Recent years have witnessed increased interest in Roman colonization1 and ... colonization, the history of modern thinking about Roman colonization has ... We will demonstrate that his book definitely cannot and should not be considered the.
Roman Colonization under the Republic: historiographical contextualisation of a paradigm Jeremia Pelgrom and Tesse D. Stek
Introduction Recent years have witnessed increased interest in Roman colonization1 and previous conceptions of Roman colonization have been fundamentally challenged (fig. 1). At present, under the influence by postcolonial theory, there seems to be a strong consensus that previous views of Roman colonization are outdated and that the development of new ones is needed to move forward.2 An influential approach to this challenge has been the adoption of alternative perspectives to mainstream Romanocentric ones and the development of methodologies to bring these perspectives into focus. Especially since the 1990s, the attention paid to the subaltern part of society, to the downtrodden, and more generally to the variegated experiences and voices in ancient colonial situations has been especially productive in this respect and has opened our eyes to fundamentally different approaches to the subject.3 In certain circles, this has produced a new orthodoxy constructed around key themes such as resistance, appropriation, hybridization, variegation, discrepant experiences, fluidity of identities and more. This type of approach is sometimes associated with, or rather claimed by, archaeologists more than ancient historians,4 but in reality this undoubtedly healthy corrective development is based on a dynamic and fruitful debate of both critical-historical insights and new archaeological theoretical approaches. After an initial, perhaps overenthusiastic deconstruction of top-down perspectives, which resulted in an underestimation of Roman agency, a more productive approach now takes Roman power into account, but also considers the different and intricate ways in which it was exercised.5 Without doubt, recent studies of Roman colonization have made important progress by applying such new approaches to the primary sources and archaeological evidence. Yet, they have tended to do so in opposition to what they view as outmoded interpretations of Roman colonization or in relative isolation of the long and complex history of research. Framing new interpretations in opposition to previous work or not engaging this work at all has risks. One such risk is the simplification of earlier work caused by preferring one prominent study to many other, less visible ones, or by fusing elements from different contributors into a chimerical ‘standard view’. The imminent risk here is that, by losing sight of the complexity of the past debate, new interpretations are framed according to a very particular, unintentionally circumscribed line of thought. As will be demonstrated below, such a process may ultimately narrow a debate that actually is much wider in scope and potentially obscure alternative approaches to the subject. Another approach, also of postcolonial pedigree, is to delve deeper into the complex historiography of Roman colonization and to trace the emergence of some concepts and the decline of others against their historical and intellectual background. Yet, despite the momentous historical importance of Roman colonization, the history of modern thinking about Roman colonization has been surprisingly little scrutinized
1
2
In this article, with ‘Roman colonization/Roman colonies’, we refer to both Latin and citizen colonies. On this primarily modern rigid distinction, see also further below. Cf. recently the important contributions in Hurst and Owen 2005 and in Bradley and Wilson 2006.
3 4 5
Van Dommelen 1998 is essential. E.g. Webster and Cooper 1996. Cf. e.g. Huskinson 2000 and for Republican Italy Wallace-Hadrill 2008 and Stek 2009; cf. now Stek 2014 with bibliography.
and problematized.6 Whereas the importance and impact of new postcolonial theoretical and methodological approaches for the study of Roman imperialism have been amply reviewed in recent scholarship, much less attention has, as yet, been paid to the historical contextualization of the formation of modern views of Roman colonization. Therefore, we have chosen to focus in this introductory contribution on the historiography of Roman colonization, which we consider one of the essential first steps toward a new and hopefully more balanced understanding of the phenomenon of colonization in the Republican period. We will illustrate the importance of understanding the historiographical tradition by discussing what is beyond a shadow of a doubt the most influential study of Roman colonization down to the present day, Roman Colonization under the Republic by Edward Togo Salmon7 (1905-88). This study, published in 1969, is not only one of the very few monographs written on Roman colonization,8 but it is also by far the most authoritative and frequently cited study in both the Anglo-Saxon and Continental FIG. 2. Edward Togo Salmon (after Evens 1974, 2). research traditions. It is usually the earliest modern study quoted. Salmon’s work, however, is often represented in a very schematic and stereotypical way. At the same time, it also is commonly regarded as a balanced overview of prior scholarship. This is encouraged by Salmon’s own claim that he merely “seek[s] to collate what is known or guessed about the colonies” and “provide an upto-date synthesis”.9 Salmon’s habit of seldom referencing other scholars contributed to his preeminent place in the historiographical tradition. Roman Colonization under the Republic accordingly has become synonymous with traditional, statist, top-down views of Roman colonization as advancing imperialism and romanization (fig. 2). By analyzing Salmon’s reasoning in detail and tracing its development over time, his seminal study can be situated more firmly in the wider, complex modern historiography of Roman colonization. In fact, Salmon’s work ultimately represents a very specific and therefore partial line of thought in Roman colonization studies. We will demonstrate that his book definitely cannot and should not be considered the starting point of Roman colonization studies. Roman Colonization under the Republic does not objectively
6 7 8
Terrenato 2005. Salmon 1969. The most important synthetic studies of Roman colonization before Salmon are discussed below. Recent syntheses on colonization include Bernardi’s Nomen
9
Latinum (Bernardi 1973) and Laffi’s Colonie e municipi nello stato romano (Laffi 2007), both of which focus on legal aspects of colonization (e.g., the origin of Latin rights, questions about government, and so forth). Salmon 1969, 11. Cf. also below.
reflect the very diverse lines of thought that had emerged prior to its publication. The following offers a glimpse of the vast panorama of the highly refined and intense debate outside Salmon’s own preoccupations, or those of similar champions of his generation like Frank Brown (1908-88), that have attracted the most attention and obtained an iconic and somewhat isolated status. The aim is to show that engagement with these sometimes highly technical debates is essential for laying a solid foundation for new approaches to the study of Roman colonization. Such a survey may help a better understanding of the relationship between conceptions of Roman colonization, on the one hand, and topics such as power dynamics, administration and imperialism, land and property issues, legal and civic questions, romanization, and other cultural processes on the other, all of which are wide-ranging topics treated in the diverse contributions to this volume.
Collating a history of Roman colonization So much has been said about this great Roman institution in the past that anyone who writes about it today is hardly likely to shed a blinding new light on it, much less to revolutionize traditional conceptions of it. He can, however, seek to collate what is known or guessed about the colonies, provide an up-to-date synthesis, describe their vicissitudes and men’s changing attitudes towards them, appraise their varying purpose and importance, and perhaps suggest some new approaches to several old problems. Such is the intended scope of the present work. (Salmon 1969, 11).
Salmon clearly states what his book was intended to be: an up-to-date synthesis of existing knowledge gained in the long and erudite scholarly tradition leading up to his monograph. Such a synthesis was undeniably a desideratum of the time. New data and insights had increased enormously, and the technical debate had become too complex for the non-specialist audience. In addition, German and Italian scholars had dominated the research field for long, and their findings did not always easily reach the Englishspeaking world. Despite this favorable momentum, Salmon only partly filled this lacuna. On closer examination, his book is not a passive collection of recent knowledge about Roman colonization, but is more polemical and selective than one might suspect at first sight. Paradoxically, Salmon’s originality is not the result of integrating all the new data and technical insights that had become available but derives from his reexamination of the canonical ancient texts. In this section, the focus will be on the more conventional aspects of Salmon’s work; the sections that follow explore, in greater detail, how his work deviated from other established views. On a basic, structural level, Salmon’s book closely follows the time-honored antiquarian practice of composing chronologically ordered descriptions of Roman colonies. After the introduction, which is thematic in character, Salmon adopts a rigidly chronological narrative framework. Colonies are discussed in the order of their foundation dates and are grouped together in chapters that cover broad historical periods.10 This scholarly tradition can be traced back to Roman times. The best example is Marcus Velleius Paterculus who, in an excursus in his compendium of Roman history, summarizes the names and dates of
10
His narrative is subdivided into the following chronological phases: 1) colonies before the Latin War, 2) colonies founded between the Latin War and the Second Punic War (Latin colonies and maritime colonies are discussed in two separate chapters, resp. three and four, 3) colonies founded during the Second Punic War, 4) colonies founded from the Second
Punic War to the Gracchi, 5) colonies of the Gracchan Age, 6) colonies of the age of revolution, and finally 7) colonies in the Roman Empire – which is at the same time the conclusion. Beyond summarizing the main conclusions of the book, this last chapter is structured as an epilogue describing colonial policies of the Imperial Age.
colonies founded between the capture of Rome by the Gauls and circa 100 B.C (fig. 3).11 By Salmon’s time, the quality of such colonial lists obviously had improved markedly; more information had been recovered not only from literary sources, but also from epigraphic, numismatic, and to a lesser extent, archaeological evidence. The development of colonial histories can be clearly traced by comparing influential lists (historiae) of colony foundations compiled in the Early Modern period. Early examples such as Francesco Ruperti’s De coloniis romanorum tempore liberae Rei publicae deductis (1838)12 are based almost exclusively on information provided by Velleius and Livy, who, besides names and foundation dates, occasionally provide information on the number of colonists, the size of distributed allotments, and the involved triumviri; the studies that followed steadily incorporated further information.13 A good illustration of this increasing elaboration is the list compiled by Karl Julius Beloch (1854-1929), published in 1880 as part of the book Der italische Bund unter Roms Hegemonie. Beloch gives the probable location of colonies, estimates the size of their territory, and includes information derived from epigraphy, primarily on the titles of the colonial magistrates.14 FIG. 3. Front cover of an early edition of Velleius’ Historiae Without doubt the best list available to Salmon was Romanae (after Rhenanus 1520). The list describing Roman that compiled by Ettore Pais (1856-1939) and colony foundations covers just one and a half page. published in two articles (1923 and 1925) under the self-explanatory title Serie cronologica delle colonie romane e latine dall’età regia fino all’Impero.15 This excellent study remains, even today, the most comprehensive since it also discusses the colonies founded during and after the Civil Wars16 and includes numismatic information.
11
12 13
14
Vell. Pat. 1.14-15. He legitimizes this excursus with the following words: “as related facts make more impression upon the mind and eye when grouped together than when they are given separately in their chronological sequence.” This scholarly tradition goes back at least to a Greek historical tradition (e.g., the list of Greek settlements on Sicily in Thuc. 6.2-6.5, which in turn may be based on the History of Sicily by Antiochus of Syracuse). Ruperti 1838, 95-148 is devoted to such a list. Significantly, Ruperti ends his list in 100 B.C., precisely where Velleius does. Beloch 1880. Pages 135-58 provide a list for the Latin
15
16
colonies founded between 495 (Signia) and 180 B.C. (Luca). His emphasis on territorial sizes derives from his interest in demographics, which require a territorial parameter in order to calculate population densities. Localizing the colonies made it also possible to draw maps pinpointing colonies and their territories. Pais 1923 and id. 1925, who in turn leans heavily on the work of De Ruggiero (De Ruggiero 1896, 96-130; republished with minor modifications in Diz. Epigr 2 (1900) 415-64, s.v. “Colonia” (E. De Ruggiero)). Pais was not the first to include these later colonies. His work is surely based on the extensive list published by Kornemann (Kornemann 1901).
PRISCAE COLONIAE
Romulus 501 495 494 492 467 442 418 395 393 385 393 382 382 COLONIAE
338 338 334 329 328 314 313 313 313 312 303 303 299 298 295 295 291 289-283 289 273 273
LATINAE
COLONIAE
Fidenae Cora Signia Velitrae Norba Antium Ardea Labici Vitellia Circeii Satricum Setia Sutrium Nepet LATINAE
Cales Fregellae Luceria Saticula Suessa Aurunca Pontiae Interamna Lirenas Sora Alba Fucens Narnia Carseoli Venusia Hadria Cosa Paestum
COLONIAE CIVIUM
(MARITIME)
ROMANORUM
Ostia Antium Tarracina
LATINAE
268 268 264 264 264 263 247 246 245 241 218 218 199 199 197 197 194 194 194 194 193 192 189
IURIS
ARIMINENSIS COLONIAE CIVIUM ROMANORUM (MARITIME)
Ariminum Beneventum Firmum Aesernia Brundisium Spoletium Placentia Cremona
Thurii Copia Vibo Valentia Bononia
Castrum Novum Pyrgi Alsium Fregenae
Puteoli Salernum Volturnum Liternum Sipontum Buxentum Croton Tempsa
COLONIAE CIVIUM
Minturnae Sinuessa Sena Gallica
184 184 183 183 183 181 181 177 157 128 124 123 122
Aquileia
(AGRARIAN) Potentia Pisaurum Saturnia Mutina Parma Graviscae
ROMANORUM
Luna Auximum Heba Fabrateria Nova Neptunia Scolacium
TAB. 1. Salmon’s list and categorization of Roman colonial foundations.
Besides the wealth of their information, these modern lists also differ from the Velleian prototype in their attention to legal matters. While Velleius differentiates only between colonies founded before and after the start of the Civil Wars,17 modern scholars subdivide their lists by distinguishing between different types of colonies, notably the distinction between Latin and citizen colonies.18 As a rule, the more explicitly argumentative parts of these studies concentrate on the correct interpretation and classification of the various types of colonies. Although Salmon hardly cites these scholars, he undoubtedly relied heavily on this tradition, as can be seen from the many similarities in the structure of his works and the attention he devotes to legal differences between different groups of colonies (tab. 1).19
17 18
19
He does not, however, discuss the latter category. In Ruperti’s book, the list is not subdivided by category. Instead, a discussion of the various legal statuses of colonies is offered in a separate chapter (chap. 4). His book is divided into two parts: first, a thematic part titled Commentatio and second, a historical part titled Historia, which describes the various colonial foundations. Pais, although certainly aware of the difference be-
tween Latin and citizen colonies (in fact, he makes an important contribution to these legal definitions), does not group the colonies according to legal categories, but rather retains the chronological treatment in order of their foundation. Before Salmon, lists of colonies were available to an English-reading audience. A highly condensed list is found in Frank 1959, 40-42, 59-60, the first edition of which was published in 1933.
From listing to explaining Roman colonies While it can be safely stated that Salmon’s work stands at the end of a long tradition20 and, in that sense, may be considered a genuine compilation of current knowledge, the same cannot be said of his analysis of the function of colonies. Since the Renaissance, a second line of research developed alongside chronologies (historiae) of Roman colonies. This line of research aimed at understanding the function of Roman colonization in both internal and external Roman politics (commentarii). From the start, scholars acknowledged that the Roman colonial program, independent of military objectives,21 had been crucial to several other developments in Roman society. Since Antiquity, one of the most influential scholars to emphasize the multifaceted role of Roman colonization is Carolus Sigonius (circa 1523 or 1524-84).22 In his De antiquo jure Italiae, published in 1560, Sigonius discusses Roman colonization at length and firmly establishes that, in addition to military purposes, a variety of demographic and social factors motivated the Roman FIG. 4. Carolus Sigonius (after Vedriani 1665, 150). colonization program.23 Sigonius was not the first to observe that colonies performed multiple functions (fig. 4). Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) in his Discorsi on Livy stressed that colonization, besides being an inexpensive way to keep conquered territory under control, had the additional benefit of relieving the mother city of excessive numbers of inhabitants.24 Another, slightly later scholar who stressed the multifaceted role of colonies is Justus Lipsius (1547-1606). In his Admiranda, sive, de magnitudine Romana, published in 1598, Lipsius devoted a long section of the first book, under the heading De coloniis, et modus fructusque deducendi, to the function of colonies (fig. 5). In particular, Lipsius stressed their mimetic qualities vis-à-vis Rome and their important role in romanization.25 It was Sigonius, though, who developed the most detailed argument in a study that remains useful to readers today.26 Especially important to the academic tradition that came after is the fact that he discusses Roman colonial history in the context of Roman agricultural
20
21
22 23
A rare example that continues this tradition is Bernardi 1973 for Latin colonies. See also Northwood 2008, who in a paper on Asconius’ 53 colonies proposes to modify Salmon’s list of colonial foundations. Which are accepted unanimously, e.g., Cic., Leg. agr. 2.73 and in the Renaissance period Macchiavelli 1531, book 2, chap. 6 and Lipsius 1598, book 1, chap. 6. 4. Sigonius 1560. De antiquo jure Italiae is volume 3 of the larger work De antiquo jure Romanorum, Italiae, provinciarum. The sections relevant to colonization are: de coloniis (book 1, chap 2) and de jure coloniarum (book 1, chap 2). He describes the six main motives as follows:
24 25
26
“[U]nam ad priores populos coercendos, alteram ad hostium incursiones reprimendas, tertiam stirpis augendae caussa, quartam plebis urbanae exhauriendae, quintam seditionis sedandae, sextam ut praemiis milites veteranos afficerent.” Machiavelli 1531, book 1, chap. 2. Lipsius 1598, book 1, chap. 6; For the mimetic qualities, see especially lines 1-3. For an example of the authority this text still enjoyed in the 19th century, see Smith 1842, s.v. “colonia” and Ruperti 1838, 10-23, who offers an improved and more detailed overview of the various functions of the Roman colonization program.
history, connecting colonization directly to Roman agrarian reforms and thereby to the Struggle of the Orders.27 Essentially, the classical paradigm to which Sigonius refers, and one that would remain very influential after him, considered the Roman colonization program an ingenious means of significantly increasing Roman manpower while at the same time diminishing the risks of social unrest in the city.28 Colonial land allotments offered the impoverished urban plebs a means of living and, most importantly, the economic resources needed to purchase the military equipment that qualified them to serve as soldiers. On this view, colonization significantly increased Roman military resources by transforming proletarii into assidui. Simultaneously, this policy of sending the poor to newly conquered lands relieved demographic pressure in Rome and reduced the risk of social unrest and secessions.29 Obviously, these beneficial effects could also be achieved by agrarian reform but the advantage of colonization was that it did so without upsetting the status quo in Rome and threatening concordia.30 The colonization of newly conquered lands left existing property claims untouched. Particularly in the case of Latin colonies, the promotion of large numbers of proletarii to the property-owning class did not seriously upset the socio-political balance since these colonists lost their Roman citizenship. It is this long scholarly tradition of the socio- FIG. 5. Justus Lipsius (after Lipsius 1615, frontispiece. Print economic function of colonization that Salmon distances made by Cornelis Galle). himself from and indeed intentionally marginalizes. It would, of course, be beside the point to blame Salmon for adopting a clear perspective.31 Yet, in light of Salmon’s own claim to have produced merely a synthesis, it seems worthwhile to explore in detail how Salmon’s study in fact differed from other leading viewpoints, giving it a better-defined place in the history of Roman colonization studies. This may eventually do more justice to his work because it underscores its originality.
27
28
Machiavelli also briefly discusses colonies in the context of the agrarian laws (Machiavelli 1531, book 1, chap. 37). In his view, colonies were used by the nobles as a way to avoid drastic agrarian reforms, which, however, was not very successful, since the plebs did not want to go to colonies. Sigonius’ views, of course, should be seen in the context of humanist Renaissance thought, in which the ideals of Republicanism and the self-government of free Italian cities were paramount. The emphasis on internal social conflict in his presentation of Roman history may thus be explained partly in this light. Cf. Smith 2006, 68-69.
29
30
31
For a discussion of the primary sources that support this view, see Patterson 2006, 194-98. For a skeptical position, see for example Càssola 1988. Lipsius also argues that that colonization had the additional benefit of acting as a social filter: the purest and best people remained in Rome, while the weak were sent away (Lipsius 1598, book 1, chap. 6.2). Crucial for this view is Liv. 3.1, which describes the establishment of the colony in Antium; on this passage, see Patterson 2006, 194-95. But see Crawford 1971, 253.
Military strategy and the topographical location of colonies Having established the general background of the different traditions in colonization studies – which will be further discussed later – we may now consider what is unique about Salmon’s own view. To be brief, Salmon argued that Roman colonization was motivated primarily by military strategy (cf. Bradley in this volume, also for the ancient sources in this regard). Significantly, Salmon presents this strategic interpretation as a natural fact. The opening line of his book reads, “The major role that the coloniae of Rome played in helping her to win and hold an empire is one of the important facts of history”.32 Although presented as a basic truth, this statement is in fact a scholarly position: a conclusion rather than a point of departure. From the better-annotated articles that led up to what is, after all, a very synthetic treatment in his monograph, it is clear that Salmon’s overriding attention to military strategy was grounded in a particular academic position and, as such, determinedly moved away from other interpretative schemes. In the following, the background against which Salmon adopted this position and his argumentation will be reviewed as well as the development of his thought over time. It can be demonstrated that Salmon’s approach is in fact based on a very specific conception of military strategy. This narrow understanding places an extraordinarily strong emphasis on topographical-strategic considerations. It comes at the expense of other perspectives, not only those unrelated to military considerations (such as the internal socio-economic motives just mentioned, and discussed in more detail below), but even perspectives based on other military-strategic explanations of Roman colonization. Although Salmon is well known in modern scholarship for his view of the role of colonies in Roman imperial strategy, the specific nature of his argument is less often appreciated, and the motives behind it remain unexplored. Salmon’s focus is decidedly narrow, even among military models explaining Roman colonization. Imperial success and the strategic function of colonies can in fact be construed in a variety of ways and with different emphases. For instance, in light of manpower requirements, demographic considerations may play and indeed have played a key role in scholarly debates. But also technological and moral aspects have been regarded as essential factors in Rome’s imperial success. However, Salmon does not pursue these avenues in any detail, but rather chooses to focus very specifically on strategic military topography. A key argument in Salmon’s view concerns the location of colonies in the landscape. According to him, from the earliest times onwards, Republican colonies were located at key strategic and well-defended points. Even the sites of colonies that, according to Salmon, were founded by the Latin League rather than under Roman auspices, such as Fidenae and Suessa Pometia, both founded before 500 B.C., would have been selected on the basis of their strategic importance.33 Fidenae, for instance, would have been established to hold “the line of the Tiber against the Etrusci and Falisci” and Cora and Signia the line “against the Volscians”.34 This emphasis on strategic military topography is clear in almost all Salmon’s writings, including his famous monograph on Samnium and the Samnites (1967). It is hard to ignore that almost without exception, whenever the site of a colony is mentioned (whether already established or yet to be installed) adjectives or nouns suggesting its strategic importance abound. To give an impression of this, Ardea (442 B.C.) is a “stronghold”, Vitellia (395 B.C.) the “custodian” of a route, and Circei a “sentinel against Aurunci”. The colony of Satricum (385 B.C.) was a “key point”, just as the “twin fortresses” of Nepet and Sutrium were “the keys to Etruria”.35 Indeed, in Salmon’s own words, all these early colonial sites were “skillfully chosen, and defense considerations were uppermost in their selection. […] They were in fact powerful bastions, and
32 33
Salmon 1969, 11. Id. 1953a, 101; id. 1953b, 123; he follows Enciclopedia Italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti (1931) 843, s.v. “La colonizzazione greco-romana” (P. Fraccaro) for this view of the role of the Latin League.
34 35
Salmon 1969, 42. Ibid., 42-43.
their strategic contribution was notable. They formed a network of fortresses, controlling river crossings, mountain passes, roads and tracks, and they could frustrate enemy combinations”.36 This emphasis on the military role of colonies – and their strategic positioning – came perhaps more naturally for the Latin colonies founded after 338 B.C. Previous scholarship had already linked these colonies firmly to Roman expansion in Italy at that time. Salmon indeed describes the period of the Samnite Wars as “the golden age” of Latin colonies.37 This view becomes already clear in Samnium and the Samnites, which is actually, in large part, a meticulous description of Samnite-Roman military conflicts rather than a description of the land, its people, and its customs. Here, the strategic rationale of colonies comes clearly to the fore. In the introductory description of the land, it is precisely the sites that will later be occupied by Latin colonists that are described as exceedingly strategic in geographic and topographical terms. Thus, “clearly Sora, controlling so sensitive a region, is a very strategic site”, whereas Fregellae is also “an important nodal position”, and Venusia is “the key to the whole valley of the Upper Ofanto”, just as Luceria would have been for its surroundings.38 It is a fact that in the index to the book, which lists numerous towns and sites, Roman and indigenous alike, the subheading “strategic site (of)” is used exclusively for colonies.39 Salmon takes this argument so far as to claim that every single colony is strategically located and that this fact in itself proves their primarily military function.40 This automatically raises the question of what exactly constitutes a good strategic location. Of course, ‘strategic’ is not an objective and static quality but a subjective qualification that depends on a variety of factors that may differ in importance according to specific historical and local conditions. For instance, the suitability of a given location in the physical landscape and its relationship with existing infrastructure and possible routes depend entirely on the type of conflict or interaction, the character and size of the parties involved, current technology, and conceptions of landscape, safety, and hegemony. Among other things, this means that a given site may be very strategic at one time in history but not in different circumstances; the ‘strategic value’ of a particular site can hardly be considered constant and clear-cut. It would be impossible to tease out all of Salmon’s specific criteria, but it seems feasible to outline a set of recurrent features in his analysis. He specifically mentions “enemy frontiers”, “axes of advance”, “roads and tracks”, “river crossings”, “mountain passes”, and “sea ports” as strategic points of interest.41 Examples of these features are seen in the quotations cited above. Salmon does not consider all of them equal in strategic importance but rather considers some more decisive than others. In his study of The strategy of the Second Punic War he argues that “all history proves that rivers are obstacles, but by no means insuperable barriers, to an attacking force. Mountains, on the other hand, are a very different proposition. They have always proved to be much more than mere temporary hindrances to military operations”.42 Apart from such considerations, the relationship of a site with specific regions and ethnic groups seems to be paramount in Salmon’s general assessment of its strategic value. With respect to the character of the conflict or the relationship between colonies and the area where they are located, Salmon generally emphasizes defensive rather than offensive considerations: colonies served as “defensive bastions, rather than as offensive springboards, although presumably they were very useful in either capacity”.43 However, in his typical
36 37 38
Salmon 1969, 43. Ibid., 57. Id. 1967, 19, 20. In id. 1969, the colony of Cales would have ‘dominated’ a communication route (id. 1969, 55), just as Fregellae ‘controlled’ different routes (ibid., 57; cf. id. 1967, 212). Luceria is described as a ‘bastion’ and a “powerful site on a hill-top […} the key to the eastern approaches to Samnium” (id. 1969, 58). Saticula (313 B.C.) is a ‘border fortress’ and Suessa a “stronghold controlling one of the roads to
39
40
41 42 43
Capua”; Interamna is located at “an important river crossing” (Salmon 1969 58-59). Aesernia: ibid., 417; Luceria: ibid., 433; Sora: ibid., 443; Venusia: ibid., 446. Id. 1955, 64, in this case with reference to early colonies. Ibid., 64; id. 1969, 43. Id. 1960, 137. E.g. id. 1936, 54; id. 1955, 64; of course following a long line of similar statements, e.g. Abbott 1915, 366.
argumentation, it is clear that ‘defensive’ usually denotes controlling conquered areas and protecting them against local uprisings and enemy attacks; this is, in other words, a very particular view of defense. More generally, Salmon’s interpretation of the strategic role of colonies closely reflects Cicero’s famous statement about the location of colonies and their appearance as “bulwarks of empire, rather than towns of Italy”.44 Indeed, Cicero occupies a prominent position in supporting Salmon’s statement.45 There is, however, the risk of circularity in Salmon’s assessment of the strategic value of specific sites. For instance, Saturnia, founded in 183 B.C., was supposedly colonized because even though “it was not situated on the coast, it nevertheless did control an easy road to and from the littoral along the valley of the Albinia and was admirably placed to prevent raids on central Etruria from the sea”.46 This argument may not in itself necessarily be untrue but it is too easily transposed to other sites, including non-colonial ones, to have much explanatory value. This risk of circularity applies even more so to cases in which Salmon’s assumptions about the purpose of colonies influences his interpretation of their precise whereabouts. For instance, when discussing the possible location of the early colony of Vitellia in his brief article on The Latin colonies of Vitellia and Circeii, Salmon proposes the site of the modern village of Valmontone: “A colony placed here, owing to its control of important roads, would be admirably placed to perform the task of any colony situated in Aequis, viz. protect what was the big bone of contention between Romans and Aequi, the pass of Algidus”; he then argues that, since this was disputed ground, “we should expect to find them [the Romans] sending out a colony to block the path […] the Aequi would use”.47 Similarly, in his work on Rome and the Latins, part I, Salmon argues that Suessa Pometia should be located at modern Cisterna di Latina on the grounds that it occupies the kind of strategic site “one would expect of colonies”.48 Thus far we have primarily considered Salmon’s arguments with respect to individual colonies. Yet Salmon also held that the location of individual colonial sites might coincide with strategic considerations on a large scale. A prime example of this is the idea that Rome encircled the Samnites during the Samnite Wars by deliberately establishing Latin colonies to form ‘an iron ring’ around the enemy.49 A similar notion based on the location of several sites is the supposed connection between maritime colonies and Latin colonies. Salmon proposes that, before the Punic Wars, every citizen colony on the coast was ‘backed’ by a Latin colony, citing the pairs of Antium and Norba, Ostia and Ardea, Sena and Ariminum, and Castrum Novum and Cosa.50 In similar fashion, and more frequently, Salmon envisages colonies as protecting major routes or roads as part of long-term strategic considerations, for instance in his assessment of the vulnerability of the via Appia before the founding of the colonies of Minturnae, Sinuessa, and Suessa Aurunca to ‘cover’ the route (cf. Bradley in this volume for a critical view). Incidentally, the importance Salmon attributes to roads is illustrated by his assessment of the via Latina, about which he states “the side that firmly controlled and dominated it could menace the territory of the other in the most deadly fashion. It is like a doubleheaded arrow aimed directly at Latium in the one direction and at Samnium in the other” (fig. 6).51
Roman colonization and WWII It is important to emphasize here that Salmon assumes both that the strategic qualities of specific sites and routes are fairly objective and static facts of history and that the Romans clearly and instantly recognized
44
Cic., Leg. agr. 2, 23, 73: “In that class of places, as in other parts of the republic, it is worth while to remember the carefulness of our ancestors, who established colonies in suitable places in such a manner that guarded them against all suspicion of danger, so that they appeared to be not so much towns of Italy as bulwarks of empire” ([…] idoneis in locis contra suspicionem periculi collocarunt, ut esse non oppida Italiae, sed propugnacula imperii viderentur; Loeb trans. J. H. Freese 1930).
45
46 47 48 49 50 51
After stating that every single colony would be strategically located (quoted above), Salmon cites only Cicero to back up his argument. Salmon 1936, 53. Id. 1937, 112. Id. 1953a, 101 n. 25. Id. 1967, 270. Id. 1955, 67. Id. 1956, 99.
FIG. 6. Map of Central Italy showing the consular Roman roads (after Salmon 1982, 42-43).
these qualities. As to the first assumption, it is striking how often Salmon refers to vastly different time periods and historical situations to prove his point. For instance, in discussing the importance of the via Latina, Salmon adduces the argument that the via Latina “was the route used by the allied forces for their advance up the Tyrrhenian side of Italy in WWII”, just as it was used by Hannibal.52 Similarly explicit is Salmon’s inference that the strategic importance of the sites of Valmontone and Cisterna di Latina are proven by the fact that they were strategically important in WWII. In this way, Winston Churchill becomes a main authority for Salmon to cite regarding the suitability of the locations proposed for these colonies.53 This frame of mind, oriented strongly toward a comparative historical-strategic approach, is highly significant. Most of Salmon’s explicit references to strategic examples from his own time, which abound in many of his original articles, have been omitted in his synthetic and frequently cited monograph. Salmon, a political commentator for the Canadian radio station CKOC during WWII, reflected every evening on the daily developments in the war, and was a keen observer of contemporary geopolitical and military developments. This interest clearly emerges in his work on the Roman world. Salmon explicitly emphasizes the potential of comparative history in his 1960 article on The Strategy of the Second Punic War. Somewhat ironically – since he blatantly contradicts Churchill’s dictum that “history may teach no other lesson than that men are
52
Salmon 1956, 99 n. 2.
53
Id. 1953a, 101 n. 25, citing Churchill 1952, 424-37, 528-39.
unteachable” – Salmon adduces various examples from contemporary and modern military history to support his interpretation of Roman strategic considerations during the Punic Wars. This ranges from comparing Carthaginian naval ambitions to the ill-fated German Operation Sea-Lion against Britain in WWII, to comparing Rome’s failure to help besieged Saguntum to Britain’s refusal to help Poland in 1939.54 Moreover, the fact that the Romans are compared to the Allies in WWII and their enemies to the Germans is probably not coincidental. Salmon’s assessment of Roman conduct over their history is overall extremely positive. Even his alleged and today almost proverbial pro-Samnite and anti-Roman position in Samnium and the Samnites needs important qualification: it is always clear the Romans will eventually prevail on account of their innate strategic insight, ambition, and above all character, or indeed instinct.55 There is no deliberate Grand Strategy in Salmon’s vision of Roman imperialism, although he imagines the end result as both inevitable and ultimately desirable.56 Empire is rather the result of their “peculiar virtuosity” and instinctive seizing of opportunities.57 One conclusion from this overview must therefore be that the military-strategic and pragmatic character of Roman colonization as argued by Salmon, even if it is partly based on particular readings of the ancient sources, represents a deliberate scholarly position that is clearly influenced by contemporary geopolitical and military events.
Perspectives Salmon did not pursue I: colonies and Romanization One particularly interesting aspect of Salmon’s scholarly position is his – at least initial – rejection of the Romanizing role of the colonies of the Republican period in Italy. This view went decidedly against current opinions about the long-term role of colonies in the ascent and maintenance of the Roman Empire. Here too Salmon deliberately engages with and attacks accepted scholarly discourse. One of the clearest statements appears in his 1936 article on Roman colonization: Nor does it seem […] probable that the colonies of this period were sent out either as romanising or as punitive agents. Under the Empire the task of the colonies may have been to romanise. Under the Republic they were not intended to do so. […] The Latin colonies in Italy were independent members of the Roman confederation possessing a very high degree of local autonomy. Sometimes they did not even use the Latin language extensively. It is impossible to visualise them imposing Roman customs and institutions on the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside. It is, of course, true, and cannot be too much emphasised, that the colonies accustomed the Italians to regard Rome as the controlling and political centre of Italy. Herein their moral effect was very great. But beyond this they can scarcely be regarded as romanising agents. (Salmon 1936, 52).58
Before Salmon, it had been commonplace to mention both military and cultural impact – equally – as the rationale for colonization. This notion can be found, for instance, in Frank Abbott’s 1915 article on “the colonizing policy of the Romans” according to which “the Latin colonies served as military outposts and as centers of Roman influence”. Abbott adds that this policy was particularly and exclusively used in Italy.59 This view appears widely in works spanning the entire historiography of Roman colonization. Montesquieu (1689-1755), for instance, in
54 55
Salmon 1960, 132, 135. Ultimately, the Samnites’ role in history is essentially twofold: to protect Rome from corrupting Greek influences (Salmon 1967, 400: “to keep the national character of the Romans true to itself”), and to act as a sparring partner in order to ‘bludgeon’ the Romans into shape for their great future: the Samnites “roused and sped them on the road to empire”. Id. 1967, 401;
56 57 58 59
on the ‘anti-Roman’ aspect of Samnium and the Samnites cf. Frederiksen’s review (1968); for qualifications, Dench 1995; ead. 2004. E.g., Salmon 1967, 346; id. 1982, 1. Cf. e.g. Wilson 1971. E.g., Salmon 1955; quote from id. 1982, 2. Cf. id. 1955, 75. Abbott 1915, 366.
his Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence (1734), following Jacques-Bénigne Bussouet (1627-1704), states that, besides relieving poverty in the Urbs, the goal of colonization was to “garder les postes principaux, et d’accoutumer peu a eu les peuples étrangers aux mœurs romaines” (fig. 7).60 The alleged civilizing mission of colonies in general is of course ubiquitous in Roman historiography.61 Theodor Mommsen (18171903) discusses Roman colonies under the subheading “die Einigung Italiens” and emphasizes their cultural affinity to the mother city, Rome.62 Also, Ettore De Ruggiero (1839-1926) describes the role of Republican colonies in 1900 as being founded “con lo scopo della difesa che della propagazione del romanesimo nelle regioni italiche”.63 For James Reid (1846-1926), in The municipalities of the Roman empire (1913), the cultural impact of Republican colonies was clearly a very important factor,64 and Plinio Fraccaro (1883-1959) defined colonies famously as “il vero strumento della romanizzazione dell’Italia” in 1931.65 FIG. 7. Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et Salmon could not disagree more. On the contrary, de Montesquieu (after Laboulaye 1876, frontispiece). according to him, outside Roman territory Italy remained largely untouched by Roman culture until the Social War.66 If colonization had any cultural effect at all, it was, in his view, decidedly secondary and unintentional.67 In his 1953 article, summarizing the main reasons behind colonization – protection against enemy attacks, control over the conquered population, and ‘partly’ to relieve the urban poor – he does not even mention potential romanizing or civilizing effects, let alone goals, of colonization.68 Such a position is in accord with his pragmatic, topographic-strategic view of colonies but it should be emphasized that the possibility of an additional ‘cultural’ or acculturative role – also in an explicitly strategic sense, as a hegemonic method – was commonplace in previous scholarship. It is also surprising in light of Salmon’s political sympathies that he occasionally accepts very dubious authorities to support his point. Josef Göhler’s (1911-2001) study Rom und Italien, ominously published in 1939, is cited in support of the statement that colonization never was intended to promote romanization.69
60 61 62
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Montesquieu 1734, 24; Bossuet 1681, 553. See, e.g., Lipsius 1598, Lib. 1, cap. 6.3. Mommsen 1912, 420-21, pointing out that “diese neuen Stadtgemeinden römischen Ursprungs, aber latinischen Rechts immer mehr die eigentlichen Stützen der römischen Herrschaft über Italien [wurden]”, and “durch Sprach-, Rechts- und Sittengemeinschaft an Rom geknüpft waren”. Diz. Epigr 2 (1900) 415-64, s.v. “Colonia” (E. De Ruggiero), 427. E.g., Reid 1913, 64: “Small, numerically, as the number of Latin and Roman settlers in these colonies was, their influence on the regions around them was immense. The
65
66 67
68 69
local dialects everywhere gave way before Latin, and the populations were in course of time prepared, by subtle changes of culture and sentiment, to accept and even to welcome complete absorption into the Roman state.” Enciclopedia Italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti (1931) 843, s.v. “La colonizzazione greco-romana” (P. Fraccaro). E.g., Salmon 1962, 107. E.g., id. 1936; id. 1955, 64 (where, in considering the use of colonies to ‘overawe’ the local population, the emphasis is on control, not on acculturation), and 75 with esp. n. 49. Cf. below. Id. 1953a, 93. Id. 1955, 75 citing Göhler 1939, 156.
Göhler’s theoretical position on the point,70 however, is grounded in a curious and confused mixture of fascist, racist, nationalist, and primitivistic ideas with an occasional dose of common sense, viewing “Kulturpolitik als ein Kampfmittel” but also questioning the ability of lesser peoples to acquire high culture.71 From this perspective, colonies would have been “römische Sprachinseln” that were “Hüter des römischen Wesens und Garanten gegen eine Überfremdung” from Greek and Etruscan influences.72 Apart from the conclusion that colonies were not meant to promote romanization, there is little in his work that seems to agree with Salmon’s ideas. Interestingly, Salmon seems to have modified his bold position over time. The key to explaining this change is twofold. First, Salmon’s view of what a colony was and, consequently, what impact it could have seems to have shifted. Second, and related to the first point, new archaeological studies appear to have influenced his thinking. From both the content of his arguments and his wording, it is clear that in FIG. 8. Ernst Kornemann as student in 1889 (courtesy of most of his early studies Salmon envisaged colonies the Corpsarchiv Teutonia Gießen). as groups of men or garrisons sent to strategic sites, rather than as the founding ex novo of monumental new towns.73 Indeed, according to Salmon, colonists were sent to pre-existing towns previously built by the conquered Italic populations, even at sites for which there is, or was at the time, no specific evidence that they were inhabited before colonization.74 There is thus surprisingly little emphasis on, or even mention of, the founding of new towns, the built environment in general in the process of colonization, or the similarity of colonies to Rome. This is surprising, especially in light of the common idea that the essence of Roman colonies was epitomized by their institutional layout, reflecting the mother city of Rome. This had been a central tenet of Roman historiography for centuries. The image of colonies as closely echoing the societal organization and layout of Rome was widespread in scholarship from, as we have seen, as early as Lipsius75 and appears prominently in some of the most influential studies.76 Besides Mommsen and others, Beloch for instance stated that “Die innere Organisation der Colonien natürlich nichts anderes [ist] als ein Abbild
70 71
72 73
As laid out in Göhler 1939, 23-30. Cf. ibid., 30: “Die Stämme Italiens […] wussten, dass ihre völkische Kraft dem grossen, ruhmreichen Rom diente und damit einem gewaltigen Reich, dessen Stütze sie sein dürften. Für Rom kämpft man und kämpft gerne”. Ibid., 147: Gaius Gracchus is described as “ein politischer Führer echt nordischer Prägung”. Ibid., 25. For a more detailed discussion of this conceptualization of colonies and its problems see the contributions by Pelgrom and Stek in this volume.
74
75
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E.g., Salmon 1929, 13. The general notion that “the Romans […] avoided establishing colonies in new places” can also be found in Stephenson 1891, 20. Similar statements in Niebuhr 1873, 48-59. Lipsius 1598, Lib. 1, cap. 6, lines 1-3. See also McCulloch 1853, 419. See Sewell in this volume for a detailed discussion of Gellius’ notorious text (NA 16.13).
der Zustände der Mutterstadt”; Ernst Kornemann likewise described colonies as “der Mutterstadt als Tochtergemeinde nachgebildete und von ihr abhängige[n] Ortschaft[en]” that would have copied the social organization of Rome (fig. 8).77 Rather than endorse the idea of the founding of new, both institutionally and culturally, Roman towns, Salmon emphasizes self-government exclusively. A recurring theme in his description of colonies is indeed their autonomy.78 Roman colonization, for Salmon, is the strategic positioning of self-governing communities on nodal sites.79 To some extent, this emphasis may also explain his aversion to the cultural unity of colonies imagined by previous scholars. Indeed, Salmon explicitly highlights the local diversity of colonies rather than their similarity before the Social War.80 On several occasions, Salmon, not noted for his use of archaeology, even adduces archaeological and epigraphic evidence to prove the diversity of Roman colonial realities, for instance pointing to colonial-period terracottas from Cosa that supposedly appear to be “of non-Roman rather than Roman types” and to the variability of colonial institutions and cults.81 Salmon explicitly rejects the idea that Gellius’ image of Roman colonies as small copies of Rome can be applied to the period before the Social War or to the military colonies of Caesar.82
A dubious role for archaeology? It may have been precisely archaeological studies, however, that reminded Salmon of Gellius’ image of Roman colonies. Especially the discoveries at Alba Fucens and Cosa in the late 1940s and 1950s, respectively by Belgian and American teams, generated much discussion about the process of founding cities and the apparent regularity and Romanness of these towns.83 This was undoubtedly an important point in the conception of the relationship between Roman colonization, romanization, and urbanization and also in the rise of the conception of a colony as synonymous with a town or city-state. Salmon’s pupil, Paul MacKendrick, whose studies explicitly draw attention to the physical aspects of Roman colonization and the archaeological evidence for them, may have been inspired by his involvement in these discoveries. MacKendrick participated in his first excavations at Cosa with Frank Brown’s team and was very impressed both by the results and by the actual process of archaeological excavation.84 The regularity and supposed similarity to Rome of the colonial urban layout suggested, in his view,
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78 79
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Beloch 1880, 154; RE 4 (1901) 510-88, s.v. “Colonia,” (E. Kornemann), pp. 512, 584: they “copierten auch im inneren Aufbau ihrer Gemeinwesen die Mutterstadt Rom”. Niebuhr 1873, 51, acknowledges the Gellian image only for the earliest periods of colonization. E.g., Salmon 1936, 52; id. 1953a, 94; id. 1953b, 123. Contrast, for instance, Reid 1913, 60, who acknowledges that ‘sometimes’ an existing town was colonized, but emphasizes the “new Roman or Latin municipal body, with its defensive walls and its autonomous institutions and its ‘territorium’.” E.g., Salmon 1936, 55: “the Latin colonists belonged to municipal commonwealths (res publicae) enjoying a high degree of local autonomy. The colony could issue its own coins, had its own magistrates and its own constitution. Nor is there any need to suppose with Beloch that the constitution of a Latin colony was a copy of the constitution of Rome. On the contrary, the epigraphic evidence reveals great diversity.” With, tellingly, n. 43: “After the Social War uniformity became the rule, and much later Aulus Gellius (NA 16.13)
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82 83
84
could say of colonies that in relation to Rome “quasi effigies parvae simulacraque esse quaedam videntur.” Salmon 1955, 75 n. 47, citing an oral presentation at the 1954 AIA Meeting by L. Richardson. Id. 1936, 55 n. 43; id. 1955, 75. Brown, Richardson and Richardson jr. 1951; Mertens 1953. MacKendrick 1952, 139: “these planned communities, with their walls, their neat crisscross of streets, their fora and basilicas and temples, and their pattern of allotments […] [testified] already to the might and the majesty of the Roman name”; and on p. 140 “The actual process of the founding of a colony shows that orderliness and respect for legality which we associate with the Roman mind.” Id. 1960, 98-107, offers a wonderful insight into his personal experiences during the excavations at Cosa, which is enthusiastically characterized as follows: “A healthy site, an orderly plan, a water supply, strong walls, housing, provision for political and religious needs: the basic necessities are all there, at Cosa, and all as early as the founding of the colony”.
“a master plan made in the censor’s office in Rome”.85 As a result, MacKendrick incidentally questioned the solely strategic rationale behind Roman colonization advanced so forcefully by his tutor.86 The inclusion of an appendix to the introduction to Salmon’s Roman colonization under the Republic, titled “Cosa: a typical Latin colony”, and its relative detachment from the rest of the book, can thus be explained. In many ways, this appendix summarizes the recent studies by Brown, even reflecting their textual structure. It is undoubtedly Cosa that led Salmon to conclude that “the Romans must have had a master plan or ‘blue print’” for founding colonies.87 In this study, Salmon is also markedly less reluctant than before to use Gellius to support the statement that Latin and citizen colonies were, “throughout the half millennium and more during which these settlements were founded, […] as a rule typically Roman in appearance”.88 In later works, Salmon developed a much greater interest in the culturally unifying aspects and effects of Roman colonization and conquest in general. His 1982 book The making of Roman Italy is notorious in this respect, with its unabashed glorification of the ‘great achievement’ of Rome in “weld[ing] all the disparate elements into a single, unified nation”, described as Italy’s “ultimate destiny”.89 Salmon similarly places greater emphasis on the urban aspect of colonial communities. The new studies of the orthogonal town plan of Norba are adduced here, showing Salmon’s engagement with works on urbanism and town planning, such as those by Ferdinando Castagnoli and John Ward Perkins that had appeared in the meantime.90 The conclusion drawn from this overall picture may therefore seem somewhat paradoxical, especially to some contemporary archaeologists. In the postcolonial age, archaeology actually contributed to a more starkly colonialist view of Roman colonization than the earlier view based on literary sources. It is also clear that Salmon’s modest statement in the introduction to his 1969 book, that he only sought to synthesize what was known about Roman colonies, is untrue.91 His is a very particular view of Roman history and the role of colonies in it that cannot be explained solely by the nature of the sources he used.92 In Salmon’s view, neither cultural hegemony nor a deliberate Grand Strategy were behind Roman imperial success. Rather, the key was in the Roman character or instinct in matters of military strategy and statecraft, formed and developed further by the practice of establishing self-governing communities. Not even the ancient Roman historians themselves, according to Salmon, would have entirely appreciated the ingenuity of the Romans’ strategic instincts. Instead, and tellingly, Salmon claims Machiavelli93 (the Machiavelli of Il Principe, that is) had rightly gauged the importance of Roman colonies.94
Perspectives Salmon did not pursue II: colonies and the Struggle of the Orders A second perspective marginalized by Salmon regards the socio-economic role of the Roman colonization program in maintaining internal stability in Rome. This omission is all the more striking because this perspective was gaining considerable popularity in the international scholarly community when Salmon entered the academic stage. Salmon began his academic career and developed most of his ideas in the first
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MacKendrick 1960, 98, where Alba Fucens is described as “a smaller and more orderly replica of Rome”. Id. 1952; id. 1960, 92. Salmon 1969, 38. Ibid., 27, with n. 33 citing Gellius. The local diversity is downplayed at p. 28, where “such details as terracotta ornaments, cornice mouldings and the like […] might show the effects of local influences. But in general the colonies, Latin and later Citizen alike, must have displayed a consistently Roman aspect”. Salmon 1982, 39 and 56.
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Castagnoli 1972 (=English translation of id. 1956b); Ward Perkins, 1974. Both cited in Salmon 1982, 52. Id. 1969, 11. Livy’s descriptions of the founding of colonies are often embedded in non-military discourses, such as socio-economic (agrarian) issues (cf. below); even Cicero’s famous description of colonies as ‘bulwarks of empire’ is, it should be noted, part of his De lege agraria. Machiavelli 1532. Salmon 1955, 74-75.
half of the 20th century. At that time, the field of colonization studies was dominated by Italian scholars, who during the interbellum period, and after the famous German school had lost some of its influence, had moved the epicenter of Roman Republican studies to Italy and especially to Rome and Pavia.95 In Roman colonial history, the key figures were Ettore De Ruggiero (18391926), Ettore Pais (1856-1939), and Plinio Fraccaro (1883-1959).96 De Ruggiero and Pais had studied with Mommsen in Berlin and on their return had introduced the fact-orientated, multidisciplinary German approach to Italy. Although they followed the critical juridical-historical methodology of Barthold Georg Niebuhr (1776-1831) and Mommsen and in many ways continued lines of research initiated by these famous scholars,97 they are often credited with adding historical sensibility to the discipline.98 As an American newspaper in 1904 described it: “[Ettore Pais] blends Italian geniality with Germanic severity: it is the spirit of Mommsen relieved by the breadth of Latin scholarship”; and some lines further on, “Italian scholarship is the broad tolerance, the free spirit, the untrammeled attitude of mind which FIG. 9. Ettore Pais (courtesy of the photographic archive allows absolute objectivity of judgment.”99 Apart from these poetic qualities, a of the University of Pisa). notable distinction of these Italian scholars was their interest in Roman colonial history, which they discussed at length and as a separate topic, in contrast to their German teachers, or their English-speaking colleagues for that matter.100 This is not the place to speculate on what exactly might have sparked this particular interest, but the strong focus on the role of colonies in the unification of Italy and the recurrent emphasis on their quality as national instruments that strengthened the State clearly resonated with the political concerns of the Risorgimento and the early colonial ambitions of the new Italian state.101 Although we can easily recognize similarities between the works of these Italian scholars and Salmon’s studies, especially in their attempts to produce complete and detailed lists of colony foundations according to the established tradition, they differ in their interest in the role colonies played in Roman society. While in the earlier works of the most influential Italian historians the military-strategic rationale of colonies was also analyzed, there is a clear trend towards investigating and appreciating the role that Roman colonies played in domestic socio-economic and political developments. For example, Pais initially emphasized the strategic role of colonies – also discussing at length their strategic positioning – in his early studies (fig. 9).102 In his later work, however, he shifted his attention to their role in Roman internal politics.103 To the Italian scholars, the role colonies had played in the turbulent socio-economic transformation of Mid- and Late Republican Roman
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97
On Italian dominance in this field of Roman Republican philology see for example McDonald 1960. The great German scholars of the Early 20th century like Beloch (1854-1929) and Weber (1864-1920) were more interested in sociological perspectives on ancient history than the Mommsenian critical-philological approach, a tradition the Italians continued with success. On De Ruggiero see Diz. Biogr. Ital. 39 (1991) 24448, s.v. “De Ruggiero, Ettore” (M. Elefante); on Pais: Polverini 2002, esp. 8-19; Gabba 2003; on Fraccaro: Diz. Biogr. Ital. 40 (1997) 552-56, s.v. “Fraccaro, Plinio” (E. Gabba). See Pais 1931, V-VI in which he expresses his gratitude to his teacher Mommsen, but at the same time tries to counter criticism that he is a “ripetitore del grande critico
98
99 100
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Tedesco.” Diz. Biogr. Ital. 39 (1991) 244-48, s.v. “De Ruggiero, Ettore” (M. Elefante). Boston Evening Transcript, November 12, 1904, p. 23. This tradition of discussing Roman colonial history as a separate research topic goes back at least to Ruperti 1838 and is continued, for example, in De Ruggiero 1896 and especially Pais 1923; id. 1924; id. 1925. De Ruggiero 1896, 7. Also See Pais 1931, III-VIII, for clear references to nationalistic sentiments. On early Italian colonial ambitions, see Finaldi 2009. See esp. chapter 13 on the use of classical history in the modern colonial discourse. E.g. Pais 1920, following the established tradition of for example De Ruggiero 1896, 38-39. E.g. Pais 1931.
society was much more interesting and challenging than their strategic role, which they took for granted. Since public lands were the crucial source of discord and strife in the Roman Republic it is actually not surprising that these Italian scholars often discuss Roman colonial practices in the context of the wider debate on the Struggle of the Orders and the related Roman Agrargeschichte. Especially the students of Fraccaro, namely, Gianfranco Tibiletti, Aurelio Bernardi, and Emilio Gabba took this tradition to its peak.104 This was the line of research from which Salmon particularly sought to distance himself and which he seems to oppose outright. He does so largely by marginalizing the socio-economic debate and focusing only on the strategic and topographic characteristics of colonial sites along the lines described above. Whereas an important strategic factor was generally accepted for the period between the end of the Latin War to the Second Punic War, Salmon argues that the strategic rationale was paramount also in the preLatin War period and even in the 2nd c. B.C. up to the Gracchi. At the time, and especially for the latter period, economic rather than strategic motives were universally accepted as the main factor. As seen, Salmon does only rarely engage in open polemics.105 He makes an exception to this rule, however, in his 1936 article on Roman colonization from the Second Punic War to the Gracchi. Here, he argues at length that before the Social War the Roman colonization program was never intended as a means to provide for impoverished and destitute citizens and thus did not play an important role in the emancipation of the plebs and the Struggle of the Orders.106 One of Salmon’s most important arguments is that Rome had another, more effective tool for this purpose, namely viritane land-distribution programs, which he considers an entirely different matter.107 Also imperative, at least within his narrative framework, is the argument that it would be unrealistic to assume that Rome would send out urban paupers with no military experience to important military strongholds in enemy territory.108 Among the minor supplementary arguments he adduces, Salmon also holds that the rather small size of the colonies is at odds with the hypothetical objective of providing for the poor, and that Rome’s insistence on (re)colonizing unattractive places, such as Buxentum and Sipontum, suggests that strategic considerations were paramount.109 Salmon clearly reacts to such contemporary views in a series of articles on the rationale for Roman colonization. While he is arguing that “the principal purpose of colonies was undoubtedly strategic”, Salmon accuses previous scholarship of anachronism for suggesting commercial or economic motives.110 In his later work, Salmon gives more weight to economic and demographic motives, but he remains convinced that these are only secondary.111 It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the validity of Salmon’s arguments in detail, but it is important to point out that his attempt to marginalize this, at the time, influential scholarly tradition was not very effective; most scholars today accept the importance of the Roman
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E.g. Bernardi 1946; Tibiletti 1950; Gabba 1984. Subtle criticism is expressed especially on Pais 1924; id. 1928. See especially Salmon 1936, notes 10, 15 and 60. Ibid, 51. Contra Pais 1924, 353-54; id. 1931, 120-22; Tibiletti 1950. Interestingly, Salmon aims his polemic not so much at Italian scholars, but rather at the Cambridge professor James Reid (Reid 1913), who had argued that, while a defensive purpose was a likely motive before the Second Punic War, economic motives dominated the colonization program after the Hannibalic War. See also Salmon 1933, 32-33 for a similar but less explicit position. E.g., id. 1969, 95-96. He does not, however, address the issue that viritane distributions might potentially disrupt the socio-economic equilibrium.
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Also Stephenson, 1891, 21, who seems to have influenced Salmon in this respect, makes this point very clear: “Colonies never became the means of providing for the impoverished and degraded until the time of Gaius Gracchus. When new territory was conquered, there went the citizen soldier.” Salmon 1936, 51. Id. 1955, 64. Ibid., 64, but later in the same article (p. 69) he argues more strongly that colonization was important for turning paupers into soldiers. In id. 1969, 15, 95-96 we again find that colonies are “incidentally useful for accommodating urban lacklands’ and ‘the colonies were intended to support a military programme, not to make provisions for the needy”.
FIG. 10. Plinio Fraccaro opens the new academic year of 1949 (courtesy archivio casa Visintin).
colonization program in maintaining the socio-economic and demographic equilibrium of Roman society.112 Perhaps the most crucial counterargument against Salmon is that there seems to be a clear, negative correlation between recorded instances of social unrest in Rome and the intensity of colonial foundations.
The peasant republic A related discourse dismissed by Salmon is the distinguished academic tradition that linked the Roman colonial land-division program with the much-admired social and moral structure of Roman Republican society. Besides Rome’s famously open citizenship policy and its mixed constitution, the most important characteristic of the successful Roman social model was the fact that it was grounded, at least initially, on a set of civic virtues that generated a sense of unity and willingness in the individual to sacrifice private interests for the good of the community. This, of course, was crucial in wartime and for the stability of the Roman Republic in general. In Salmon’s day, this ideological perspective was voiced most clearly in the various studies by Fraccaro (fig. 10) that are collected in the three volumes of his Opuscula (esp. part 1).113
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E.g., Crawford 1971, 253; Oakley 2002, 18-22. Fraccaro 1956; see especially the first 3 chapters, pages 1-81. Fraccaro revives the powerful doctrine
that considers the moral structure of Roman society the critical factor behind its imperial success.
The view that civic virtues and imperial success were closely related had already emerged in the Roman period. It can perhaps be recognized most clearly in Late Republican and Augustan decline narratives, which lamented the disappearance of precisely these civic values in Roman society.114 What exactly constituted Roman Republican civic virtues remained rather nebulous, but since Antiquity they nonetheless were epitomized in the concept of the soldier-farmer and were closely associated with peasant culture. Cicero, for instance, informs us that the early Romans “diligently cultivated their own lands, they did not graspingly desire those of others; by which conduct they enlarged the republic, and this dominion, and the name of the Roman people, with lands and conquered cities, and subjected nations”.115 Besides physical strength and the capacity to endure hardship, it is above all virtues such as austerity, autarchy, self-sacrifice, comradeship, and discipline that were recognized and appreciated in peasants and in rural culture more generally. This paradigm has remained influential throughout history both among idealist and realist politicians. Even Machiavelli accepted that successful warfare and civic virtues were fundamentally connected.116 Roman history, however, had proven that the soldier-farmer could not be taken for granted and was seriously threatened by the corrupting forces of greed, selfishness, and lethargy (epitomized in decadence) that accompany imperialism. An effective society needed to formulate policies to protect itself from these harmful influences. In his Considérations (1734) – an essay on the causes of the greatness of the Romans and their decline – Montesquieu expresses the increasingly popular opinion that the chief way to achieve greatness was with radical agrarian policies. He explicitly states that, “The founders of the ancient republics had made an equal partition of the lands. This alone produced a powerful people, that is, a well-regulated society. It also produced a good army, everyone having an equal, and very great, interest in defending his country.” Further on in the same chapter: ‘It was the equal partition of lands that at first enabled Rome to rise from its lowly position; and this was obvious when it became corrupt.”117 Too much land, however, as Montesquieu explains in his De l’esprit des lois (first published in 1748) would make farmers lazy: “It is not sufficient in a well-regulated democracy that the division of land be equal; they ought also to be small”.118 Clearly, in this view, economic inequality introduced negative forces such as jealousy and greed. Equality of basic economic resources thus becomes a central element in this philosophy of state organization. This philosophy had already acknowledged the superiority of the political form of the Republic because it was rooted in the ideal of political parity. According to this view, strong civic commitment was not only connected to rural life, but was intimately associated with egalitarianism and frugality. It is not hard to see how Roman colonial territories closely mirrored the romantic ideal of the perfect peasant republic. The perceived division of the conquered territory into moderately sized parcels for peers reproduced and reinforced the values of egalitarianism, comradeship, and austerity.119 Moreover, the importance of colonial
114
115
On Roman decline narratives, see Evans 2008; see also Nelson 1998, chap. 3; and a short summary of the traditional decline narrative and its relationship to farming in Dyson 1992, 26-27. Paradoxically, the erosion of these moral values was also believed to be connected to imperialism: especially the influx of riches (luxuria) supposedly corrupted Roman society. In these accounts, the farmer-soldier ingeniously operates both as the victor of the Roman Empire and as its victim. Cic., Rosc. Am. 50, (transl. Yonge 1903). Another good example can be found in Cato: “[…] it is from the farming class that the bravest men and the sturdiest soldiers come, their calling is most highly respected, their livelihood is most assured and is
116 117 118
119
looked on with the least hostility, and those who are engaged in that pursuit are least inclined to be disaffected.” (Cato, Agr. Orig. 1.1, trans. W. D. Hooper and H. B. Ash 1934). Cf. Hulliung 1976, 142-155. Montesquieu 1965, ch. 3. Id. 1766, 66. (Ch. 6: “In what manners the Laws ought to maintain Frugality in a Democracy”). Crucial civic virtues, without which republics fall according the sociological history of Montesquieu. Such autarchical ideals can be recognized in the small allotment size, which enforce frugality and puritanism; qualities that in turn served as an antidote to the corrupting influences of imperialism and the eventual decline of militarily successful societies.
territories as the true habitat of the peasant-soldier had grown considerably since Niebuhr’s fundamental study of early Rome.120 Before Niebuhr, it was debated whether Roman agrarian laws technically applied to all land or only to newly conquered public lands. The more radical, enlightened spirits championed the first option, recognizing these agrarian laws as the antecedents of their own policies of the confiscation and redistribution of aristocratic domains; more moderate individuals, however, argued that the equal division of land applied only to newly conquered lands. Niebuhr would settle the controversy in favor of the moderate faction: he firmly (re)established the orthodoxy that the agrarian laws applied only to public lands.121 Diminishing the scope and impact of Roman agrarian legislation undermined the view that Mid-Republican Roman society at large was structured as an egalitarian peasant society and thus potentially placed greater emphasis on the Roman colonization program for (re)producing landscapes that supported the vitally important soldier-citizens and related civic virtues. Notwithstanding these appealing possibilities, Salmon does not seem to have been attracted to these ideological and socio-political studies. He does not highlight the potential importance of the Roman colonization program in creating and supporting the crucially important peasant-soldier communities and connected civic virtues. He addresses Roman colonial land-division practices only briefly122 and makes no allusion to the importance of this socio-economic and political arrangement for Roman imperial success. This is striking because, at the time of his ongoing research, momentous progress was being made in the study of Roman land-division practices. The findings from the new discipline of aerial archaeology were especially spectacular, since they included a vast amount of new data on Roman Republican colonial landdivision systems.123 Several fundamental publications by now legendary pioneers of the discipline were available to Salmon, such as Bradford’s Ancient Landscapes. Studies in field archaeology (1957) and Castagnoli’s Le ricerche sui resti della centuriazione (1958).124 These impressively evenly divided landscapes fitted perfectly well with the ideal of the peasant republic as outlined by for example Montesquieu (cf. also Bradley in this volume, fig. 1). Moreover, the findings from aerial archaeology renewed admiration for the Romans’ colonial engineering and organizational skills and also seemed to corroborate, or at least made more comprehensible, the cryptic and controversial treatises of the Roman land surveyors. These treatises, which deal at length with the practical and religious organization of colonial territories, had remained understudied125 since their technical style made them difficult to interpret. Now that the Roman land-surveying practices they described had been attested empirically, interest in the writings of the land surveyors peaked. This surge of interest resulted, among other things, in the publication of studies such as Oswald Dilke’s The Roman Land Surveyors: An Introduction to the Agrimensores in 1971, which made these technical treatises accessible to a broader public.126
120 121
122
123
Niebuhr 1873 (first published in 1811-12). On this, see Momigliano 1982; Ridley 2000; and Rich 2008, 521-43 with further references. Salmon 1969, esp. 24-24 and notes 110 and 111. It is significant that Salmon discusses colonial allotments mostly in footnotes. The Danish naval officer Christian Tuxen Falbe (Falbe 1833) is usually credited with the first detection of a Roman land-division system. Falbe recognized a 20x20 actus grid in the territory of Carthage (cf. Tozzi 1984, also for an overview of other Early 19th century studies). In the Early 20th century, important progress in this field was made by Fraccaro (e.g., Fraccaro 1939; id. 1940). A collection of his studies of Roman cadastral systems can be found in Opuscula III (Fraccaro
124
125 126
1957). On his work, see also Attolini 1984. His work was continued by his student Castagnoli (cf. below). Bradford 1957; Castagnoli 1958. Other pioneering publications from this period include Bradford 1949; id. 1950, Castagnoli 1953-55; id. 1956a; and various studies by Chevallier (e.g., Chevallier 1960; id. 1961; id. 1962). To get an idea of the state of research at the time of Salmon’s works, centuriation grids had already been recognized in the territories of the following Mid-Republican colonies: Tarracina, Minturnae, Antium, Puteoli, Salernum, Pisaurum, Parma, Mutina, Auximum, Luni, Lucca, Luceria, Cales, Cosa, Paestum, Ariminum, Alba Fucens, Isernia and Beneventum, and most of the colonies in the Po Valley. E.g. Dilke 1962, 170. Id. 1971.
Although Salmon was clearly aware of these studies, he bluntly dismissed their impact by briefly stating that the centuriation systems detected from the air could not be dated properly and might easily belong to later viritane land-division programs.127 He does not, however, back up this skepticism with an analysis of the arguments used to date the newly discovered centuriation grids to the early colonial period.128 This failure to engage seriously with an exciting new data set is striking. To many of Salmon’s contemporaries, these findings seemed to demonstrate more clearly than ever the impressive and extraordinarily rigid organization of colonial territories, which not only seemed to differ dramatically from the organization of the old ager Romanus but also unmistakably expressed the exceptional power of a society based on the principles of discipline, order, and equality. The two quotes given below clearly illustrate the impact these discoveries made on contemporary scholars:129 The forceful imprint of the elaborate gridded road-systems […] can still be traced across some thousands of square miles on both sides of the central Mediterranean. In origin, most of these systems were carved out of territories raw from conquest, and even now, in retrospect, their appearance deeply stirs the imagination, – so boldly artificial was the conception and drastic the creation as compared with any earlier man-made landscape in this region. (Bradford 1957, 145). Ces dernières [i.e. les centuriations] avaient en premier lieu valeur politique : à l‘origine au moins de la colonisation, Rome fit table rase du passé en imposant à ses conquêtes un cadre nouveau : soit par indifférence, soit par mépris, elle ignorait l’organisation administrative préexistante et marquait ses droits de propriété éminente en toisant sa conquête : la prise de possession est comme gravée dans le sol ; selon le principe politique éternel : ‘diviser pour régner’, on voit la centuriation isoler les zones de résistance, c’est-a-dire surtout les régions montagneuses, s’insinuer même dans les vallées et morceler les massifs dont elle ronge les premières pentes. (Chevallier 1961, 64).
Salmon’s marginalization of these qualities of colonial landscapes may perhaps be explained in part by his personal background. Salmon had strong anti-Soviet and more generally anti-Russian political views, which may go some way towards explaining why portraying colonies as more or less egalitarian societies did not appeal to him.130 Then again, one might also interpret his practical, strategic outlook as a refreshing and deliberate reaction to the idealizing social theories of the Romantic era, which lay shattered after the horrors of the two World Wars. In any case, his attempt to undermine the importance of these new findings squares neatly with his hidden agenda to demonstrate that it was above all Roman military strategy, and especially the Roman instinct for knowing what areas are the most important to control, that had won Rome its empire. It is telling that in his brief discussion of the evidence for centuriation systems Salmon questions its association particularly with Mid-Republican Roman colonization. Since the Romans had already proven to be the strongest power in the Mediterranean by the late 3rd c. B.C., the secret of their success must be found in Roman society and military strategy before the Punic Wars. By questioning the existence of these impressively ordered and monumental colonial landscapes in the early colonial period, Salmon thus challenged the view that they played an important role in Roman imperial success as the habitat of the vitally important soldier-farmer and as a potent demonstration of Roman power and organizational skill to the conquered, thus dampening any aspirations to revolt.
127 128
129
Salmon 1969, 23-24. This is not to deny that the dating of early Roman land-division systems is notoriously difficult and controversial (cf. Pelgrom 2008, 358-67). More recently, cf. Purcell 1990, 15-17; Quilici 1994, 127, 130; Campbell 1996, 81.
130
In 1947, Salmon gave a paper at the Empire Club of Canada, entitled “The Making of the Peace” in which he clearly expresses his anti-Russian political views (https:// speeches.empireclub.org/60827/data?n=18).
Aim and structure of this book: bringing a fragmented research field together This excursus on Salmon’s place in the wider scholarly debate on Roman colonization has revealed not only that Salmon adopted a very specific outlook, but also, and perhaps more importantly, that his monograph, despite his claim to the contrary, is part of just one of many different directions the study of Roman colonization has taken over time (fig. 11). The main trend that can be discerned from at least the late 19th and early 20th century is the ever-increasing specialization and fragmentation of colonization studies. Since the early comprehensive attempts of the Renaissance period to understand the role of colonies in Roman society, different aspects of Roman colonization have increasingly been discussed in separate discourses. This trend of increasing fragmentation, we would argue, was not reversed by Salmon. Rather, he pursued one particular perspective to the extreme. This fragmentation in colonization studies still dominates the research field today. Issues that are central to the character of Roman colonization continue to be studied in separate disciplines: from Roman historiography, urban archaeology, architecture studies, landscape archaeology, Roman FIG. 11. Edward Togo Salmon in the McMaster Art Gallery religion studies, to Roman law.131 Notwithstanding coin room on March 28, 1988 (courtesy of McMaster Museum of Art, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario). the obvious importance of many new studies in these various realms the impact on the general understanding of Roman colonization and significance for understanding Roman imperialism has yet be fully appreciated. This is only possible by adopting a more holistic approach, and drawing together the historically diverged lines of enquiry in colonization studies. We realize that the complexity and specialized nature of the various discourses in which colonies are studied, together with the vast amount of new archaeological and, to a lesser extent, epigraphic data collected in the last decades, makes any attempt at an integrated, comprehensive treatment vastly more demanding than it was in Sigonius’ time. What for Salmon would have been an ambitious challenge, today
131
The historiography of Roman colonial studies after Salmon 1969 has been discussed in detail in several important and easily accessible studies and will therefore not be reproduced at length here. For historical issues and the contribution of archaeology, seminal publications include the proceedings of the Acquasparta conference in 1987 entitled La colonizzazione romana tra la Guerra latina e la Guerra annibalica (published in 1988 in DialArch 6); Crawford 1995; Torelli 1999; Bradley and Wilson 2006;
and several contributions in De Ligt and Northwood 2008. For the role of colonies in Roman rural history, land division, Roman law, and internal politics, see Settis 1984; Chouquer et al. 1987; Gargola 1995, Schubert 1996; Hermon 2001; Campbell 2000; Laffi 2007; Roselaar 2010. For synthetic studies that address colonial urban topography, see Sommella 1988; Fentress 2000; Lackner 2008; Sewell 2010. See also Broadhead 2007; Stek 2013, 344-45, and its reading list on page 353.
is virtually impossible. Nevertheless, we believe that at this point a step in this direction is indispensable, and has potential. To this end, this volume brings together recent insights from a range of different academic traditions, thereby also lifting language and cultural barriers. It should be emphasized that this is only a first step in this direction and that it is very far from a conclusion. Rather, the aim is to outline a possible and promising agenda for future research and to explore the potentially productive interplay between different emerging research areas that are currently isolated. The structure of this volume is therefore arranged by theme, highlighting the relative strengths of different disciplinary approaches and methods for understanding the development and character of different aspects of Roman colonization and Roman imperialism. We have outlined four main thematic fields, which correspond with the four parts in which this volume is divided.
I. Contextualizing Roman Republican colonization. Backgrounds, definitions and comparanda The first part of the book explores the general character and function of Roman Republican colonization in relation to emerging ideas of the social structure of early Rome and the character of early Roman expansion and imperialism. Nicola Terrenato’s contribution considers the relationship between Roman imperialism and colonization by focusing specifically on the structure of Central Italian society in the Early and Mid-Republican periods and long-term continuities and changes therein. Terrenato attacks the once popular doctrine of William Harris132 that elite competition in the city of Rome was the primary motor behind Roman imperialism. In contrast, Terrenato notes that this argument fails to account for the sudden burst of expansion at the beginning of the 4th c. B.C. Importantly, however, Terrenato accepts Harris’ emphasis on the role of individual agency. Rather, he challenges the claim that a single center, Rome - and the Roman Senate - drove the imperialistic process. In this important paper Terrenato takes a closer look at some of the family groups involved, both in Rome and in incorporated communities, in the 4th and 3rd c. B.C. Expanding on the particular history of the Plautii, he argues that expansion, at least initially, resulted from the sum total of several independent family agendas both from within Rome and from communities outside it, which aimed to benefit a specific factional group rather than a political abstraction like ‘the Roman empire’. Guy Bradley’s contribution also explores the impact of new insights in Roman imperialism on our understanding of Roman colonization in the Republican period. As we just saw, Roman imperialism cannot be understood merely in terms of internal factors as Harris proposed. Also Roman reactions to neighboring states were decisive and the pace and direction of conquest was shaped both by favorable and unfavorable factors. Scholars such as Arthur Eckstein133 and John Rich134 have emphasized the genuine unpredictability of Roman behavior, and especially the element of fear. In particular, Eckstein has stressed the anarchic nature of interstate relations in Italy itself: Roman control over Italy was less certain than hindsight might suggest. The picture now emerging would seem to leave less room for long-term planning and strategy – precisely the line pursued by Salmon and later emphasized, for instance, by Filippo Coarelli,135 whereby a clear relationship between colonies and, for example, road building is seen as part of a master plan behind Roman colonizing movements. Bradley takes another approach in his paper, exploring how colonial foundations and related infrastructure projects such as roads depended on the initiative of individual politicians and generals and the Senate’s response to them. The uncertainty about the nature of the Senate before the Lex Ovinia suggests that the late 4th c. B.C. is a critical period, when a more permanent Senate emerges with a highly competitive mixed aristocracy. This development had, Bradley argues, a decisive effect on the development of long-term strategy.
132 133 134 135
Harris 1979. Eckstein 2006. Rich 1993. Coarelli 1992. Although it should be noted that Salmon actually believed more in Roman character,
intuition and destiny as main factors, than their having a masterplan, cf. above.
From imperialism we move to the issue of socio-political organization, with two papers investigating the axiom that Roman colonies of the Latin right were city-states. Reviewing the historical evidence, Jeremia Pelgrom argues that the conventional understanding of colonies as territorial states with clearly defined topographic borders is not as self-evident as is often believed. New legal studies have reopened the door for considering different forms of colonial organization in which social or other criteria, rather than territorial boundaries, were decisive for determining colonial membership. In this model, colonial jurisdiction is restricted to the members of the colony and the fields they farmed. A colony may have possessed a unified territory, but this is no longer strictly necessary, and different, patchier scenarios are possible. Tesse Stek proposes one such different and patchier scenario for Roman colonization by analyzing the evidence of cult places and rituals for the traditional city-state model of Roman Republican colonies of the Latin right. Exploring the value of rural cults and cult places for our understanding of colonial socio-political organization, he argues that there is no evidence from Mid-Republican colonies that colonial cult places served to demarcate territory, as has habitually been envisaged on the basis of the model of Rome and other (Etruscan, Greek, etc.) city-states. The supposed parallel to the situation of Rome itself cannot withstand close scrutiny. Stek proposes instead that the pattern of sacred and ritual sites in colonial territories points rather to a correlation between cult places and rural settlement nucleation than to the territorial demarcation of the hinterland of the colonial urban center. The socio-cultural significance of this rural nucleated pattern – normally not associated with Roman culture but rather with indigenous, Italic society – is illustrated by showing both the local significance of rural cult places and their relationship to the colonial town center. Luuk de Ligt discusses the so-called maritime colonies, citizen colonies located in coastal areas. These colonial communities differ in many ways from other forms of Roman colonies. For one, they were on average ten to twenty times smaller than contemporary Latin colonies. In their outward appearance, they presumably resembled military forts more closely than monumental cities. Interestingly, members of these colonies were exempt from legionary service, the so-called vacatio militiae, which has been a pivotal notion in explaining the function of this type of colonization, as well as the purpose of colonization in general. De Ligt’s discusses this atypical situation and offers an original explanation for the peculiar legal and military position of these colonial communities.
II. Colonial landscapes. Colonists and natives shaping the urban, natural and social environment The second part of this volume is dedicated to colonial urbanism in relation to the organization of the rural areas of Roman colonies. It opens with an important discussion by Jamie Sewell. Sewell considers the vexed model-replica theory of Roman colonization studies, in which Rome is seen as a model for her colonies in their urban lay-out, and proposes a different way of understanding the adoption and adaptation of Roman, Greek, and other traditions of city planning by investigating the built environment of colonial towns. As noted above, Gellius’ statement about colonies as ‘small images of Rome’ is often cited in discussions of the urban and institutional character of Latin colonies, yet the belief that colonial towns slavishly replicated metropolitan political institutions and cults has, for good reasons, recently been questioned or refuted.136 Sewell rightly states, however, that to argue whether the colonies were or were not replicas, likenesses, or images of Rome does not help us understand colonial towns. Drawing on the concept of creative adaptation, he investigates the built environment of Mid-Republican colonies’ primary settlements by examining the various Roman and foreign influences that shaped their physical forms. Notably, Sewell explores the similarity and contemporaneity of the expansion strategies attributed to Rome and to Philip II of Macedonia and proposes a historical link between them. Frank Vermeulen gives an overview of new archaeological evidence and its significance for understanding Roman strategies in incorporating the Picene area (modern Marche) and related
136
See esp. Bispham 2006.
urbanization developments in that region. In Picenum, cities developed unevenly and often appeared relatively late, seldom before the 3rd c. B.C. According to Vermeulen, however, Roman intentions regarding the urbanisation of Late Republican central-Adriatic Italy are clearly recognizable: a mostly linear network of new towns in strategic positions along the coastline is connected to an evenly spread system of incorporated and expanded indigenous centers in the interior. Drawing on new data from both surveys and excavations in four urban centers of northern Picenum (the colony of Potentia and the municipia of Ricina, Trea, and Septempeda), Vermeulen shows that even if these towns occupied a relatively small area, their basic infrastructure is comparable to most important cities in Italy. Working from a very different, more legal-institutional angle, Michel Tarpin reconsiders the relationship between native inhabitants and colonists and the ways in which this relationship may have shaped the legal and administrative colonial landscape. Tarpin starts from the hypothesis that interaction between colonists and natives was very diverse and was influenced by a wide variety of factors, including both local conditions and traditions and also by changing Roman requirements and strategies in different regions and time periods. In Tarpin’s view, modern representations of colonial realities have often overlooked such specific local and temporal developments and instead have tended to reduce them to a timeless ideal type of Roman colonial realities. Taking a different approach, Tarpin attempts to reconstruct the historical superimposition of different layers of legal, administrative, and social significance, shedding light on changing attitudes to colonists, natives, and others in colonial landscapes. In particular, he demonstrates how the diversity of the Roman territorial lexicon reflects different arrangements between Roman colonists and conquered or incorporated communities and the establishment of new communities within Roman colonial territories. Adopting a socio-economic approach, Ella Hermon investigates the relationship between Roman colonization and the management of natural resources and the environment at large for agricultural and safety purposes. In discussions of the colonial hinterland, focus has usually been on land-division systems, often in relation to the social structure of colonial communities. On the basis of epigraphic and literary evidence, however, Hermon argues that much of the colonists’ energy was used for land improvement strategies and for securing flood zones. This interest in maximizing and controlling natural resources, resulting in more complex and irregular physical and legal-administrative landscapes than usually imagined, can be connected to rising demographic pressure on the environment during the Late Republican period. From a landscape archaeological perspective, Peter Attema, Tymon de Haas and Marleen Termeer investigate the character of Roman colonization in the Pontine plain, a lowland area very close to Rome, in the Early and Mid-Republican periods. Historical sources relate that various colonies, such as Norba, Setia, and Circeii, were created in the area in the Early Republican period. These settlements occupied strategic positions dominating the entire plain. Long-term intensive field-survey projects have revealed traces of rural settlements dating to the pre-colonial and colonial phases. These findings make it possible to view the establishment of these early colonies in the context of long-term urban and rural developments in the region. The authors argue that the Pontine region can be regarded as a laboratory of early Roman colonization in the sense that different strategies of colonization and incorporation were first tested in this area during this historically formative period. Using a similar approach in South Italy, Maria Luisa Marchi analyzes the development of the Latin colonies of Venusia and Luceria against their indigenous background. Basing her research on years of intensive field surveys in these areas, Marchi demonstrates how diversely colonial landscapes could develop in similar chronological and geographical frameworks. At the same time, she recognizes the strong impact Roman settlers had on the landscape, sometimes visible in clearly new settlement organization forms. The paper by Giovanna R. Bellini, Alessandro Launaro and Martin Millett offers a detailed examination of earlier, partly unpublished studies of the Latin colony of Interamna Lirenas and explores how this data affects our general understanding of Roman colonization and the Roman economy.
The authors argue that although these previous studies have made very important contributions, essential lacunas in our information remain. It is of crucial importance to conduct new fieldwork and to improve our knowledge of local material culture.
III. The religious dimension of Roman colonization The third part of this volume is dedicated to colonial cults and religious practices. It focuses on the role of colonial cults in promoting social cohesion within the newly established colony and in defining relationships with other communities and on the role of magistrates in the decision-making process. Marion Bolder-Boos explores the role of tutelary or patron deities for colonial communities in both newly established colonies and pre-Roman cities where colonies would have been established later on. Although, again as a consequence of the Gellian model, most scholars studying colonial cults have focused their attention on the Capitoline triad, colonies often had tutelary deities of their own. Bolder-Boos describes the variety of these tutelary deities and their respective backgrounds in the context of individual colonial communities. In contrast, Andrea Carini focuses on the role of a single god in different Roman colonial contexts: Apollo. Traditionally, Apollo has attracted the most attention in Greek colonial projects and contexts, whereas for Italy the association between Apollo and colonization has been studied far less systematically. Carini therefore takes up the evidence for Apollo in colonial settlements in Italy, including evidence that is often rejected or ignored, to conclude that Apollo, frequently together with Diana, also played a crucial role in the religious formulation of colonial communities in Italy. Daniela Liberatore presents fascinating new evidence from the sanctuary of Hercules in the forum of the colony of Alba Fucens (founded 303 B.C.). Recent excavations have revealed an exceptionally rich and well-preserved set of ceramics, votives, statuettes, altars, and inscriptions. This evidence sheds important new light on the relationships between natives and colonists and on the role played by cult places in negotiating these relationships. Many small votives and statuettes clearly refer to older ritual traditions from the region, while some ceramic forms and altars appear to have been introduced after the colonization of the area. Notably, the inscriptions on some altars are in Latin but mention local family names. Liberatore gauges the implication that this cult place functioned as a node in the new colonial reality by putting it into the broader perspective of regional cult places.
IV. The creation of Roman centrality The fourth and final part of the volume consists of two papers that discuss the importance of early Roman colonial models in slightly later periods. This section reopens discussion of how, and in what historical contexts expressions of Romanness were constructed, thus counterbalancing recent postcolonial endeavors that are arguably excessively deconstructive. Mario Torelli explores the flexible character of the religious and ideological ties of colonies to Rome by discussing the adoption and adaptation of the Capitoline model in imperial cities. In A.D. 100 Lepcis Magna, a Flavian city with Latin status, became a Roman colony, an event that apparently was not celebrated with special emphasis. Although a Capitolium temple, the building par excellence to signal colonial status in imperial times, was expected to be found at the site, archaeologists have not been able to identify any of the numerous temples located in the central area as the lepcitan Capitolium. Ingeniously, Torelli argues that an official cult place for the Capitoline triad indeed existed, but in a non-traditional form. Building on this new identification, Torelli discusses a series of Capitolia with exceptional layouts and their implications for our understanding of colonial religion. Lastly, Simone Sisani discusses the intricate relationship between the historiography of early Rome and Roman colonization by detangling the traditional connection between the boundary of the pomerium and the course of the city walls traced by a plough at the founding of the city (sulcus primigenius). In literary sources on ancient Rome, the pomerium and city walls are often closely associated and even
equated with one another. From other ancient Italic towns, however, we know that they are two fundamentally different types of boundaries. In this chapter, Sisani proposes that the confusion in ancient and modern texts alike is due to colonial practices in the Late Republican period, when no separate pomerium was marked out, but rather coincided with the city walls. The ‘Romulean’ colonial model practiced in later times was thus projected back onto the ancient city of Rome itself. Together these essays provide a wealth of new perspectives on Roman colonization and offer important new insights on this wide-ranging topic. We are confident that the multi-disciplinary collection of recent theories and evidence presented in this volume will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of Roman colonization and imperialism.
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