The first and major problem in discussing imperialism is one of definition. ‘Imperialism’ has become a term of abuse, implying unjust or oppressive rule or control of one people by another. These pejorative connotations are central to the meaning of the word as it has been interpreted by numerous historians of antiquity, with the result that it has been all but eliminated from their accounts of interstate relations. In the case of the Delian League, where it was not at all obvious that the dominant state ruled benignly or in the interests of its subjects, scholars have fallen back on the assertion that Athenian-allied relations were ‘hegemonial’ in character rather than ‘imperialistic’ in the first decades of the existence of the League (if not through the entire inter-war period); meanwhile Thucydides' characterization of the Athenian empire as a tyranny has been attributed by some to the historian's political prejudices, which led him to overlook the popularity of Athens among the lower classes of the empire.

The requirement that an imperialist power must have imperialist aims and motives has further narrowed the concept of imperialism and limited its applicability. In this case discussion has centred on the growth of Roman power; the debate has its origin, not in the strictures of a critic, a Roman Thucydides, but in the viewpoint of an enthusiastic admirer, Polybius. Polybius asserted, indeed took it for granted, that Rome aimed at empire.

The query in my title indicates a doubt about the reality of Spartan imperialism, as distinct from the ambitions of individual Spartans and their followers. Lysander tried to create something that we can fairly call an empire; twenty years earlier we have the foundation of Herakleia Trachinia, and we must at least consider whether the thinking behind that grandiose project could be called imperialistic; earlier still the regent Pausanias after the Persian War harboured ambitions which might have tended the same way. Both these men ended badly, and the colony too failed. The question is both about the nature of the ambitions and about the opposition to them: to some extent it was personal, but I conclude that there were general factors in the Spartan system which inhibited imperialism.

PAUSANIAS AND THE HEGEMONY

It would be possible to extend the enquiry backwards and include King Kleomenes I, an active king, and a good case can be made for regarding him as an expansionist eager to increase Sparta's power and his own. I doubt if this would be profitable: the evidence is in effect all from Herodotus, mainly hostile to him, and the narrative is fragmented in such a way that it is hard to be sure how his various activities hang together, and harder still to be sure about his own and his opponents' motives.

The treatment of a period of ancient Egyptian history under a heading which belongs very much to the modern world requires something of a defensive introduction. The charge is easily made that simply by using the words ‘imperialism’ and ‘empire’ a host of complex and debatable issues are prejudged and cast into a misleading and inappropriate mould. Certainly the ancient Egyptians themselves seem to have known of no words which can be translated as ‘imperialism’ or ‘empire’, but neither, for that matter, did they have words for ‘government’, ‘administration’ and ‘history’, nor even, despite its pervasiveness in Egyptian civilization, was there a word ‘religion’. This is something that can be encountered across the whole range of subjects on which the Egyptians wrote. Thus, they possessed a technical vocabulary for solving mathematical problems, but no word which can be translated ‘mathematics’. They acted without seeing the need to abstract and refer separately to the activity as an independent phenomenon. The verbal and mental sequence in Egypt was not from the particular to the abstract, it was to metaphor and religious symbolism. Yet, conversely, whilst we may judge the Egyptian vocabulary to have been weak in just those areas that we rate most highly, it is also true that our own vocabulary and range of concepts is inadequate for coping with the heart of the Egyptian intellect for which we can offer only the sadly degraded term ‘religion’.

In the fifth century the arche stands for the imperialism of Athens in all its strength (and its weaknesses). In the fourth century one might expect the Second Confederacy to perform a like service, of offering the aids (tekmeria) through which to interpret the imperialism of this later generation of Athenians. Have they learned something? Have they forgotten anything? In the scope of this essay there would be no point, clearly, in trying to summarize the history of the Confederacy or its institutions, which have been well served by studies in detail whether of the whole or of various parts. It is a matter of focusing on one or two points of interest and of querying one or two orthodoxies, even if there is no hard evidence which refutes them. Especially, can it really be true that the Athenians not only tried but in large part contrived to repeat the ‘confederacy-to-empire’ tour de force for a few years?

The most prevalent opinion seems to be that the Athenians at heart changed little. Of Demos one could say, as of the poor prince in another context, ‘He is no better, he is much the same’. Though arche had been a thing unknown in the Greek experience before the subjugation of Naxos (para to kathestekos), and though it could be seen as at best an impropriety and at the worst a crime, still it had been a crime to be proud of, not ashamed. (So ‘Pericles’ in 430, so ‘the Mantineans’ in 418.)

INTRODUCTION

Phoenician colonization of the western Mediterranean from the eighth century B.C. was never a coordinated movement under the direction of a single mother country or state. If therefore Tyre, who was most prominent of the Phoenician colonizers, exercised no direct control over the Phoenician diaspora, neither did Carthage, the new Tyre in the West, inherit any hegemonial role. Carthage began as merely one of a number of colonies, founded almost certainly after Gades and Utica but, like other western Phoenicians, in response to pressures at home and in quest of land on which to settle in the West. Tradition, which is probably correct, gave to Carthage only one distinctive feature from the rest – a restricted territory. From the start Carthage was bound by a compact with her Libyan neighbours to remain confined to a narrow neck of land, the Megara, and checked from expanding into her natural hinterland of Cape Bon (e.g. Justin 18.5.14; Livy 34.62.12).

For a long period this was the condition which pertained. As the colony grew in size she was compelled to seek beyond her confines for food and for land for her surplus population. Already in the mid-seventh century B.C. archaeology has revealed that she established a trading presence on the corn-rich Syrtic coast of Africa. And according to Diodorus (5.16), she sent out her own first colony to Ibiza in 654 B.C.

THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE

My purpose in this paper is to explore the conceptions of empire prevalent in Cicero's day. What Romans thought is often best ascertained from their institutions and actions, and some use will be made of this kind of evidence; it is necessarily inferential, and there is always a danger of reading into the actions of Greeks and Romans motives of too modern a kind. However this may be, I propose to draw principally on actual statements by Romans, as the clearest indications of what was most explicit in their own consciousness; how far this reveals the true driving forces in their imperial conduct is another matter, which may be left to bolder inquiry.

Only two authors supply much material: Cicero and Caesar. It may indeed be remembered that Virgil, Horace and Livy all matured in Cicero's lifetime, and that Livy may often reflect the views of annalists of this or of a still earlier period; moreover I believe that the imperial ideals of the Augustan age were much the same as those of the late republic. Still, citations of these writers will be subsidiary. It remains, however, to ask how far the utterances of Cicero and Caesar can be regarded as representative of their time. Any assumption that they actually held typical views themselves may appear unwarranted and indeed implausible.

With the inauguration of the Principate of Augustus, the history of Roman imperialism entered a new phase. Augustus' long reign was marked by conquest, pacification, colonization and administrative reorganization designed to secure the provinces and make possible their rational exploitation.

In this paper I analyse the character of Roman rule in North Africa in the period of the Principate and the nature of the society it produced. My original purpose was to assess the material benefits of Roman rule for provincials, and especially for Africans. This theme is not lost sight of here, but I have thought it necessary to set it against the background of the interests of the imperial power and the methods of Roman imperialism in Africa. Just as in the context of Roman social relations beneficia were given for services rendered, so the most tangible benefits received by subjects of Rome were granted in return for support of the imperialist enterprise. The main beneficiaries were those who cooperated in the work of pacification, political and social control, and economic exploitation.

How far the mass of Africans benefited from membership of Roman provincial society is uncertain. To the assertion that the basic beneficia, security and order, were enjoyed by all sections of African society, there is the rejoinder that the establishment of the pax Africana was accompanied by physical coercion, expropriation, and social dislocation; and that the continuation of peaceful conditions was contingent on the docility of an exploited peasantry. Whether or how far the rural population gained from the expansion of the economy is similarly a matter for dispute.

‘Every doctrine of imperialism devised by men is a consequence of their second thoughts. But empires are not built by men troubled by second thoughts.’

I start with that aphoristic formulation, the truth of which has been demonstrated in the study of modern imperialisms, as an antidote to the familiar practice of beginning a discussion of the Athenian empire with aims and motives and quickly sliding over to attitudes and even theory, thereby implying that the men who created and extended the empire also began with a defined imperialist programme and theories of imperialism. An outstanding current example of the procedure I have in mind is the attempt to date a number of Athenian laws and decrees (or to support a proposed date) by what may be called their imperialist tone. If they are ‘harsh’, it is argued, they smack of Cleon and should be dated in the 420s B.C., and not in the time of the more ‘moderate’ Periclean leadership, the 440s or 430s. Insofar as the argument is not circular, it implies the existence of an identifiable programme of imperialism, or rather of both successive and conflicting programmes, and that requires demonstration, not assumption.

A second source of confusion is the unavoidable ambiguity of the word ‘empire’. Stemming from the Latin imperium, ‘empire’ becomes entangled with the word ‘emperor’, and much of the extensive discussion throughout the Middle Ages and on into modern times ends in a tautological cul-de-sac: an empire is the territory ruled by an emperor.

This is the second volume arising from the Cambridge Seminar in Ancient History directed by Professor Moses Finley. We take this opportunity to express our appreciation for the active assistance and encouragement he has given us as editors and scholars.

This volume reflects the aim of the architect of the Seminar to approach the subject of imperialism on a broad front. Unlike its predecessor, Studies in Roman Property (1976), it ranges over a wide expanse of history and covers a number of different societies, from New Kingdom Egypt to Rome under the Principate. Despite the inevitable gaps and unevenness of coverage, all important aspects of imperialism are given detailed and systematic attention in one or more studies. There is sufficient overlap of subject matter and interests to invite comparative assessment. Uniformity of viewpoint has not been sought after, nor has it been attained. In this, the volume reflects the present state of the debate on imperialism in the ancient world.

We wish to thank R. Van Dam for his valuable help in editorial matters.

July 1977

Roman attitudes to the Greek world and Greek attitudes to Rome in the first century B.C. were alike complex. The development of Roman hegemony and the intermittent occurrence of brutality had long provoked both protests and attempts to throw off the Roman yoke; yet the first century B.C. saw the final consolidation of Roman rule in spite of the efforts of Mithridates VI and the increasing incidence at Rome of civil strife; the demands of the opposing sides in the civil wars actually increased the pressures on the Greek cities and encouraged acts of brutality culminating in the sack of Rhodes in 42 B.C. Recognition, however, of the futility of armed resistance to Rome did not prevent the continued voicing of opposition to Roman rule or to particular aspects of it.

One thinks at one level of Timagenes, brought to Rome as a captive by A.Gabinius, bought by Faustus Sulla, who followed the profession of sophistes at Rome; he was notorious for the claim that Theophanes persuaded Ptolemy Auletes to leave Egypt in order to provide a command for Pompeius and publicized the story of Caepio and the gold of Tolosa; he was described as felicitati urbis inimicus, jealous of the well-being of the city, who regretted fires at Rome because the city always rose more glorious than before; he may be one of the levissimi ex Graecis qui Parthorum quoque contra nomen Romanum gloriae favent, ‘frivolous Greeks who rate the glory of Parthia above the reputation of Rome’, who stimulated Livy to an angry refutation of their view that Rome would have been no match for Alexander.