Pax Romana

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The Template:Lang (Latin for Template:Gloss) is a roughly 200-year-long period of Roman history which is identified as a golden age of increased and sustained Roman imperialism, relative peace and order, prosperous stability, hegemonic power, and regional expansion. Although, the period also held several revolts and wars, amidst the Roman-Persian wars. Traditionally, the beginning is marked at the ascent of Augustus, who also founded the Roman principate, in 27 BCE. Likewise, the conclusion is identified in CE 180 at the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "Five Good Emperors".<ref name=EncBrit>Template:Cite web</ref>

During this approximately two century period,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> the Roman Empire achieved its greatest territorial extent in CE 117 (Emperor Trajan). Also, the empire had a peak population of 70 million people, accounting for 33% of the world's population.<ref name=ushistory/> According to Cassius Dio, the dictatorial reign of Commodus, later followed by the Year of the Five Emperors and the Crisis of the Third Century, marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".<ref>Dio Cassius 72.36.4, Loeb edition translated E. Cary</ref>

Overview

File:Impero romano sotto Ottaviano Augusto 30aC - 6dC.jpg

Extent of the Roman Empire under Augustus. Yellow represents the extent of the Republic in 31 BCE, while green represents gradually conquered territories under the reign of Augustus, and pink areas represent client states.

The Pax Romana, spanning from 27 BCE to 180 CE, stands as one of the longest enduring periods of peace in history. However, Walter Goffart wrote: "The volume of the Cambridge Ancient History for the years CE 70–192 is called 'The Imperial Peace', but peace is not what one finds in its pages".<ref name="Goffart1989">Template:Cite book</ref> Though, Arthur M. Eckstein writes that the period must be viewed in contrast to the much more frequent warfare in the 3rd and 4th centuries BCE under the Roman Republic.

Eckstein also notes that the initial Pax Romana appeared during the Republic, and that its temporal span varied upon geographical region as well: "Although the standard textbook dates for the Pax Romana, the famous 'Roman Peace' in the Mediterranean, are 31 BCE to CE 250, the fact is that the Roman Peace was emerging in large regions of the Mediterranean at a much earlier date: Sicily after 210 [BCE], the Italian Peninsula after 200 [BCE]; the Po Valley after 190 [BCE]; most of the Iberian Peninsula after 133 [BCE]; North Africa after 100 [BCE]; and for ever longer stretches of time in the Greek East."<ref name="RosensteinMorstein-Marx2011">Template:Cite book</ref> Similarly, Thomas F. Madden explained the dating of 27 BCE as avoiding the civil wars of the 1st century BCE. The real origins of Pax Romana for him are in the 2nd century BCE, after Rome had eliminated all of its serious military rivals and brought an unprecedented peace and prosperity to the lands of their empire.<ref>Madden, Thomas F. (2008). Empires of Trust: How Rome Built—and America Is Building—a New World. (Dutton Adult), p 197.</ref>

The first known record of the term Pax Romana appears in a writing by Seneca the Younger in CE 55.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The concept was highly influential, and the subject of theories and attempts to copy it in subsequent ages. Arnaldo Momigliano noted that "Pax Romana is a simple formula for propaganda, but a difficult subject for research."<ref name="Momi"/>

For most historians, the Pax Romana began when Octavian (Augustus) defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BCE and became Roman emperor.<ref name=EncBrit/><ref name=Battles>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=ushistory>Template:Cite web</ref> He became princeps, or first citizen. Lacking a good precedent of successful one-man rule, Augustus created a junta of the greatest military magnates and stood as the front man. By binding together these leading magnates in a coalition, he eliminated the prospect of civil war. The Pax Romana was not immediate, despite the end of the civil wars, because fighting continued in Hispania and in the Alps. Nevertheless, Augustus closed the Gates of Janus (a ceremony indicating that Rome was at peace) three times,<ref>Augustus states in Res Gestae 13 that he closed the Gates three times, a fact documented by many other historians (See Gates of Janus).</ref> first in 29 BCE and again in 25 BCE. The third closure is undocumented, but Inez Scott Ryberg (1949) and Gaius Stern (2006) have persuasively dated the third closure to 13 BCE with the commissioning of the Ara Pacis.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Stern>Template:Cite book Template:Dead link</ref><ref>Sir Ronald Syme had suggested a later date (but Rome was then at war).</ref> At the time of the Ludi Saeculares in 17 BCE the Concept of Peace was publicized, and in 13 BCE was proclaimed when Augustus and Agrippa jointly returned from pacifying Hispania and the Alps. The order to construct the Ara Pacis was probably part of this announcement.<ref>"What was the Pax Romana?" World Atlas, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-was-the-pax-romana.html</ref>

File:Romeinse keizers Gordianus III antoninianus Antiochie 243-244.jpg

AR Antoninianus of Gordian III, struck at Antioch 243–244 CE with Pax Augusta on the reverse

Romans regarded peace not as an absence of war, but as a rare situation which existed when all opponents had been beaten down and lost the ability to resist.<ref name="Momi">Template:Cite journal</ref> Augustus' challenge was to persuade Romans that the prosperity they could achieve in the absence of warfare was better for the Empire than the potential wealth and honor acquired when fighting a risky war. Augustus succeeded by means of skillful propaganda. Subsequent emperors followed his lead, sometimes producing lavish ceremonies to close the Gates of Janus, issuing coins with Pax on the reverse, and patronizing literature extolling the benefits of the Pax Romana.<ref name=Stern/>

After Augustus' death in CE 14, most of his successors as Roman emperors continued his politics. The last five emperors of the Pax Romana are known as the "Five Good Emperors".<ref name=ushistory/>

Influence on trade

Roman trade in the Mediterranean increased during the Pax Romana. Romans sailed East to acquire silks, gems, onyx and spices. Romans benefited from large profits, and incomes in the Roman empire were raised due to trade in the Mediterranean.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

As the Pax Romana of the western world by Rome was largely contemporaneous to the Pax Sinica of the eastern world by Han China,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=enckre135/> long-distance travel and trade in Eurasian history was significantly stimulated during these eras.<ref name=enckre135>Template:Cite book</ref>

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Pax imperia: analogous peaces

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The prominence of the concept of the Pax Romana led to historians coining variants of the term to describe other systems of relative peace that have been established, attempted, or argued to have existed. Some variants include:<ref name=EncBrit/><ref>Palen, Marc-William. 2024.Pax Economica : Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World. John Wiley & Sons. Template:ISBN? Template:Page?</ref>

More generically, the concept has been referred to as pax imperia<ref name="Mentan2010">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Lee2013">Template:Cite book</ref> (sometimes spelled as pax imperium<ref name="Ross2004">Template:Cite book</ref>), meaning imperial peace,<ref name="Aron2003">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Gress"/> or—less literally—hegemonic peace.<ref name="Gress">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Parchami2009">Template:Cite book</ref> Raymond Aron notes that imperial peace—peace achieved through hegemony can—sometimes, but not always—become civil peace. As an example, the German Empire's imperial peace of 1871 (over its internal components like Saxony) slowly evolved into the later German state. As a counter-example, the imperial peace of Alexander the Great's empire dissolved because the Greek city states maintained their political identity. Aron notes that during the Pax Romana, the First Jewish–Roman War was a reminder that the overlapping of the imperial institutions over the local ones did not erase them and the overlap was a source of tension and flare-ups. Aron summarizes that, "In other words, imperial peace becomes civil peace insofar as the memory of the previously independent political units are effaced, insofar as individuals within a pacified zone feel themselves less united to the traditional or local community and more to the conquering state."<ref name="Aron2003"/>

The concept of Pax Romana was highly influential, and there were attempts to imitate it in the Byzantine Empire, and in the Christian West, where it morphed into the Peace and Truce of God (pax Dei and treuga Dei).<ref name="Gress"/> A theoretician of the imperial peace during the Middle Ages was Dante Aligheri. Dante's works on the topic were analyzed at the beginning of the 20th century by William Mitchell Ramsay in the book The Imperial Peace: An Ideal in European History (1913).<ref name="Scott2002">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

References

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External links

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