In Rome, Global Dreams, and the International Origins of an Empire, Sarah Davies explores how the Roman Republic evolved, in ideological terms, into an “Empire without end.” This work stands out within Roman imperialism studies by placing a distinct emphasis on the role of international-level norms and concepts in shaping Roman imperium. Using a combination of literary, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence, Davies highlights three major factors in this process. First is the development, in the third and second centuries BCE, of a self-aware international community with a cosmopolitan vision of a single, universalizing world-system. Second is the misalignment of Rome’s polity and concomitant diplomatic practices with those of its Hellenistic contemporaries. And third is contemporary historiography, which inserted Rome into a cyclical (and cosmic) rise-and-fall of great power.
Author(s): Sarah Helen Davies
Series: Impact of Empire 35
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: xii+208
Rome, Global Dreams, and the International Origins of an Empire
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
The Roman Predicament
An International “Middle Ground”
Global Dreams: An Overview
1 Pan-Hellenism Goes Global
Mapping a “Mediterranean” World
Hellenicity and World Citizenship
Kinship Diplomacy: Building Bridges
Roman Identity and Global Hellenism
2 The Problem of Rome’s Politeia
Polis and Kingship
Rome and Romans Among Poleis and Kings
On a Roman One-Way Street: Third-Party Diplomacy
3 The Majesty of Rome
Sacred Wars
Imperium Maiestatemque Populi Romani
Defining the Body Politic
The Goddess Roma
4 A Cloud from the West
The Changing Shape of World History
Apocalyptic Traditions and Roman Despoteia
Polybius’ Universal History
Fate (Tuchē) and the Cycles of History (Anacyclosis)
5 A Liminal Finale
Polybius on the “Roman Question”
146 BCE
Conclusion: Roma Aeterna
Bibliography
Index
