Stewart Perowne On Imperial Rome

Stewart Perowne, Herod the Great: His Life and Times

(New York: Dorset Press; 1956), p. 89.

‛The word imperium means “command”; but just as “the Northern Command” may mean not only the office of the commander, but also the area in which he exercises it, so, gradually, “imperium” came to mean “empire”.

But that was much later.

‛The area ruled by Rome was not, by modern standards large: the whole of the Empire could fit comfortably into the United States or Brazil.

But it contained almost the whole of the then known world, and the fountains of western religion and culture.

As Samuel Johnson put it: “All our religion, almost all our law, almost all our art, almost all that sets us above savages, has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean.”

It is for this reason that we still venerate the Roman Empire.

But the Romans did not see it in that light at all.

To them, the empire was a system of government and organization which had gradually been forced upon them by a double necessity: the need for security and the need for money. It was in repulsing her enemies, Gauls, Carthaginians, Greeks, that Rome had originally expanded her dominions.

The further her legions were from Rome, the more expensive they became, and the more necessary it was to have sources of wealth to call upon.

Italy was a poor country. And it had become further impoverished by war and the growth of Rome. It could no longer even feed itself, far less find the money to pay the legions, or to buy the luxuries which were in increasing demand.

There were from time to time currency crises in Rome, which only imports of bullion could overcome, and, as may have been apparent from this narrative, every Roman of any standing seemed to be permanently short of cash.

That is where the provinces came in. Their function was to provide money. They paid tribute, and the more flourishing they were the more they paid. That was why good government was so important. Sometimes, whole kingdoms had been “bequeathed” to Rome. Cyrene had been acquired in that way, so had Pergamum.

The “bequest” of Cyprus had been bare-faced robbery; but the sale of the last king’s property had brought in the equivalent of three and a half million sterling. However they were acquired, once within the Roman orbit, the provinces had to be made to pay.’

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