Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T16:23:37.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Roman and Modern Imperialism: A Reassessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Gary B. Miles
Gary B. Miles
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Those who view Rome from the perspective of modern empires have been struck by Rome's longevity (for example, Brunt 1965:267; Doyle 1986:81–103; Syme 1958:1). Attempts to explain this phenomenon, however, have given little if any consideration to why movements of national independence have occurred in modern times, but not in Roman antiquity. This is the more striking inasmuch as nationalist rebellions against imperial rule typically accompanied the dissolution of direct imperial control over native populations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Certainly the decisions of modern imperialists to give up their empires have been influenced by political idealism or by calculations of economic self-interest unique to their historical situations (Liithy 1964:34). Nonetheless, the role of their subjects must also be taken into consideration, because it was the initiative of the colonial natives, not that of the imperial masters, that typically has resulted in the first calls for independence and, most often, in the nationalist rebellions that provoked imperialists into dismantling their empires. Idealistic impulses and calculations of economic self-interest alike have taken place within the context of that initiative and cannot help but to have been colored by it. It would be a mistake to identify nationalist sentiment and rebellion as the only reasons for the collapse of modern empires, but they must be included among the decisive reasons.

Type
Imperialism and Political Identity
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , October 1990 , pp. 629 - 659
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Badian, Ernst. 1958. Foreign Clientelae (264–70 B.c.). Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Baynes, Norman H. 1960. Byzantine Studies and Other Essays. London: The Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Bowersock, G. W. 1965. Augustus and the Greek World. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Peter. 1978. The Making of Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brunt, P. A. 1959. “The Revolt of Vindex and the Fall of Nero.” Latomus, 18, 531–59.Google Scholar
Brunt, P. A. 1960. “Tacitus on the Batavian Revolt.” Latomus, 19, 494–517.Google Scholar
Brunt, P. A. 1961. “Charges of Provincial Maladministration under the Early Empire.” Historia, 10:2, 189–227.Google Scholar
Brunt, P. A. 1965. “Reflections on British and Roman Imperialism.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 7:3, 267–88.Google Scholar
Brunt, P. A. 1976. “The Romanization of the Local Ruling Classes in the Roman Empire,” in Assimilation et Résistanse à la culture Gréco-Romaine dans le monde ancien [Travaux du VIe Congrns International d' Études Classiques, Madrid, 1974], Pippidi, D. M., ed., 161–73. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.Google Scholar
Brunt, P. A. 1977. “Josephus on Social Conflicts in Roman Judaea.” Klio, no. 59, 149–53.Google Scholar
A, Brunt P.; and Moore, J. M., trans. and ed. [1967] 1970. Res Gestae Divi Augusti: The Achievements of the Divine Augustus. Reprint. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chadwick, Nora K. 1966. The Druids. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1986. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World. London: Zed Books for the United Nations University.Google Scholar
Crawford, M. H. 1978. “Greek Intellectuals and the Roman Aristocracy in the First Century B.C.,” in Imperialism in the Ancient World, Garnsey, Peter and Whittaker, C. R., eds., 193–207. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Christ, K. 1959. “Romer und Barbaren in der hohen Kaiserzeit.” Saeculum, vol. 10, 273–88.Google Scholar
Deutsch, Karl. [1953] 1966. Nationalism and Social Communication. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Doyle, Michael W. 1986. Empires. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Dyson, S. L. 1971. “Native Revolts in the Roman Empire.” Historia, 20, 239–74.Google Scholar
Dyson, S. L. 1975. “Native Revolt Patterns in the Roman Empire,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. 2, pt. 3, Temporini, H. and Hasse, W., eds., 138–75. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Ebel, Charles. 1988. “Southern Gaul in the Triumviral Period: A Critical Stage of Romanization.” American Journal of Philology, 109:4, 572–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emerson, R. 1967. From Empire to Nation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth, Farrington, Constance, trans. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Finley, M. I. 1978. “Empire in the Greco-Roman World.” G&R (NS), 25:1, 1–15.Google Scholar
Gabba, Emilio. 1982. “Political and Cultural Aspects of The Classicist Revival in the Augustan Age.” Classical Antiquity, vol. 1, 43–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garnsey, Peter. 1970. Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Garnsey, Peter, and Sailer, Richard. 1987. The Roman Empire. Economy, Society and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernst. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Goffart, Walter. 1980. Barbarians and Romans A.D. 418–584: The Techniques of Accommodation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Guha, Ranajit. 1989. “Dominance Without Hegemony and its Historiography,” in Subaltern Studies VI, Guha, Ranajit, ed., 210–309. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. J. 1962. The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848. New York: The New American Library, Inc.Google Scholar
Holl, Karl. [1908] 1964. “Das Fortleben der Volkssprachen in Kleinasien in nachchristlicher Zeit,” in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, vol. 2, Holl, Karl, ed., 238–48. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Keith. 1983. Death and Renewal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, A. H. M. 1940. The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Jones, A. H. M. 1964. The Later Roman Empire. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kedourie, Elie. 1971. “Introduction,” in Nationalism in Asia and Africa, Kedourie, Elie, ed., 1–147. New York: New American Library, Inc.Google Scholar
Larsen, J. A. O. 1966. Representative Government in Greek and Roman History. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Last, Hugh. 1949. “Rome and the Druids. A Note.” Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 39, 1–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lot, Ferdinand. 1935. Les invasions germaniques. Paris: Payot.Google Scholar
Lüthy, Herbert. 1964. “Colonization and the Making of Mankind,” in Imperialism and Colonialism, Nadel, George H. and Curtis, Perry, eds., 26–37. New York: Macmillan Company.Google Scholar
MacCormack, Sabine G. 1981. Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
MacMullen, R. 1963. Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacMullen, R. 1966. Enemies of the Roman Order. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacMullen, R. 1988. Corruption and the Decline of Rome. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University.Google Scholar
McCormick, Michael. 1986. Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Memmi, Albert. 1965. The Colonizer and the Colonized, Greenfeld, Howard, trans. New York: Orion Press.Google Scholar
Millar, Fergus. 1984. “State and Subject: The Impact of Monarchy,” in Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects, Millar, Fergus and Segal, Erich, eds., 37–60. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Nutton, V. 1978. “The Beneficial Ideology,” in Imperialism in the Ancient World, Garnsey, P. and Whittaker, C. R., eds., 209–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
L'Orange, H. P. 1965. Art Forms and Civic Life in the Late Roman Empire. Princeton: Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
originally published 1958 as Fra Principat til Dominat. Oslo: H. Aschehoug and Co.; Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt and Söners Förlag].Google Scholar
Pflaum, H.-G. 1974. Abrégé des Procurateurs Equestres, D' après l' article paru in allemand dans l' Encyclopédie classique (Pauly-Wissowa), Ducroix, Serge, trans. Paris: E. de Boccard.Google Scholar
Price, S. R. F. 1984. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Price, S. R. F. 1987. “The Consecration of the Roman Emperor,” in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, Cannidine, David, ed., 56–105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ranger, T. O. 1968. “Connexions Between ‘Primary Resistance’ Movements and Modern Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa, pt. I, II.” Journal of African History, 9:3–4, 437–53, 631–41.Google Scholar
Rostovtzeff, M. [1953, 1957] 1979. The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 2 vols. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Saddington, D. B. 1975. “Race Relations in the Early Roman Empire,” in Aufstieg and Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. 2: pt. 3, Temporini, H. and Hasse, W., eds., 112–37. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Said, W, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Sherwin-White, A. N. 1967. Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome Lectures, J. H. Gray, 1966. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sherwin-White, A. N. 1973. The Roman Citizenship, 2d. ed. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Stuart, M. 1939. “How Were Imperial Portraits Distributed Throughout the Roman Empire?” American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 43, 601–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Syme, Sir Ronald. [1939] 1967. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Syme, Sir Ronald. 1970. Colonial Élites: Rome, Spain and the Americas [The Whidden Lectures, 1958]. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walbank, F. W. 1972. “Nationality as a Factor in Roman History.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 76, 145–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wansbrough, John. 1968. “The Decolonization of North African History.” Journal of African History, 9:4, 643–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, Colin. 1984. The Roman Empire. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Whittaker, C. R. 1983. “Late Roman Trade and Traders,” in Trade in the Ancient Economy, Garnsey, Peter, Hopkins, Keith, Whittaker, C. R., eds., 162–80, 208–11. London: Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar