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Title: War, warlords, and interstate relations in the ancient Mediterranean /
edited by Toni Raco del. Hoya and Fernando L6pez Sanchez.
Description: Leiden ;.Boston: Brill, 201s. J Series: Impact of empire :
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BRILL
LEIDEN I BOSTON

Conquest, Liberation, Protectionism, or
Enslavement? Mid-Republican Rome from
a Greek Perspective
Craige B. Champion
Quid eorum, Cn. Manli, factum est, ut istud pub/icum populi Romani hel-
ium et non tuum prtvatum latrocinium ducamus?
Which of these things was done, Gnaeus Manlius, so that we can con-
sider this a public war of the Roman People, and not your own private
piratical expedition?
LIVY, AB URBE CONDITA, 38.45.7
•••
Thus a council of the cities of Sicily is called at Syracuse or Messana or
Lilybaeum. The Roman praetor attends the meeting (conventus agit); at
his command (eo imperio) those who have been called convene. They
see him on a lofty platform (excelso in suggestu) [referring to a tribunal,
discussed below], handing out haughty pronouncements, surrounded by
lictors (stipatum lictoribus); the rods threaten their back, the axes their
necks. And yearly they are assigned by lot one lord after another (alium
atque alium dominum).
LIV. 31.29,8-10
••
• the collapse of central authority.
As we have stressed in the Introduction to this volume, viewing international
relations through the analytical lenses of 'warlordism' and multipolarity is a
two-edged sword. Their conceptual grounds furnish us with new and fruitful
ways in which to understand ancient Mediterranean societies, but as early
twenty-first century intellectual constructs, fashioned primarily for analyzing
the world in which we currently live, and to some degree presupposing the
existence of the nation-state, high-speed telecommunications, and relatively
sophisticated mechanisms for recognizing and legitimating applications of
@ KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 I DOI 10,1l63/9789004354050_013
CONQUEST, LIBERATION, PROTECTIONISM, OR ENSLAVEMENT? 255
military force, they also invite the danger of grossly anachronistic historical
distortions.
There is no need to rehearse these problems at any length here, but I must
reiterate and assert one crucial distinction for the discussion that follows:
there is never any omniscient, disinterested observer, who can regard things
like empire, legitimate states, 'warlords', or international criminality-in short,
questions of interstate legitimacy-objectively and dispassionately; but rather
that such things are ideologically and emotionally loaded categories, always
open to contestation, which shift and transform themselves as a function of
what we might call the focalization of human subjectivities. In this paper
I would like to focalize (if I may be permitted to use the term in such a way)
Roman military and diplomatic behaviors during the Middle Republic through
the eyes of Greek statesmen who experienced them, and make out a case for
the idea that from that perspective, individual Roman commanders frequently
would have seemed like 'warlords', as I shall loosely use that term.
The first order of business, then, is to set the definitional term for 'warlord',
as I shall use it here. In an important study (cited repeatedly in this volume),
K. Marten has placed 'warlordism' in a comparative perspective by consider-
ing the phenomenon in medieval Europe, early twentieth-century republican
China, and contemporary Somalia and Afghanistan.' Her concerns are very
much oriented to u.s. policy at the time of her composition, as she argues
that American economic and military support to warlords in both Somalia and
Afghanistan was misguided, because their authority threatened the well-being
of civilian populations, was inimical to international security, and obstructed
the emergence of functioning states. Martin employs her case studies to arrive
inductively at a 'rigorous and generalizable definition' of warlordism. This in-
ductive definition has four main components:
(1) Trained armed men seize control of relatively small areas in the wake of
(2) Their actions are based solely on self-interest, not ideology.
(3) Their authority and legitimacy are based on charisma and personal con-
nections to their followers.
(4) Such 'personalistic rule' leads to political and economic disintegration
across the country, 'disrupting the free flow of trade and making com-
merce and investment unpredictable'.
1 Marten 2006/2007.All dates are BC.
256 CHAMPION
While Marten's definition was a decided improvement on more vague formu-
lations of other political scientists and international relations theorists, it can
hardly be applied to the study of the ancient Mediterranean world in general,
or to the Roman Republic in particular. While we might perhaps be able to con-
sider some of the components of this definition (such as #2), we could not use
others in any meaningful sense in the case of Roman hegemony in Greek lands
in the second century (such as #4). Consequently, it is necessary to begin with
a quite different, and looser, definition for 'warlord' (and 'warlordism'). For our
purposes, a 'warlord' will simply be an individual with the military force to
compel obedience and submission of civilian populations, whose behaviors
are peremptory, unpredictable, inconsistent, and often incalculable in the eyes
of those who are subjected to them.
The theme for our conference in Barcelona, Multipolarity and Warlordism in
the Ancient World, is especially relevant-perhaps in a counterintuitive way-
for the history of the growth of the Roman Republic in the second century. This
may be a surprising statement, if, along with Polybius, we adopt a teleological
historical perspective. After all, as he put it, the Roman state at this time had
achieved something without historical parallel, the subjugation of the known,
inhabited world, or oikoumene, within the short compass of fifty-three years.
For Polybius, though he of course could not have expressed it in these terms,
both warlordism and multipolarity were significantly curtailed, if not well on
the way to extinction, with the establishment of Roman hegemony (at least
until the terminal date of his original conception of the history, 168).2
Modern scholars, with varying emphases, have echoed Polybius' general no-
tion of an interstate system that from roughly 220-150 moved from one char-
acterized by fragmentation and plurality to a more unified, ordered, unipolar
international composition under Roman hegemonic control.3 A.M. Eckstein,
in particular, has employed analytical categories and conceptions of political
scientists and international relations theorists in order to help us see the rise of
Roman power in the ancient Mediterranean world in a new way. Rather than
focusing almost exclusively on the Roman Republic-its political structure, its
military organization, its aristocratic value-system, and so on-in order to ex-
plain Roman domination, he encourages us to view the interstate system of the
ancient Mediterranean powers as a brutally competitive, highly-militarized,
international anarchy. On this view, all states were bellicose and aggressive,
2 For Polybius' 'change of plan' to extend the work down to 146, a more troubled time in which
the universal rule of Rome indeed seemed to be on shakier foundations, see Champion
2004a: 11 and n. 19.
3 See, for example, Gruen 1984; Morstein-Marx 1995; Eckstein 2006; Eckstein 2008.
CONQUEST, LIBERATION, PROTECTIONISM, OR ENSLAVEMENT? 257
seeking to maximize their power and security in a relentlessly unforgiving,
zero-sum struggle for survival. Everyone played the same game; the Romans
were simply better at it, in terms of utilizing their formidable demographic
resources and applying their highly-developed organizational skills.
The result has been a re-enlivened debate about the nature of Roman im-
perialism, providing fresh perspectives to complement the insights of classic
studies on the nature and characteristics of the Republic, which were informed
by what some political scientists would call a metrocentric approach. And
Eckstein's systemic approach is not the only alternative for reevaluating cer-
tain historical junctures in the development of Roman interstate power. We
might also employ the so-called pericentric approach, expounded in Robinson
and Gallagher's famous study of European imperialists in Africa.• In this ana-
lytical orientation, we should atrend to the imperial periphery, since peripheral,
weaker states struggling internally or with neighbors may practically invite
the intervention of a stronger, imperial center, and thereby (unwittingly) fur-
ther the extension of its power. I have employed this approach in two studies
over the last several years, one concerning the Mamertine crisis in 264,
and another examining Roman intervention in Achaean Dyme in 144/43.s
A.M. Eckstein and I canvassed these political science and international rela-
tions theories and the exciting potential they hold for Roman history before
either of us had published anything informed by them in the Introduction to
my edited volume on Roman imperialism. 6 These three approaches, the me-
tro centric, the pericentric, and the systemic (to use the political science ter-
minology) all have their proper place in the study of Roman imperialism, and
J.W. Rich is surely right when he contends that no mono-causal explanation
can be sufficient for such a complex historical phenomenon.7
In this chapter, however, I want to adopt a different perspective, one that
oddly supports the idea of multipolarity and warlordism, even for the period in
which Polybius claims that the entire oikoumene, or inhabited world, fell under
Roman sway. 8 Historical reconstruction should operate on many levels, and my
approach here will differ somewhat from the theoretical orientation that has
given rise to this conference, even if I arrive at conclusions supporting it. The
conceptual framework for our proceedings is fine for what we might call the
macro-level, allowing us to interpret interstate (and rogue state) behaviors in
4 Robinson and Gallagher 1961.
5 Champion 2007 and Champion 2013.
6 Champion 2004b: 1-10.
7 Rich 1993.
8 See Polyb. 1.1.5-6, and assembled references at Champion 20040-: 19 n. 20.
258 CHAMPION
a Mediterranean-wide system of states. For this purpose, analytical terms such
as imperialism, hegemonialism, liberation, protectionism, annexationism,
unipolarity-and, of course, multipolarity and warlordism-serve us well,
but a potential problem with such conceptualizations comes into being when
we reify them and proceed to use them as complete historical explanations,
rather than as the partial and incomplete historical perspectives that they un-
doubtedly are. We should well heed the kind of salutary warning B. Adam puts
forward in her book, Time and Social Theory, when she argues against discon-
tinuous levels of analysis and mutually exclusive choices of explanation. She
writes, 'Physicists, like the phenomenologists before them, insist that reality
is not revealed to us in some pure form; that we do not observe nature per se
but nature exposed to our method of questioning. The observed 'hierarchy'
needs therefore to be recognized as part of the framework of observation and
as soon as it gets in the way of conceptualising mutually implicating connec-
tions we need to discard it and replace it with a non-hierarchical conceptual
framework'. 9
We need not go so far; that is, we should not jettison the aforementioned
approaches in studying Rome's rise to power, but we must make room for other
perspectives. In attempting to understand the development of Roman inter-
state power, and especially in trying to understand the Roman Republic as part
of a system of states whose default condition, following the Neo-Realists, was
one of international anarchy, it is easy to gloss over historical nuances and par-
ticularities. Moreover, following Polybius, our principal and by far most impor-
tant source for this period,we can easily begin to see the Roman Republic as
being finnly under the control of the Senate, which is frequently represented
as being far more unified and monolithic than it actually was. Such ideas as
I have canvassed thus far are not so helpful for the problem I have set for this
chapter: to understand the lived experience of people on the ground at the
time of the discrete events that-comprised what we later see collectively as
sweeping historical processes. In particular I want to consider Greek states-
men's perceptions of Rome and the exercise of Roman power from the begin-
nings of Roman overseas expansion until the cataclysmic year 146, when Rome
destroyed the cities of Carthage and Corinth. This is, of course, the period cov-
ered by Polybius.
The nature and structure of the Roman Senate are the logical place to begin,
since this was the governing body at Rome among whom Greek diplomats gen-
erally sought to air their grievances and concerns. From a Greek statesman's
perspective, the Senate was capricious, often obtuse or indecisive, enigmatic,
g Adam 1990: 162.
CONQUEST, LIBERATION, PROTECTIONISM, OR ENSLAVEMENT? 259
and inconsistent. A striking illustration of these qualities is provided by the
senatorial deliberations on the eve of the First Punic War, concerning Roman
intervention in Sicilian Messana. Even Polybius, who tends to represent the
Senate as a monolithic governing body, cannot conceal the fractious nature of
these debates and the divisiveness over the question at hand.
In studying Roman imperialism, historians rightly stress the determination
in 264 to campaign in Sicily. This decision marked the first step in Rome's tran-
sition from a powerful state confined to the Italian peninsula to one of world
history's most successful, largest, and longest-lasting hegemonic empires. Yet
the decision-making processes ultimately leading to Mediterranean-wide
domination are in Polybius' version shrouded in obscurity. The historical issue
concerned the strategically important town of Messana, and Syracusan and
Carthaginian interventions there. The so-called Mamertines (Campanian mer-
cenaries) seized Messana and made a large part of northeastern Sicily insecure
by their marauding activities. 10 Under pressure from King Hiero II of Syracuse,
the Marnertines appealed to both Carthage and Rome for aid, According to
Polybius, the senators feared Carthage would acquire a bridgehead at Messana
for invading Italy, but the questionable morality of assisting the treacherous
Mamertine usurpers gave them pause (Polyb. 1.n.1; 3.26.6).
Chapters 10 and u of the first book comprise our only detailed narrative of
the momentous Roman resolution to become involved in Sicilian affairs-a
resolution which eventually led to the First Punic War. The preliminaries to
the war in Polybius' account are well known; only a brief summary is required
here (Polyb. 1.7-10 ). Italian Rhegium, fearing both Pyrrhus' designs on Italy
and Carthaginian naval power, appealed to Rome for a protective garrison.
Around the time of Pyrrhus' crossing to Italy, the Romans sent to Rhegium a
group of 4,000 Campanian mercenaries under the command of a certain Decius.
These Campanians forcibly took control of Rhegium, much as the Campanians
in Sicily had treacherously occupied Messana. In Sicily, Hiero defeated the
Mamertines nearby the Longanus river, and then returned to Syracuse, where
he was named king (Polyb. 1.8.3-9.8). In Italy, a Roman expedition subdued
and punished the treacherous mercenaries at Rhegium. The Marnertines now
found themselves in a difficult situation, since they were deprived of the sup-
port of their compatriots at Rhegium. They had been so weakened by their
defeat at Hiero's hands that they could no longer pursue warlike activities with
their own resources. They were forced to seek outside assistance, but disagreed
as to whom they should appeal. One party sent for help to the Carthaginians,
entrusting themselves and their defenses to them. Others went to Rome,
10 Polyb.1.8.1-2; see Diodorus 22.13.1; 23.1.4; PlutarchPyrrhus 23.1, 5•
260 CHAMPION
offering to place Messana under Roman protection and begging for assistance
on the grounds of kinship. This embassy caused the senatorial quandary at
Rome. How could the senators provide aid to the Mamertine usurpers, wheu
they had made a demonstration of how they treated lawless aggressors iu pun-
ishing the mercenaries at Rhegium, whose ringleaders were publicly beheaded
in the Roman Forum? The iuconsistency of such action weighed heavily on
their minds, but in the end fear of a Carthaginian outpost on the Straits of
Messana trumped this moral quandary. A relief force was sent out-Rome's
first overseas military action-though Polybius obfuscates the fact that the
Senate took the decision. 11 And, as Eckstein has shown, the commander
Appius Claudius Caudex had extraordinary leeway for individual initiative in
the field. 12
As this episode indicates, the Senate was rarely unanimous in its delibera-
tions. The outbreak of the so-called Second Macedonian War is another case
in point. In 200, a war-weary centuriate assembly rejected a proposal by the
consul Publius Sulpicius Galba for war against King Philip v of Macedonia.
Historians rightly iuterpret the overturning of that initial decision as a dem-
onstration of the oligarchic nature of the Republic: the Senate forced a war
decision on an unwilling populace (Liv. 31.6.1-8-4). But it also indicates serious
fracture lines in the Senate on the war rogation. Despite Livy's representation,
it is unlikely that the tribune Quintus Baebius, who spoke against the proposal
before the People, was a lone-wolf dissenter; it is much more likely that he had
the backing of powerful members of the Senate. And the frequency of Greek
statesmen's experiencing the mercurial nature of senatorial deliberation
and decision-making quickened in the early second century and accelerated
through the ensuing decades.1'
Many Greek statesmen dealt with Roman power in Greece, rather than
before meetings of the Senate in Rome. In order to appreciate what this expe-
rience often was, we must bear in mind the enormous autonomy which the
Roman commander in the field of operations enjoyed. A particularly interest-
ing case of the independent decision-making powers of the commander is
provided by the treaty-not ratified by the Senate and People-made with
Gades in 206 by Scipio's legate, Lucius Marcius, which apparently enjoined
upon the Gaditanes the presence of a Roman praefectus and garrison in
their city. 14 Another startling example from Spain of the general's individual
11 See now Champion 2013.
12 Eckstein 1987: 73-10L
13 See Polyb. 23.1.1-4.16.
14 Liv. 28.37.10; 32.2.5; see also Cicero ProBalbo 15.34, 17.39.
CONQUEST, LIBERATION, PROTECTIONISM, OR ENSLAVEMENT? 261
autonomy is the consul Gaius Hostilius Mancinus' disastrous brokering-
through his quaestor Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus' agency-of a treaty with
the Numantines in 137, which the Senate later repudiated, to Mancinus' cha-
grin and disgrace. As John Richardson observed in his study of the origins and
growth of Roman imperial power in Spain, 'Imperialism in the second century,
just as much as in the period of Caesar and Pompey, was the product of indi-
vidual initiative in situ'.15
In terms of communications between Rome and pr(JVinciae, Spain was a far-
off province, but it was not a unique case for the commander1s nearly complete
autonomy. At the conclusion of the Second Macedonian War, Titus Quinctius
Flamininus acted with a relatively free hand in Greece in the aftermath of the
battle at Cynoscephalae, and in the events leading up to his famous 'Isthmian
Proclamation' at Corinth in 196. Unlike the philhellenic Flamininus, howev-
er, the consul Publius Licinius Crassus and the unscrupulous praetor Gaius
Lucretius Gallus in 171 allowed their troops to commit outrages in Greek cit-
ies, even friendly ones; as did the praetor Lucius Hortensius in the follow-
ing year. 16 The commander's autonomy and independent decision-making
powers therefore obtained at all times, regardless of his distance from Rome
or the people among whom he found himself. Few scholars today would
dispute that point, especially since the publication of Eckstein's magisterial
study of the question.17
In the remainder of this paper, I shall briefly discuss several interactions with
Roman authorities that Greek statesmen could only have perceived as bewil-
deringly inconsistent and frighteningly unpredictable abuses of power (by way
of further illustration, and by no means an exhaustive list). These examples are
well-known, mostly reported by Polybius, but taken together they underscore
the inescapable impression that, for Greek statesmen, it was nearly impossi-
ble to understand Roman foreign policy and to predict Roman behavior. One
of the most celebrated events in the history of Roman diplomacy during the
Middle Republic is the 'Isthmian Proclamation' of Titus Quinctius Flamininus.
Flamininus had defeated Philip v the year before, and Greece's fate was in
the Roman commander1s hands; many Greeks feared mass enslavement, or
worse. To their disbelief and euphoria, Flamininus declared the Greek states to
be free and autonomous, promising a complete military withdrawal of Roman
15 Richardson 1986: 178.
16 Liv. 42.63.3-12; 43,4.5-12; 43.7.5-8.10 (Crassus and Gallus); Liv. 43,4,8-13, 7.8-8.8
(Hortensius ).
17 Eckstein 1987 passim.
262 CHAMPION
troops, with no tribute imposed. 18 Yet in the fighting of 200 and 199, the Romans
had destroyed the Greek cities of Chalcis, Antipatreia, Andros, and Acanthus,
and they had enslaved the entire population of Oreus. 19 Publius Sulpicius
Galba's campaign in Greece began with the sacking of Aegina and ended with
that of Achaean Dyme. Flamininus himself sacked Thessalian Phaloria, and his
liberationist stance came only after military means had failed (Liv. 32.15.1-3).
In 194 his troops returned to Italy laden with spoils (Liv. 34.52.2 ).
Two famous examples of Roman imperiousness, relayed by Polybius, un-
derscore the point. In summer 191, the consul Manius Acilius Glabrio received
the Aetolians into a deditio infidem.2° At this time there was a famous inter-
change between Glabrio and the Aetolian strategos Phaeneas. Eckstein has
argued that scholars have made too much of Glabrio's brutality in this inter-
change, and that in reporting the event Polybius stresses the consistency in
Roman approaches to unconditional surrender.21 But there is no question
that when Phaneas hesitated, once he understood the Roman terms, Glabrio
mocked him for his Hellenic airs and threatened him with forcible imprison-
ment. Following reports of the crushing Roman victory at Pydna in 168, the
legate Gaius Popillius Laenas arrived in Egypt to end the conflict between the
Seleucid and Ptolemaic monarchies. Laenas met King Antiochus IV Epiphanes
on the outskirts of Alexandria, delivering a senatus consultum to the Hellenistic
monarch. He refused traditional greetings until Antiochus should read the
Senate's demand- that he cease aggressions and evacuate Ptolemaic territory.
When the king requested leave to discuss the matter with his council, Laenas
drew a circle in the sand around him with a vine reed, demanding that he
respond before stepping outside the circle. 22
In the aftermath of the Antiochene War, the special interventions of King
Amynander of Athamania, some Acamanian representatives, the Lokrian
Damoteles, and envoys from Athens and Rhodes barely saved the Ambraciots
from the wrath of the consul Marcus Fulvius Nobilior. Phaeneas and Damoteles
also approached Nobilior's half-brother, Gaius Valerius Laevinus, to ap-
pease the consul's anger. Fulvius later dictated peace terms to the Aetolians,
18 Polyb. 18.44-48; Liv. 33.30-35; Plut. Flamininus 10.4, 12.2; Appian Macedonian Affairs g;
Justin Epitome 30,4.17-18; Valerius Maximus 4.8.s; Zonaras 9.16, with Gruen 1984: 132-57.
19 Chalcis (Liv. 31.23.1-24.3); Antipatreia (Liv. 31.27.1-6); Andros (Liv. 31.45.1-8); Acanthus
(Liv. 31.45.16); Oreus (Liv. 31.46.9-16).
20 Polyb. 20.9.1-10.17, with Champion 2004a: 157 n. 42.
21 Eckstein 1995.
22 Polyb. 29.27.1-13, with Gruen 1984: 659 n. 226.
CONQUEST, LIBERATION, PROTECTIONISM, OR ENSLAVEMENT? 263
rapaciously carried off precious artworks, and received a gift of one hundred
and fifty talents. But back in Rome an angry populace was ready to reject the
Aetolian peace arrangement, until the Rhodian Damon and the Athenian Leon
exercised all of their oratorical skills to mollify its rage. 23 At roughly the same
time, the other consul, Gnaeus Manlius Vulso, bullied Moagetes, tyrant of the
Cibyran tetrapolis in southeastern Asia Minor. Moagetes offered fifteen talents
of gold to Vulso's legate Gaius Helvius in an attempt to secure himself against
Roman violence. The consul vehemently ranted against Moagetes' envoys, and
Moagetes then abased himself before the consul. In the end, Vulso extorted
one hundred talents and ten thousand medimnoi of grain from Moagetes in
return for his safety.24
Following the Roman victory over King Perseus at Pydna, Lucius Aemilius
Paullus savagely plundered Epirus on the return trip, sacking some seventy cit-
ies and enslaving about 150,000 people. 25 When the legate Appius Claudius
Cento requested military support for operations in Epirus from the Achaean
cavalry-commander (and future historian) Polybius, the consul Quintus
Marcius Philippus instructed Polybius not to comply. This placed the Greek
statesman in a difficult diplomatic quandary; he eventually appealed to
Achaean legalities, informing Cento that the Achaean Confederation could
only honor requests sanctioned by senatus consulta (Polyb. 28.13.1-14). And, of
course, despite Polybius' own policy of political neutrality, he ended up as one
of the Achaean hostages at Rome, with an inflexible Senate refusing repeated
embassies appealing for their repatriation, until suddenly and unexpectedly it
relented in 151/50. 26 Some twenty years later, in a fit of exasperation and to the
utter consternation of the Greeks, the commander Lucius Mummius destroyed
Corinth, the 'bright star of Greece', as the poets called it. 27 In the disturbed
times following the Achaean War, the praetorian proconsul Quintus Fabius
Maximus Servilianus arbitrarily intervened in the internal affairs of Achaean
Dyme, allowing the execution of two Dymaean statesmen, and the arrest and
extradition to Rome of a third. 28
The fate of the Greek states in the Middle Roman Republican period, then,
hinged on the actions of the Roman Senate and the behaviors of individual
23 Polyb. 21.29.1-32.5; Liv. 38.9.3-11.9,
24 Polyb. 21.34.3-13; Liv. 38.14.1-14.
25 Liv. 45,34,1-6; Polyb. 30.15, and further references at Champion 2004a: 54 n. 84,
26 Champion 2004a: 17 and n. 9.
27 See ILS 20; Diod. 32.26.2, with Gruen 1976; Champion 2004a: 227 and n. 74.
28 Syll 3 684, with Champion 2007, and literature cited there.
264 CHAMPION CONQUEST, LIBERATION, PROTECTIONISM, OR ENSLAVEMENT? 265

Roman commanders in the field of military operations. Within the Senate, sen-
ators often worked at cross purposes, and the ephemeral political alignments
there, which we can by no means call anything like parties or even factions,
were nearly impossible to read. In the field, Roman generals were frequently
inconsistent and unpredictable, and they too could work against one another
and give baffling, contradictory sigoals. To frame the situation-somewhat
paradoxically-within the theme of our conference, and from the perspective
of the Greek statesmen who had to deal with Roman power, the Senate must
have often looked like a kaleidoscopic and mercurial multipolarity, and noth-
ing like the monolithic governing bloc of an imperial metropole, with a set
foreign policy; and individual Roman commanders must have seemed like so
many warlords, whose unexpected leniency or pugnacious aggression could
hardly be divined.
Morstein-Marx, R. (1995) Hegemony to Empire: The Dwelopment ofthe Romanlmperium
in the Ea.stfrom 148 to 62 BC, Berkeley.
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