Bibliography
| Title: The Ruling Power: A Study of the Roman Empire in the Second Century after Christ through the Roman Oration of Aelius Aristides Secondary Title: TAPA Supplements n.s. 43, part 4 Type: Book Year: 1953 Abstract: "887-88 -- digression on the Roman army in sections 72-89 892-94 -- contrast with Tacitus (who deplores the imperial scene, despises the Greeks [B. Hardinghaus, Tacitus und das Griechentum, Münster diss. Emsdetten, 1932], pp. 55-66), thought in the Hist. that it could be reconciled with senatorial freedom, but by the Annals had come to see it as a thoroughly tyrannical institution. 893 -- 'Aristides had not interest in senatorial freedom of action. The principate he considered an essentially democratic institution like the Spartan ephorate and aristocratic like that of the early prytanis. Though it was also monarchical, it was not tyrannical per se (section 90), but came close to the philosophical ideal of kingship. The emperor supplied a necessary element of leadership.' -- this had something to do with the current emp -- Ant. Pius. 895-907: translation of the Roman Oration. sections 14-27: survey of previous, inferior empires: Persians (14-23) didn't know how to rule well, and their subjects didn't cooperate. 24-26 -- Alexander: didn't really establish anything, except Alexandria (for Rome, second to Rome), no laws, administration, civil codes, taxation, peace. . . 27-his successors: Macedonians who could not manage their own country, trying to rule others! They failed miserably. 28-33: harmony and efficiency of Roman administration. 34-36 Romans first to rule over free men. 36: "But just as those in states of one city appoint the magistrates to protect and care for the governed, so you, who conduct public business in the whole civilized world exactly as if it were one city state, appoint the governors, as is natural after elections, to protect and care for the governed, not to be slave masters over them. Therefore governor makes way for governor unobtrusively, when his time is up, and far from staying too long and disputing the land with his successor, he might easily not stay lng enough even to meet him." 37 -- men are ruled "only in so far as they are content to be ruled" (!!!) 40 -- resumes treatment of other powers with Hellenistic states 41 -- even poorer than Persian record 43 -- Athenians and Spartans (Lacedaems) managed to hold a few local territories: "wore themselves out around the sea, in pursuit of an hegemony which existed more in their dreams than within their powers of acquisition." 43-9 -- Spartan and Athenian misadventures and misunderstandings 50 -- then Thebans rose up and defeated the Spartans, but soon "no one could endure the Thebans" 51 -- all this is to illustrate that "the knowledge how to rule did not exist before your time" 55 -- absurdly, "they would make the rest, who had rebellion in mind themselves, go to war against those who were rebelling. It was much as if in doing so they were asking the very rebels to take the field against their own rebellion." -- accomplished the ooposite of their wish 57 -- no orderly system of imperial rule 58 -- imperial administration is a Roman discovery. 59-64 -- Roman citizenship a remarkable thing, extended to all others in this way. 72-89 -- the army, emphasis on its character as permanent, professional, standing, separated, equal with other citizens (unlike Egyptian army, which was also separate), highy disciplined in peace as in war, always training (87-8). 90--91 -- peerless mixed constitution. 103-9 -- Romans have brought peace and order to the world -- 106: Homer predicted Roman empire (cf. 106) -- "Earth common of all" (Iliad 15.189), and Iliad 20.307-8 "Now indeed shall the might [bi/h or race, variant geneh/] of Aeneas reign over the Trojans, and his children's children who shall come after him." Romans first made this real. -- Hesiod didn't have such prophetic powers, or he wouldn't have had the world begin with the Golden Race, or have the Iron Race end with men born with hoary temples. He didn't realize, unlike Homer, that the Romans were the Golden Race at the end, and that the Iron Race would be ended by their superb empire, full of Justice and Respect. NB: Here Aristides certainly appears to treat the Roman empire as the summum bonum of wor
ld history. BUT on p892 Oliver makes a big point of insisting that this material is thoroughly rhetorical and conditioned by its particular context in Rome, and should not be taken either as typical of Aristides' views of Rome (for he says much more in works addressed to Greeks) or much less of Greek elite views of Rome. Cf. also Swain. I SAY: use Aristides as a gauge of how far a Greek could go with rhetoric, realizing it was mere rhetoric and situtionally conditioned, in praising the Romans and their emperor. Shouldn't accuse him of betrayal, etc. Josephus doesn't go nearly this far". |