the Empire looked much as it had when he had inherited it - just with a bit more of everything
Goals af
Comment on Antoninus Pius on some wu wei shit. Action by inaction.
PugJesus@piefed.social 2 days ago
Explanation: Antoninus Pius is one of the longer-reigning Emperors of the Roman Empire. Why does no one remember him? Because he did nothing.
Not literally nothing, but his reign contained little in the way of excitement. No great invasions or defenses, no fundamental reforms in yet another misguided attempt at adulation or military glory, no crisis that was allowed to blossom to such a stage. Just a quiet, diligent man who was noted to enjoy fishing in his down time, keeping a steady hand on the tiller of state. When his ~23 year reign was over, letting the gears of government turn with nothing more than addressing problems and clarifying legal issues as they arose, the Empire looked much as it had when he had inherited it - just with a bit more of everything - charitable organizations, completed infrastructure projects, legal protections, slave rights (but still slavery, because the past is a shitty place), money in the treasury…
Antoninus Pius did nothing, actively. By inaction, he chose the best possible course of action in his reign. o7
Wu wei is a Taoist concept Romans were unlikely to have been aware of.
sober_monk@lemmy.world 2 days ago
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 days ago
So how rare was that? I mean, how likely was it for a Roman citizen to witness war or some revolution? I was driving along Via de la Plata the other day (even stopped to see some actual Roman road) and I was thinking… Romans conquered the Celts around 200 BC and stayed there until Visigoths arrived in ~400 AC. I’m not aware of any invasions happening in that period. Did people in the Iberian peninsula really live through 600 years of peace?
PugJesus@piefed.social 2 days ago
Depends on the region! Iberia wasn’t pacified until the late 1st century BCE, so up until then, there would have been intermittent wars between Roman occupiers and Iberian tribes. But for a good ~200 years, the only war Iberia was involved in was the civil war in 69 AD (nice), which was fairly short and largely didn’t take place in Spain. There was also a rebellion a few years before that, though localized to only part of Iberia. Ironically, Italy was hit much harder in 69 AD. Suffering from success - or at least importance!
Starting at the Crisis of the Third Century, in the, uh, 3rd century AD, civil war became a much more common occurrence, but even then, large-scale invasions and destruction (minor incursions of raiders and pirates aside, and civil wars, which were generally much less destructive than invasions) wouldn’t visit Iberia until, as you noted, the Visigoths arrived. So you could consider it to have had a good ~400 years of peace - Pax Romana! Or ~300-350 if you want to count from the rebellion in the 60s.
Why so many people submitted for so long to Roman rule, and even identified themselves as Romans - was that Rome did bring peace for most people, if not always a just one (and with the threat of war should their notion of peace be interrupted) for the first ~200-300 years of the Empire. With the notion that everything you have and everyone you know could easily be swept away in wartime, with tribal migrations often having a component of what we would today regard as ethnic cleansing, peace becomes… much more precious.
Most provinces experienced something similar - though border provinces always had some amount of cross-border raiding to deal with, and penetration of the borders became more common in the Crisis of the Third Century. Largely, though, the inner regions of the Empire enjoyed peace, even as the institutions of the Empire fell apart under the strain of incompetent elites and outside pressure, and it wasn’t until the mid-4th century AD that war really started to roll over ordinary people like the pre-Roman days.
Of course, by that time, the Empire itself had become such a shit deal that many ordinary people preferred the invaders to the Romans, unlike at the height of the Empire, when it could rely on the loyalty and even participation of poor folk in repelling invaders.
Semjeza@fedinsfw.app 2 days ago
Lovely details, my classical history is weak so always happy to be served more details.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 days ago
400 years of peace… Must have been nice!
BTW, can you really say “Iberian tribes”? There were Celts in the north of peninsula which were not really Iberian and mediterranean cost had phoneticians. Real Ibers lived only in valleys in southern Spain. I mean, I know you meant “the tribes that were present on the Iberian peninsula”, I just think it’s interesting actual Ibers only occupied smart portion of it.
PugJesus@piefed.social 2 days ago
‘Celtiberian’ is the usual term for those, I think. Regardless, you’re correct that I’m using ‘Iberian’ broadly.