The Language of Empire: Rome and the Idea of Empire from the Third Century b.c. to the Second Century a.d. (review)
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A senator of the second century b.c. seems to have viewed Rome's expansion in terms of exercising control over others; a senator of the second century a.d. probably held Trajan to have increased the land mass of the Roman empire when he reduced Arabia to the forma provinciae (see ILS 5834, ll. 6–7; p.192). These two perspectives on empire are not incompatible; but they did not co-exist at either time. The senator of the imperial period could have viewed Trajan's achievement in terms of the expansion of Roman power; but the senator of the mid-Republic seems not to have conceptualized expansion in terms of Rome's acquiring territory. How did this shift in mind-set occur? And what do these viewpoints suggest about how Romans thought about imperialism? Richardson argues that there was no one "imperialism" but "imperialisms" that changed over time. The senator of the mid-Republic lived in a world in which Romans understood empire as "power by conquest"; the senator of the principate in a world in which Romans saw empire as "power by possession." The shift in mindset came in the first century b.c., and especially under Augustus.
Richardson's historical conclusions are more convincing than the execution of his argument. He traces Romans' understanding of their acquisition of empire through analysis of developments in the meanings and usage of two Latin words, imperium and provincia, in the surviving literature and material record from Plautus to Suetonius. This thorough and lucid (if rather dry) linguistic analysis cannot tell the full story; one must also consider institutional, constitutional, and historical developments, all of which were affected by and in turn affected developments in the use of language. The combination of a linguistic and historical analysis is valuable, but it serves provincia better than imperium. [End Page 559]
Originally provincia meant a task assigned to a holder of imperium. From the late Republic it added a new meaning that became its common use: a region controlled by Rome. Richardson shows well what historical events influenced this development: in particular Pompey's creation of the provincia of Syria (created at the end of a campaign and designated "Roman" territory, not, as traditionally, at the start of a campaign and without any sense of ownership) and Augustus' division of the empire into imperial and people's provinciae in 27 b.c. Both gestures imply an understanding of provinciae as territories within the empire, not as tasks given to magistrates or pro-magistrates wielding imperium.
During his analysis of meanings of imperium in Latin sources dating to the Republic (the power of a magistrate, the power of the Roman people, the power of the Roman state), Richardson repeatedly emphasizes that the word was not used in the sense of a territorial empire. This has the effect of generating an expectation which the evidence and argument let down. Richardson claims that that "geographical" sense occurs first at Res Gestae divi Augusti 13. Even if readers concur, this new meaning did not revolutionize use of the word (its use to mean the emperor's power or position is a more important development), and by the first century a.d. provincia was already marking Romans' understanding of their empire as a geographical entity. Arguably the development in meaning of provincia sheds more light on Roman understanding of their empire as an area of land than does imperium.
It is striking that Richardson does not discuss the expression orbis terrarum, which can be equivalent to the "Roman empire" (TLL IX. 916.79–917.32), especially as he makes it clear that Cicero (2Verr. 5.168) uses it in a 'collocation of items … closer to an expression of what we would call the Roman empire than any single word...
