Chapter 3 The Majesty of Rome
In: Rome, Global Dreams, and the International Origins of an EmpireSearch for other papers by Sarah H. Davies in
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Abstract
Sacred Wars
There was a deep-seated connection between Roman religious thinking and the conduct of war, which meant that for the Romans, military victory was the final, definitive proof of the unquestionable justice of the res publica and the rightful performance of its divine verdict (as received through fetial law). An offer of deditio—of “giving oneself to the faith of the Romans” thus constituted full confirmation, from the wrongful party itself, of the capital injustice of their former action(s). As Polybius notes, Hellenistic actors did not understand this distinction in types of surrender—between Greek faith (pistis) and Roman fides.
Imperium Maiestatemque Populi Romani
In the so-called “maiestas clause” of Roman peace treaties, the defeated party swore allegiance to the imperium (“command”) and maiestas (“majesty,” or “greater-ness”) of the populus Romanus. Polybius provides us with a Greek translation: “archē (“rule”) and dunasteia (“dominion”) of the dēmos of the Romans.” However, these terms, and the meanings behind them, did not fully align in their translation, and it was in such middle ground that the notion of Roman imperium evolved, from the divinely sanctioned position granted to commanders to the abstract concept of “empire.”
Defining the Body-Politic
This section turns to the latter portion of the maiestas clause, considering how the populus Romanus quite simply did not equate with the Greek notion of dēmos Rōmaiōn. The political mass of the res publica was delineated as a political cooperative, one that transcended geographic and ethnic space. Its membership involved not just citizenship, but was determined by levels of participation in Roman ius—to a “normative legal order.” In some ways, this notion of a “body-politic” existed on a plane analogous to that of contemporary, international pan-Hellenism. However—and most importantly—it was distinguished by its “greater-ness” (its maiestas)—an invested, sovereign power for which Hellenistic Greeks of the second century had no clear equivalent.
The Goddess Roma
The Greek-speaking world began to test new modes of describing and denoting the Roman polity as an abstract entity, attempting to capture what the Roman “res publica” and the “maiestas” of its “populus Romanus” truly meant. During the second century, Rhōmē/Roma began to dominate as the divine abstraction epitomizing Rome, on a new level of scale. The reasons for such universal adoption were three-fold. Firstly, Rhōmē subsumed the image of every enthroned Tuchē (Fate/Fortune) in the Hellenistic poleis, while accruing the iconography and honors of Hellenistic kingship. Secondly, she could be (and was) linked into mythic-genealogy. Thirdly—and most importantly—she could transcend, to be the queenly patron-goddess for the new kosmopolis, while also representing the maiestas populi Romani.