It was as part of this period that theRoman Empire achieved its greatest territorial extent underTrajan in 117.[2] Additionally, the Roman Empire's population is estimated to have peaked at 70 million people during the Pax Romana, accounting for 33% of the world's population.[3] Following the Pax Romana, and according toCassius Dio, the dictatorial reign ofCommodus, later followed by theYear of the Five Emperors and theCrisis of the Third Century, marked Rome's descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".[4]
Extent of the Roman Empire under Augustus. Yellow represents the extent of the Republic in 31 BC, while green represents gradually conquered territories under the reign of Augustus, and pink areas representclient states.
The Pax Romana, spanning from 27 BC to 180, stands as one of the longest enduring periods of peace in history. However,Walter Goffart wrote: "The volume of theCambridge Ancient History for the years AD 70–192 is called 'The Imperial Peace', but peace is not what one finds in its pages".[5] On the other hand,Arthur M. Eckstein writes that the period must be viewed in contrast to the much more frequent warfare in the 3rd and 4th centuries BC under theRoman Republic.
Eckstein also notes that the initial Pax Romana appeared during theRepublic, and that its temporal span varied upon geographical region as well: "Although the standard textbook dates for the Pax Romana, the famous 'Roman Peace' in theMediterranean, are 31 BC to AD 250, the fact is that the Roman Peace was emerging in large regions of the Mediterranean at a much earlier date:Sicily after 210 [BC], theItalian Peninsula after 200 [BC]; thePo Valley after 190 [BC]; most of theIberian Peninsula after 133 [BC];North Africa after 100 [BC]; and for ever longer stretches of time in theGreek East."[6]Thomas F. Madden explained the dating of 27 BC as avoiding the civil wars of the 1st century BC. The real origins of Pax Romana for him are in the 2nd century BC, after Rome had eliminated all of its serious military rivals and brought an unprecedented peace and prosperity to the lands of their empire.[7]Tim Cornell argued that Pax Romana in the sense of the absence of major inter-state wars began in the Second century BC. Over the course of the last two centuries of the Republic, the character and frequency of these wars declined. Almost continuous warfare in the Fourth and Third centuries BC became sporadic and punctuated by long periods of peace.[8]
The first known record of the termPax Romana appears in a writing bySeneca the Younger in AD 55.[9] The concept was highly influential, and the subject of theories and attempts to copy it in subsequent ages.Arnaldo Momigliano noted that "Pax Romana is a simple formula forpropaganda, but a difficult subject for research."[10]
For most historians, the Pax Romana began when Octavian (Augustus) defeatedMark Antony andCleopatra in theBattle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC and became Roman emperor.[1][11][3] He becameprinceps, orfirst citizen. Lacking a good precedent of successful one-man rule, Augustus created ajunta of the greatest military magnates and stood as the front man. By binding together these leading magnates in a coalition, he eliminated the prospect ofcivil war. The Pax Romana was not immediate, despite the end of the civil wars, because fighting continued inHispania and in theAlps. Nevertheless, Augustus closed theGates of Janus (a ceremony indicating that Rome was at peace) three times,[12] first in 29 BC and again in 25 BC. The third closure is undocumented, butInez Scott Ryberg (1949) and Gaius Stern (2006) have persuasively dated the third closure to 13 BC with the commissioning of theAra Pacis.[13][14][15] At the time of theLudi Saeculares in 17 BC the Concept of Peace was publicized, and in 13 BC was proclaimed when Augustus andAgrippa jointly returned from pacifyingHispania and theAlps. The order to construct the Ara Pacis was probably part of this announcement.[16]
Romans regarded peace not as an absence of war, but as a rare situation which existed when all opponents had been beaten down and lost the ability to resist.[10] Augustus' challenge was to persuade Romans that the prosperity they could achieve in the absence of warfare was better for the Empire than the potential wealth and honor acquired when fighting a risky war. Augustus succeeded by means of skillful propaganda.Subsequent emperors followed his lead, sometimes producing lavish ceremonies to close theGates of Janus, issuing coins with Pax on the reverse, and patronizing literature extolling the benefits of the Pax Romana.[14]
After Augustus' death in AD 14, most of his successors as Roman emperors continued his politics. The last five emperors of the Pax Romana are known as the "Five Good Emperors".[3]
Roman trade in theMediterranean increased during the Pax Romana. Romans sailed East to acquiresilks, gems,onyx and spices. Romans benefited from large profits, and incomes in the Roman empire were raised due to trade in the Mediterranean.[17][18]
As the Pax Romana of the western world by Rome was largely contemporaneous to thePax Sinica of the eastern world byHan China,[19][20] long-distance travel and trade inEurasian history was significantly stimulated during these eras.[20]
The prominence of the concept of thePax Romana led to historians coining variants of the term to describe other systems of relative peace that have been established, attempted, or argued to have existed. Some variants include:[1][21]
More generically, the concept has been referred to aspax imperia[22][23] (sometimes misspelled aspax imperium[24]), meaningimperial peace,[25][26] or—less literally—hegemonic peace.[26][27]Raymond Aron notes that imperial peace—peace achieved throughhegemony can—sometimes, but not always—become civil peace. As an example, theGerman Empire's imperial peace of 1871 (over its internal components likeSaxony) slowly evolved into the later German state. As a counter-example, the imperial peace ofAlexander the Great's empire dissolved because the Greekcity states maintained their political identity. Aron notes that during the Pax Romana, theFirst Jewish–Roman War was a reminder that the overlapping of the imperial institutions over the local ones did not erase them and the overlap was a source of tension and flare-ups. Aron summarizes that, "In other words,imperial peace becomes civil peace insofar as the memory of the previously independent political units are effaced, insofar as individuals within a pacified zone feel themselves less united to the traditional or local community and more to the conquering state."[25]
The concept of Pax Romana was highly influential, and there were attempts to imitate it in theByzantine Empire, and in theChristian West, where it morphed into thePeace and Truce of God (pax Dei andtreuga Dei).[26] A theoretician of the imperial peace during the Middle Ages wasDante Aligheri. Dante's works on the topic were analyzed at the beginning of the 20th century byWilliam Mitchell Ramsay in the bookThe Imperial Peace: An Ideal in European History (1913).[28][29]
^Madden, Thomas F. (2008).Empires of Trust: How Rome Built—and America Is Building—a New World. (Dutton Adult), p 197.
^Cornell, Tim (1993). "The End of Roman Imperial Expansion."War and Society in the Roman World. (Eds. John Rich and Graham Shipley. London: Routledge), p. 156.
^Davis, Paul K. (1999).100 Decisive Battles from Ancient Times to the Present: The World's Major Battles and How They Shaped History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 63.ISBN978-1-5760-7075-8.
^Augustus states inRes Gestae 13 that he closed the Gates three times, a fact documented by many other historians (SeeGates of Janus).
^Temin, Peter (2013).The Roman market economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 13.ISBN9780691147680.OCLC784708336.
^Goldsworthy, Adrian Keith (2016).Pax Romana : war, peace, and conquest in the Roman world. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 392.ISBN9780300178821.OCLC941874968.
^Plott, John C. (1989).Global History of Philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. p. 57.ISBN9788120804562.
Burton, Paul. 2011. "Pax Romana/Pax Americana: Perceptions of Rome in American Political Culture, 2000–2010".International Journal of Classical Tradition 18.1:66–104.JSTOR41474687.
Cornwell, Hannah. 2017.Pax and the Politics of Peace: Republic to Principate. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Galinsky, Karl. 2012.Augustus: Introduction to the Life of an Emperor. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hardwick, Lorna. 2000. "Concepts of Peace". InExperiencing Rome: Culture, Identity and Power in the Roman Empire, edited by Janet Huskinson, 335–368. London: Routledge.
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