Roman Empire, Roman State

Roman practice in governance in the post-conquest period is well-described in light of two modern theories of empire:  first, being an empire (and not a state), Rome governed through the cultivation and management of difference.  Roman administrative law was thus directed toward controlling geographic aspects of social and economic conduct, by forbidding forms of sociality and rights of contract between individuals and groups across boundaries established by Roman agents.  At a minimal level, Rome's aim was no doubt to prevent the realization of solidarity among conquered populations.

Second, Rome in that period might be understood as an aristocratic empire:  it worked through the cooptation of local elites; it shaped local institutions so as to conduce their formation and stability; and it left the conduct of local politics, jurisdiction, and often tax collection in their hands.           

Over time, however, Rome became something altogether different.  This came about in part through the universal extension of citizenship:  this impelled the taking up of civil law actions throughout the empire and the reorientation of social conduct around Roman norms.  That said, the universalization of the political and legal cultures of the metropole in fact commenced much earlier, through practical efforts--faltering perhaps, and certainly underconceptualized--to extend the institutions of governance uniformly throughout the empire. For although the maintenance of local cultures was understood to conduce order immediately post-conquest, it promoted numerous efficiencies for all to standardize around some limited Roman norms: minimally, weights and measures, money, and forms of contract, but also legal forms and principles.           

These two processes are generally rehearsed separately, even within different disciplines, relying as they do on different bodies of evidence.  The ambition of my paper is to describe them in historical relation, in terms that will promote the comparative discussion envisioned for the panel at large.