no attempt to define what is meant (and the implication is often that control is total): see Badian, E., Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic (Ithaca 1965) 11Google Scholar; Dahlheim, W., Gewalt und Herrschaft: Das provinziale Herrschaftssystem der römischen Republik (Berlin 1977) 122Google Scholar; Harris, W.V., War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (Oxford 1979) 162Google Scholar; Hammond, N.G.L., in Hammond, N.G.L. and Walbank, F.W., A History of Macedon, vol. 3 (Oxford 1988) 502-3Google Scholar; cf. Derow, , ‘Arrival of Rome’ (n. 1) 66Google Scholar, concerning Roman ‘mie’ in the East from 188 BC; and now Dmitriev, S., The Greek Slogan of Freedom and Early Roman Politics in Greece (Oxford 2011) 329, 331, 337CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But the policy-area(s) of control, and the intensity of that control, may vary widely: see Lake, D.A., ‘Escape from the State of Nature: Authority and Hierarchy in World Polities’, International Security 32 (2007) esp. 56–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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11 See Watson, A., The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis (London 1992) 15–16Google Scholar; Donnelly, ‘Sovereign Inequalities and Hierarchy in Anarchy’ (n. 10) 154Google Scholar (chart) and 156. Cf. also Lake, , ‘Authority and Hierarchy’ (n. 9) esp. 47–61Google Scholar.
12 Doyle, , Empires (n. 6) 45Google Scholar.
13 Lake, , ‘Authority and Hierarchy’ (n. 9) 56 n. 27Google Scholar.
14 For examples, see the references in n. 9 above.
15 On situations of ‘unipolarity’ – a geopolitical configuration of power much studied of late -see e.g. Kapstein, E.B. and Mastanduno, M. (eds), Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies after the Cold War (New York 1999)Google Scholar; Ikenberry, G.J. (ed.), America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca 2002)Google Scholar.
16 Unipolarity is itself a rare phenomenon. Except for the American situation after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, unipolarity has not existed in the modem geopolitical world: not for 19th century Britain, which always had rivals, nor for Napoleonic France (it came close on the European Continent, but it too always had rivals), nor for Habsburg Spain in the 16th century (the same). American unipolarity did not last very long; geopolitics from c. 2010 has reverted towards multipolarity (see below, p. 185 and n. 36). China enjoyed unipolarity at various times from the Qin dynasty onwards. Rome stands exceptional after 188 BC in the Mediterranean, and its eventual conversion of the unipolar situation into formal empire is equally exceptional. Even so, if one takes a somewhat broader geographical view, by the 70s BC Iranian Parthia was making the geopolitical structure bipolar in the Levant.
17 On the instabililty of unipolarity and hegemony, see esp. Wilkinson, D., ‘Unipolarity Without Hegemony’, International Studies Review 1 (1999) 142-72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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19 The statement of Derow, , ‘Arrival of Rome’ (n. 1) 65Google Scholar, that for Rome the Antiochene War ‘had not been fought alongside allies’ is simply wrong.
20 On Greek influence over both war strategy and geopolitical results against both Philip and then Antiochus, see conveniently Errington, R.M. ‘Rome and Greece to 205 BC’, in CAH2 8.267Google Scholar (on the peace negotiations of winter 198/197), 270 (influence of Rhodes and Pergamum on Roman relations with Antiochus), 276 (Greek influence in the war against Nabis of Sparta in 195), 286 (Eumenes II's influence on Roman strategy against Antiochus), and 287 (influence of Rhodes and Pergamum on the peace settlement in Asia Minor in 188).
21 See the comments of Sherwin-White, Roman Foreign Policy in the East, 168 BC to AD 1 (Norman OK 1984) 11-13.
22 The Roman treaty of peace with the Aetolian League was unique, at the time and later, in containing a clause requiring the Aetolians henceforth to support ‘the dynasteia and arche of the Roman people’ (Polyb. 21.32.2). There was also a clause, traditional in treaties among Greek states, that the Aetolians would have the same friends and enemies as the major partner (Polyb. 21.32.4): on this quite traditional clause, see Gruen, E.S., The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1984) 27-8Google Scholar; van Wees, H., Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (London 2004) 14 and n. 35Google Scholar. The special strictures on Aetolia arose from the fact that from the Roman point of view the League had not merely been an enemy state but a treacherous ally. The Roman treaty of alliance with the Achaean League was sworn c. 192: see Badian, “The Treaty between Rome and the Achaean League’, JRS 42 (1952) 76–80Google Scholar.
23 See Murphy, ‘On Satelliteship’ (n. 8).
24 For this typical impact of unipolarity, see Kapstein, and Mastanduno, , Unipolar Politics (n. 15) 1Google Scholar.
25 See Polyb. 21.23.4, 22.3.2, 22.24.11-13; cf. Plut, . Flam. 16.4Google Scholar, with Richardson, J.S., ‘Polybius' View of the Roman Empire’, PBSR 17 (1979) 7Google Scholar; Gruen, , HWCR (n. 22) 329-34Google Scholar.
26 Derow, , ‘Arrival of Rome’ (n. 1) 65-6Google Scholar; Hammond, , in Hammond, and Walbank, , History of Macedon (n. 9) 502-3Google Scholar (the quote). Mandeli, ‘Isthmian Proclamation’ (n. 1), puts the establishment of unbreakable Roman mie even earlier, with (paradoxically) Flamininus's proclamation of the ‘Freedom of the Greeks’ in 196, at the end of the war against Philip. Harris, War and Imperialism (n. 9) 161 n. 3, asserts that violence and threat were the foundation of Roman policy in Greece – true enough, as far as it goes; but since it was also true of almost all ancient states, including those with which Rome interacted – see Eckstein, , Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome (Berkeley and Los Angeles 2006)Google Scholar – it is misleading in terms of the complexities and ambiguities of our period. To be sure, coercion is at the heart of any hierarchical interstate order: see Lake, , ‘Authority and Hierarchy’ (n. 9) 50-3Google Scholar.
27 Polyb. 3.4.2-3, cf. 1.1.5 and 6.2.3.
28 On the consistent Roman avoidance of commitment in the East, see Gruen, HWCR (n. 22) chaps 1 and 2; Eckstein, , Rome Enters the Greek East: From Anarchy to Hierarchy in the Hellenistic Mediterranean, 230-170 BC (Oxford and Maiden MA 2008) chaps 2-3, 7 and 9Google Scholar.
29 For the policy of maintaining balances of power by a peripheral great power, see Sheehan, M., The Balance of Power: History and Theory (London and New York 1996) 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Rome as consistently in favor of most status quo situations in the East (even when these situations were highly varied locally), see Sherwin-White, ‘Roman Involvement in Anatolia’ (n. 4).
30 Derow, , ‘Arrival of Rome’ (n. 1) 66Google Scholar.
31 On ‘bandwagoning’ with a world power as a means for somewhat lesser states to increase their own (regional) power, see S. Mowle and Sacko, D.H., The Unipolar World (London 2007) 71-2Google Scholar. A parallel is the situation of lesser states after the Cold War: see Schweller, R., ‘Realism and the Present Great Power System: Growth and Positional Conflict over Scarce Resources’, in Kapstein, and Masanduno, , Unipolar Politics (n. 15) 37Google Scholar. Even Seleucid military power eventually revived, as Antiochus IV's invasions of Ptolemaic Egypt in 169 and 168 proved. And we have already noted above that Antigonid Macedon, defeated in 196, soon regained a significant capacity for action.
32 Discussion in Wilkinson, ‘Unipolarity Without Hegemony’ (n. 16). On the proposed time-scale of the alleged ‘unipolar moment’, see Layne, C., The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca 2006) 264 n. 1Google Scholar, with references to earlier studies.
33 Waltz, K., Theory of International Politics (New York 1979)Google Scholar, and “The Emerging Structure of International Polities’, International Security 18 (1993) 44–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Layne, , “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise’, International Security 17 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Peace of Illusions (n. 32); Posen, B. and Ross, A., ‘Competing Visions of U.S. Grand Strategy’, International Security 21 (1996) 42-3, and 52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The quotation: Layne, , Peace of Illusions (n. 32) 143Google Scholar.
34 See Jervis, R. ‘Cooperation under the Security Dilemma’, World Politics 30 (1978) 167–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schweller, ‘Realism and the Present Great Power System’ (n. 31).
35 See e.g. Wohlforth, W.C., “The Stability of a Unipolar World’, International Security 24 (1999) 5–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘U.S. Strategy in a Unipolar World’, in Ikenberry, (ed.), America Unrivaled (n. 15) 98–118Google Scholar; and the articles in Kapstein and Mastanduno, Unipolar Politics (n. 15) Alate entry here: Mowle and Sacko, Unipolar World (n. 31) chaps 1-3.
36 The Waltzian theorist Layne, Charles, ‘Unipolar Illusion’ (n. 33) 7Google Scholar, predicted in 1993 that U.S. unipolarity would give way to multipolarity by 2010. Mastanduno, , ‘Preserving the Unipolar Moment’ (n. 2) 88Google Scholar, warned that American attempts to exercise power unilaterally and arbitrarily could call forth balancing conduct; the quality of decision-making counts.
37 For arguments that serious balancing against American unipolar power is not occurring, see Lieber, K.A. and Alexander, G., ‘Waiting for Balancing: Why the World is Not Pushing Back’, International Security 30 (2005) 109-39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
38 This is the prophecy attributed by Phlegon of Tralles (second century AD) to Antisthenes the Peripatetic at the time of the Antiochene War: sources and discussion in Gauger, J.-D., ‘Phelgon von Tralleis, mirab. IIII.’, Chiron 10 (1980) 223-61Google Scholar.
39 See Wohlforth, , ‘U.S. Strategy in a Unipolar World’ (n. 35) 103-4Google Scholar.
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41 On these large-scale wars in Asia Minor, see Eckstein, , Rome Enters the Greek East (n. 28) 353-4Google Scholar.
42 On the receding of wars between powerful states as a characteristic of unipolarity, see Mastanduno, and Kapstein, , Unipolar Politics (n. 15) 22Google Scholar. On how this phenomenon of increased order and stability can lead to acquiescence by the lesser states, see Lake, , ‘Authority and Hegemony’ (n. 9) 53-4 and 69–77Google Scholar; Mowle and Sacko, Unipolar World (n. 31) chap. 2. On Greece compared to Asia Minor in the 180s, see Eckstein, Rome Enters the Greek East (n. 27) chap. 9.
43 See Xen. Hell. 5.2.35 and 7.5.27, with Dillery, J., Xenophon and the History of His Times (London 1995) 27–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf van Wees, , Greek Warfare (n. 22) 7–8Google Scholar.
44 See Polyb. 10.21-24,25.10. On the phenomenon of'internal balancing’, see Waltz, , Theory of International Politics (n. 33) 118, 168Google Scholar.
45 On the renewal of the Achaean-Ptolemaic treaty of alliance, see Polyb. 22.7-9. On coalition-building as ‘external balancing’, see Waltz, , Theory of International Politics (n. 33) 118, 168Google Scholar; Layne, , Peace of Illusions (n. 32) 143Google Scholar. On alliances independent of the unipolar power as an indicator of state independence, see Lake, , ‘Authority and Hierarchy’ (n. 9) 62-3Google Scholar.
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47 On American military interventions in the Caribbean and Central America, and the nature of American hegemony in the region (but, even so, not empire, as political scientists define the term), see Lake, , ‘Authority and Hierarchy’ (n. 9) 57Google Scholar.
48 For the proper understanding of Polybius’ description of the position of Aristaenus as euschèmona, see Eckstein, , Moral Vision in Polybius (n. 18) 202-3Google Scholar.
49 For the conundrum faced by weaker states in a unipolar structure who nevertheless wish to remain independent, see Kapstein, and Mastanduno, , Unipolar Politics (n. 15) 6Google Scholar. For Polybius's praise of Greek statesmen able to walk the tightrope, see Eckstein, Moral Vision in Polybius (n. 18) chap. 7. On the date and authenticity of the debate in Polyb. 24.11-13, see Walbank, , Commentary, vol. 3 (n. 46) 264-5Google Scholar.
50 For the goal of the unipolar power in such situations, see Kapstein, and Mastanduno, , Unipolar Politics (n. 15) 6–7Google Scholar.
51 To repeat: if unipolarity is inherently fragile because it calls forth counterbalancing (so Waltz), then this is a tremendous Roman political achievement. And even if unipolarity tends to be relatively stable, the Roman achievement is still significant, for the Romans made it work.
52 On the difficulties inherent in counterbalancing, see Mearsheimer, J.J.The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York 2001) 341-5Google Scholar; the essays in Kaufman, S.J., Little, R. and Wohlforth, W.C. (eds.), The Balance of Power in World History (London 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mowle, and Sacko, , Unipolar World (n. 31) 68Google Scholar. On the importance of local rivalries as an obstacle to counterbalancing: see Mearsheimer, loc. cit. 155-62; Wohlforth, , ‘U.S. Strategy in a Unipolar World’ (n. 35) 107Google Scholar; Mowle and Sacko, loc. cit. 68.
53 On Polybius' attitude towards Macedon, see Walbank, , ‘Polybius and Macedonia’, in Walbank, F.W. (ed.), Polybius, Rome, and the Hellenistic World: Essays and Reflections (Cambridge) 91–106Google Scholar (= Ancient Macedonia 2 [1970] 291–307)Google Scholar.
54 Discussions in Eckstein, Mediterraean Anarchy (n. 24) chaps 3-4, and Rome Enters the Greek East (n. 28) chaps 4-6.
55 The link of geographical proximity to counterbalancing: Walt, S., The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca 1987) 22-6Google Scholar; Wohlforth, ‘U.S. Strategy in a Unipolar World’ (n. 35). See also briefly Lampela, A., Rome and the Ptolemies of Egypt: The Development of their Political Relations, 273-80 BC (Helsinki 1998) 114Google Scholar.
56 See Heather, P., The Fall of Rome: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (London 2005) 25Google Scholar.
57 Discussion: Eckstein, Rome Enters the Greek East (n. 28) chap. 9.
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59 Such freedom to decide whether to intervene in local issues is typical of unipolar power: see Waltz, , ‘Stractural Realism after the Cold War’, International Security 25 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the contrast with the great frequency of American military interventions, see above, pp. 176-7. One should add that American military interventions since 1990, in the period of American unipolarity, have not been rare.
60 On the impact of distance (especially overseas distance) in lessening the desires of the unipolar power for direct control, see Levy, J.S., ‘What Do Great Powers Balance Against and When?’, in Paul, T.V., Wirtz, J.J. and Fortman, M. (eds), Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford 2004) 42Google Scholar.
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64 Gell. 6.3.15-16 = Cato, Orations, frag. 164M. The Romans saw no contradiction between libertas and the natural respect of the weaker for the auctoritas of the powerful, and thus hierarchy in their view did not necessarily eliminate libertas : see the good discussion of Yoshimura, T., ‘Zum römischen Libertas-Begriff im der Aussenpolitik im zweiten Jahrhundert v.Chr’, AJAH 9(1984) 1–3Google Scholar.
