Emperors of Rome | Emperor and Empire (Lecture 28)

Lecture 28: We next consider the question of the emperor’s position in relation to the wider empire. How could an empire as vast and diverse as Rome’s survive the mismanagement of the likes of Caligula, Nero, Commodus, or Elagabalus? The secret lay in the unique, decentralized administrative structures the Romans employed in running their realm. Imperial administration comprised a hierarchy of authority levels, each capable of functioning independently of the other. From municipal authorities at the ground level, to representatives of the emperor’s power at the provincial level, to the emperor himself at the top, the empire was largely able to run itself. The degree of the emperor’s involvement in administrative affairs was mostly a personal choice. If the ruler chose to devote himself to private proclivities or vent his paranoia on the ruling classes, it mattered little to the rest of the empire. Civil wars were destabilizing, of course, but largely localized in their impact. The emperor, then, was little more than a figurehead, a
man few Romans ever saw in the flesh and fewer dealt with directly.

Essential Reading:
Aelius Aristides, Oration 26 (“To Rome”).
Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 18–20; The Jewish War, book 2.
Pliny, Epistles, book 10.

Supplementary Reading:
Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty.
Garnsey and Saller, The Roman Empire, especially pp. 5–40.
Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbors, especially pp. 1–103.