Pierre-Luc Brisson
Professeur d'histoire romaine, Université Laval (Québec, Canada). Membre associé au Centre de recherches en histoire internationale et Atlantique (CRHIA) et chercheur au groupe interdisciplinaire Guerres Espaces Représentations (GER).
Address: Pavillon Charles-De Koninck
1030, avenue des Sciences-Humaines
Bureau 5260
Université Laval
Québec (Québec) G1V 0A6
Address: Pavillon Charles-De Koninck
1030, avenue des Sciences-Humaines
Bureau 5260
Université Laval
Québec (Québec) G1V 0A6
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However, the negotiations stalled on the refusal of the Macedonian king to pay the sums required by Eumenes as the price of his intervention. Polybius summarized the failure of the talks by resorting to a moralistic interpretation: "What, then, was the reason of this evident folly on both sides? Avarice: what else could we say? For the one prince, to receive a gift which dishonored him, neglected all other considerations, and undertook to do any dirty service; while the other, to save giving it, was ready to suffer any disaster and shut his eyes to all consequences.'' (Polyb. 29.9.12)
As Polybius recognized, Eumenes’ actions seemed inconsistent, and at odds with the policy he carried towards Rome for over twenty years. Despite Polybius’ doubts that we cannot entirely discard, was Eumenes’ position understandable from a strategic point of view? This paper thus proposes a reconsideration of the diplomatic negotiations between Eumenes and Macedonia by showing that it could, on the contrary, pursue a coherent strategic objective for the Pergamene throne: to ensure the autonomy of Pergamon without calling into question Rome’s hegemony. It is a phenomenon that scholars of international relations refer to as 'leash-slipping.'
In 146 BCE, the Roman troops commanded by Scipio Aemilianus laid siege to the hill of Byrsa, the last place of Carthaginian resistance, at the end of a three-year siege of the Punic metropolis. Appian describes the final moments of the siege with great imagery, which gave rise to scenes of extreme violence. Based on the testimony of the African Book (ΛΙΒΥΚΗ), this presentation aims to restore in all its complexity the highly anxiety-provoking environment of the battle, to understand the traumatic experience of the Roman soldier. Beyond the literary devices and rhetorical effects of Appian’s work, the careful study of the vocabulary of war will allow us to try to restore the sound environment of the battles and the experience felt by the soldier. This approach will allow us to nuance contemporary judgments on Roman soldiers, too often presented as killers and rapists, ‘thoroughly inured to slaughter’ (Harris 2016: 53).
The study of Roman warfare in urban settings (with its own specificities; see Levithan 2013), paralleled by recent studies of combat experience, seems to be a promising avenue for better understanding some of the facets of Roman imperialism in the second century BCE.
Paullus’ speech gives us the opportunity to study the various locations and moments where and when Roman public opinion was formed and expressed. The contio here acted, as F. Pina Polo has pointed out, as the « only legal way in which direct mass contact between Roman politicians and the people was allowed » (2012 : 50), an element that was correctly emphasized by C. Nicolet in his seminal study, Le métier de citoyen dans la Rome antique (1976). By analyzing Paullus’ speech, we shall also try to assess the impact of public opinion on Rome’s foreign policy during the mid-Republican period, at a crucial time in the history of Roman expansion in the Mediterranean world. Far from being a period of perfect consensus between the Roman senatorial aristocracy and the populus, this remarkable speech shows the various differing opinions that were then animating Rome’s public life in the first half of the 2nd century BCE.
Some scholars argued that the great asymmetry of power within a unipolar system can have important consequences, both at the system and state levels. Indeed, many IR theorists postulate that unipolar systems would be inherently peaceful, given the fact that there could be no power competition in the absence of a second great power. Yet a close study of the current international system since the end of the Cold War – and of the Ancient Hellenistic system dominated by Rome – shows that war often occurs in such periods. As a matter of fact, unipolarity tends to exacerbate the security concerns of minor powers, who can rely no more on other great powers in order to balance against a more aggressive state. Moreover, power asymmetry also has great consequences for the unipoles and their political elites who, because of their hegemonic position in the international order, tend to develop stereotyped images of their foreign rivals. This phenomenon, known as the ‘enemy image’, was outlined by Ch.J. Fettweis (Tulane University) in a recent study (2018) : ‘Leaders of powerful countries must split their time among many international interests, and as a result the quality of their decision making can be expected to suffer. They are more likely to employ heuristics, or mental shortcuts, the dangers of which are well known to political scientists.’
Building on these theoretical concepts, I will emphasize the impacts of international unipolarity on Rome’s perception of Carthage. This study on the formation of the ‘enemy image’ among the senatorial elite and the Roman people (better known by historians as the 'metus Punicus') should help us understand the development of military tensions in North Africa during the first half of the 2nd century BC, and the brutal destruction of the Punic metropolis that ensued in 146 BC.
C’est donc en tenant compte de la volonté manifeste de l’historien de faire des deux hommes les deux faces d’un même personnage janusien que nous serons à même de poser une regard plus complet sur ces événements importants. Notre analyse se déploiera en deux temps. D’abord, nous nous pencherons sur les portraits de Paul-Émile et de Scipion Émilien en relevant les points de concordance entre le père et le fils. Nous constaterons que non seulement ces deux personnages partagent des traits de caractère similaires, mais qu’ils incarnent, pour l’historien, les vertus cardinales du général et de l’homme d’État idéal. Ensuite, nous procèderons à une analyse détaillée des épisodes de capitulation, en relevant les nombreuses similarités entre les deux récits, notamment : la caractérisation des adversaires des deux généraux romains, la concordance dans la séquence des événements et le geste même de la reddition, ainsi que les réflexions de Paul-Émile et d’Émilien sur le rôle de la Τύχη dans les affaires humaines. Au terme de cette analyse, ces deux événements nous apparaîtront avant tout comme une preuve supplémentaire de la volonté de Polybe de restituer, d’un point de vue littéraire, la vie de son ami Émilien au-travers de celle de son père Paul-Émile, en mobilisant dans son processus de composition les thèmes récurrents de sa réflexion politique et de sa méthode historique.
Book Reviews
Books
Keywords: Roman imperialism; Roman Republic; neorealism; unipolarity; Third Macedonian War; Third Punic War; Fourth Macedonian War ; Achaean War.
Résumé: Cette étude propose une réinterprétation des événements ayant marqué la Méditerranée hellénistique pendant la première moitié du IIe siècle a.C. Cette période fut caractérisée notamment par l’affer- missement de l’hégémonie romaine sur le monde grec et l’affaissement consécutif des grandes monarchies gréco-macédoniennes. En recourant aux théories néoréalistes développées dans le champ des relations internationales contemporaines, le monde méditerranéen, au lendemain de la paix d’Apamée (188) et jusqu’à la destruction des cités de Carthage et Corinthe (146), est considéré comme un système interna- tional unipolaire alors dominé par Rome. Le recours à la théorie de l’unipolarité permettra de circonscrire les dynamiques systémiques qui ont influencé la politique extérieure du Sénat romain et celle de ses principaux adversaires, et de démontrer comment cette configuration unipolaire, loin de pacifier le système, a au contraire exacerbé les préoccupations sécuritaires de ces acteurs internationaux. Ainsi, l’expansion de la puissance romaine apparaîtra non pas comme le résultat d’un prétendu bellicisme qui aurait caractérisé la société romaine à l’époque médio-républicaine, mais bien comme la consé- quence des préoccupations sécuritaires de Rome, accentuées par sa position d’unipôle du système méditerranéen.
Mots clés : Impérialisme romain ; République romaine ; unipolarité ; dilemme de sécurité; Troisième Guerre de Macédoine; Troisième Guerre punique ; Quatrième Guerre de Macédoine ; Guerre d’Achaïe.
However, the negotiations stalled on the refusal of the Macedonian king to pay the sums required by Eumenes as the price of his intervention. Polybius summarized the failure of the talks by resorting to a moralistic interpretation: "What, then, was the reason of this evident folly on both sides? Avarice: what else could we say? For the one prince, to receive a gift which dishonored him, neglected all other considerations, and undertook to do any dirty service; while the other, to save giving it, was ready to suffer any disaster and shut his eyes to all consequences.'' (Polyb. 29.9.12)
As Polybius recognized, Eumenes’ actions seemed inconsistent, and at odds with the policy he carried towards Rome for over twenty years. Despite Polybius’ doubts that we cannot entirely discard, was Eumenes’ position understandable from a strategic point of view? This paper thus proposes a reconsideration of the diplomatic negotiations between Eumenes and Macedonia by showing that it could, on the contrary, pursue a coherent strategic objective for the Pergamene throne: to ensure the autonomy of Pergamon without calling into question Rome’s hegemony. It is a phenomenon that scholars of international relations refer to as 'leash-slipping.'
In 146 BCE, the Roman troops commanded by Scipio Aemilianus laid siege to the hill of Byrsa, the last place of Carthaginian resistance, at the end of a three-year siege of the Punic metropolis. Appian describes the final moments of the siege with great imagery, which gave rise to scenes of extreme violence. Based on the testimony of the African Book (ΛΙΒΥΚΗ), this presentation aims to restore in all its complexity the highly anxiety-provoking environment of the battle, to understand the traumatic experience of the Roman soldier. Beyond the literary devices and rhetorical effects of Appian’s work, the careful study of the vocabulary of war will allow us to try to restore the sound environment of the battles and the experience felt by the soldier. This approach will allow us to nuance contemporary judgments on Roman soldiers, too often presented as killers and rapists, ‘thoroughly inured to slaughter’ (Harris 2016: 53).
The study of Roman warfare in urban settings (with its own specificities; see Levithan 2013), paralleled by recent studies of combat experience, seems to be a promising avenue for better understanding some of the facets of Roman imperialism in the second century BCE.
Paullus’ speech gives us the opportunity to study the various locations and moments where and when Roman public opinion was formed and expressed. The contio here acted, as F. Pina Polo has pointed out, as the « only legal way in which direct mass contact between Roman politicians and the people was allowed » (2012 : 50), an element that was correctly emphasized by C. Nicolet in his seminal study, Le métier de citoyen dans la Rome antique (1976). By analyzing Paullus’ speech, we shall also try to assess the impact of public opinion on Rome’s foreign policy during the mid-Republican period, at a crucial time in the history of Roman expansion in the Mediterranean world. Far from being a period of perfect consensus between the Roman senatorial aristocracy and the populus, this remarkable speech shows the various differing opinions that were then animating Rome’s public life in the first half of the 2nd century BCE.
Some scholars argued that the great asymmetry of power within a unipolar system can have important consequences, both at the system and state levels. Indeed, many IR theorists postulate that unipolar systems would be inherently peaceful, given the fact that there could be no power competition in the absence of a second great power. Yet a close study of the current international system since the end of the Cold War – and of the Ancient Hellenistic system dominated by Rome – shows that war often occurs in such periods. As a matter of fact, unipolarity tends to exacerbate the security concerns of minor powers, who can rely no more on other great powers in order to balance against a more aggressive state. Moreover, power asymmetry also has great consequences for the unipoles and their political elites who, because of their hegemonic position in the international order, tend to develop stereotyped images of their foreign rivals. This phenomenon, known as the ‘enemy image’, was outlined by Ch.J. Fettweis (Tulane University) in a recent study (2018) : ‘Leaders of powerful countries must split their time among many international interests, and as a result the quality of their decision making can be expected to suffer. They are more likely to employ heuristics, or mental shortcuts, the dangers of which are well known to political scientists.’
Building on these theoretical concepts, I will emphasize the impacts of international unipolarity on Rome’s perception of Carthage. This study on the formation of the ‘enemy image’ among the senatorial elite and the Roman people (better known by historians as the 'metus Punicus') should help us understand the development of military tensions in North Africa during the first half of the 2nd century BC, and the brutal destruction of the Punic metropolis that ensued in 146 BC.
C’est donc en tenant compte de la volonté manifeste de l’historien de faire des deux hommes les deux faces d’un même personnage janusien que nous serons à même de poser une regard plus complet sur ces événements importants. Notre analyse se déploiera en deux temps. D’abord, nous nous pencherons sur les portraits de Paul-Émile et de Scipion Émilien en relevant les points de concordance entre le père et le fils. Nous constaterons que non seulement ces deux personnages partagent des traits de caractère similaires, mais qu’ils incarnent, pour l’historien, les vertus cardinales du général et de l’homme d’État idéal. Ensuite, nous procèderons à une analyse détaillée des épisodes de capitulation, en relevant les nombreuses similarités entre les deux récits, notamment : la caractérisation des adversaires des deux généraux romains, la concordance dans la séquence des événements et le geste même de la reddition, ainsi que les réflexions de Paul-Émile et d’Émilien sur le rôle de la Τύχη dans les affaires humaines. Au terme de cette analyse, ces deux événements nous apparaîtront avant tout comme une preuve supplémentaire de la volonté de Polybe de restituer, d’un point de vue littéraire, la vie de son ami Émilien au-travers de celle de son père Paul-Émile, en mobilisant dans son processus de composition les thèmes récurrents de sa réflexion politique et de sa méthode historique.
Keywords: Roman imperialism; Roman Republic; neorealism; unipolarity; Third Macedonian War; Third Punic War; Fourth Macedonian War ; Achaean War.
Résumé: Cette étude propose une réinterprétation des événements ayant marqué la Méditerranée hellénistique pendant la première moitié du IIe siècle a.C. Cette période fut caractérisée notamment par l’affer- missement de l’hégémonie romaine sur le monde grec et l’affaissement consécutif des grandes monarchies gréco-macédoniennes. En recourant aux théories néoréalistes développées dans le champ des relations internationales contemporaines, le monde méditerranéen, au lendemain de la paix d’Apamée (188) et jusqu’à la destruction des cités de Carthage et Corinthe (146), est considéré comme un système interna- tional unipolaire alors dominé par Rome. Le recours à la théorie de l’unipolarité permettra de circonscrire les dynamiques systémiques qui ont influencé la politique extérieure du Sénat romain et celle de ses principaux adversaires, et de démontrer comment cette configuration unipolaire, loin de pacifier le système, a au contraire exacerbé les préoccupations sécuritaires de ces acteurs internationaux. Ainsi, l’expansion de la puissance romaine apparaîtra non pas comme le résultat d’un prétendu bellicisme qui aurait caractérisé la société romaine à l’époque médio-républicaine, mais bien comme la consé- quence des préoccupations sécuritaires de Rome, accentuées par sa position d’unipôle du système méditerranéen.
Mots clés : Impérialisme romain ; République romaine ; unipolarité ; dilemme de sécurité; Troisième Guerre de Macédoine; Troisième Guerre punique ; Quatrième Guerre de Macédoine ; Guerre d’Achaïe.
L’ambition de ce livre est à la fois simple et démesurée: sans sacrifier l’érudition aux impératifs de la vulgarisation, il offre un aperçu des grands jalons d’une histoire romaine qui peut, et parfois doit, s’écrire au présent et qui est enrichie par les avancées scientifiques récentes. Dans une nouvelle édition refondue, cette brève synthèse propose donc un survol général de l’histoire de la civilisation romaine, de la fondation semi-légendaire de la Ville au VIIIe siècle av. J.-C., jusqu’à la disparition de l’Empire en Occident au Ve siècle. Elle permet à l’étudiant ou au lecteur curieux de poser les principaux jalons de cette histoire, tout en offrant une introduction aux grandes tendances de la recherche contemporaine dans le monde francophone et anglo-américain."
Compte rendu dans les carnets de la REA:
https://reainfo.hypotheses.org/22765?fbclid=IwAR3tKdhRg53mNIPineY2TEUcME6aY33_MLPTn_dJdhuv3hS-n3vs1eLBLvA
Mots clés : impérialisme romain ; République romaine ; historiographie romaine ; hégémonie romaine ; empire romain.
Abstract : This article examines the development of contemporary historiography devoted to the origins of Roman imperialism in the mid-republican period (3rd-2nd centuries BCE). It will provide an overview of the so-called "defensive" theses, developed since the end of the 19th century, and then of the "offensive" thesis put forward in the 1970s, before addressing, in the final analysis, the historiographical turn represented by the work of historians linked to what could be called the "Anglo-American" school. In doing so, this article proposes a re-evaluation of the "offensive" paradigm, so far largely dominant in scholarly production following the work of W. V. Harris, and a reformulation of the defensive paradigm in light of a new interdisciplinary approach to the subject that focuses on the characteristics of the Roman superpower.
Open Edition: https://journals.openedition.org/mefra/6980
Abstract: This article proposes a reinterpretation of the causes of the Third Punic War (149-146 BC), using contemporary theories of international relations. Based on the work of N.P. Monteiro, we shall consider the Hellenistic Mediterranean world, in the years after the treaty of Apamea (188 BC), as a unipolar system, dominated by Rome. By resorting to the theories of unipolarity, we shall circumscribe the structural dynamics that may have influenced the Senate of Carthage to go to war against Numidia, as well as the Roman Senate to intervene in North Africa in order to maintain its unipolar power status.
In 166 B.C., Antiochus IV Epiphanes organised important Pan- hellenic festivities in Daphne, near Antioch on the Orontes, as well as a major show of military might that had a significant impact on Hellenistic public opinion. Polybius tells us that these festivities aimed to outdo Aemilius Paullus’ festivities in Amphipolis (167 B.C.) that highlighted his previous victory over Macedonia. While some recent analyses have refuted Polybius’ interpretation, a close look at Epiphanes’ foreign policy, influenced by the consolidation of Rome’s position as a unipolar power in the Mediterranean world, can to the contrary validate the Polybian narrative. More importantly, it allows us to shed new light on Epiphanes’ diplomatic action during this crucial period.