2003 Goodwin Prize
Citation
Clifford Ando
Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty
in the Roman Empire
University of California Press, 2000
Why
did the Roman empire last so long? As the author of the
book recommended for this year's award remarks, that
question has been asked less often than the alternative,
Why did the Roman empire fall? Yet the empire's
durability is not only an impressive achievement in
itself, it is also -- viewed in relation to other empires
of the ancient Mediterranean -- more unexpected than its
fall. Once posed, the question does seem to demand an
answer; and in his book, Imperial Ideology and
Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, Clifford
Ando marshalls the resources of scholarship, political
theory, and argument in a way that does justice to the
topic's importance.
The
answer that Ando presents is in its own way unexpected
too. Though he does not by any
means ignore or diminish the importance of Roman arms and
the actual or potential use of force to achieve and
maintain order, his emphasis lies elsewhere, in how Roman
rule sought legitimacy both in its self-representation
and in its practice. He
starts by paying the Romans the compliment of believing
that over the course of the generations they actually
took the job of governing seriously; and he pays
the provincials the compliment of believing that they
were as shrewd on their side, in 'working the system' in
their own interests, as the Romans were on theirs. So a
picture emerges, not of brutal masters merely oppressing
servile subjects, but of parties engaged in a play of
constant and intricate communication, unequal in power no
doubt, but intelligent, canny, and responsive. The
picture, in fact, looks reassuringly human.
In
assembling this picture Ando commands an astonishing
range of ancient evidence and scholarly discussion and is
aided by an apt reliance on contemporary political
theory. Developing the Habermasian concept of consensus,
in particular, he demonstrates how the constant stream of
communication between center and periphery worked to
create and maintain a shared and agreed upon sense of the
possible, which in turn was crucial in securing the
loyalties of the empire's inhabitants. The demonstration
is forthright in its ample discussion of the evidence,
acute in finding illumination in some unexpected
quarters, and generous in making the basis of its
arguments plain to the reader. It is, in all these ways,
an exemplary work of contemporary scholarship.
Respectfully
submitted by the Committee on the C. J.Goodwin Award of
Merit for 2003:
Bob
Kaster, Chair
Ruth
Scodel
W. R.
Connor