09-29-2009, 07:24 PM
Salvete!
I was thinking today about Alexander the great`s problems as a ruler of greek, macedonian veterans and persian people etc. Alexander found himself in a schizophrenic situation having to be a king to greeks & macedonians and somewhat larger than life figure as "king of kings" for the persians. This led to the situations like the "proskynesis" (prostration) incident and rejection / abhorrence of it by his macedonian comrades. Suddenly I started to think about rome`s third century emperors and how they started to get little by little more oriental influences in handling the empire & court, being clearly visible by the time of Diocletian. It is usually explained away by growing amount of contacts with the sassanids etc. It occurred to me that could the reason for "orientalizing" of the roman emperors have something to do with the background of the so called soldier emperors of the third century?
The close-cropped soldier emperors of the crisis- filled third century were usually from humbler backgrounds, from the danube area provinces etc. They certainly didn`t have the time and opportunity to learn all the eloquence (in greek and latin) and form the political relations needed (with the senate in Rome etc.) to run the empire succesfully like the emperors in the previous centuries had to. So did the more ritualized way of ruling with greater outward signs of power & more elaborate court routines offer a kind of readymade tool / framework to rule the empire in a time when emperors sometimes didn`t even see Rome in their lifetime and the traditional ways to rule the empire didn`t work anymore (like dealing with the senate in a more subtle ways etc.)?
The rulers of the persian empire ("king of kings") did have as their subjects vast amount of people / peoples and perhaps the only way to rule them effectively was having an identity of this kind highly-formalized demigod and not some "inherent" cruelty in in oriental persons? I will apologize if this sounds silly but could there be any grounds of thinking more pragmatically about third century roman emperors and their "new" conduct too in this context?
I was thinking today about Alexander the great`s problems as a ruler of greek, macedonian veterans and persian people etc. Alexander found himself in a schizophrenic situation having to be a king to greeks & macedonians and somewhat larger than life figure as "king of kings" for the persians. This led to the situations like the "proskynesis" (prostration) incident and rejection / abhorrence of it by his macedonian comrades. Suddenly I started to think about rome`s third century emperors and how they started to get little by little more oriental influences in handling the empire & court, being clearly visible by the time of Diocletian. It is usually explained away by growing amount of contacts with the sassanids etc. It occurred to me that could the reason for "orientalizing" of the roman emperors have something to do with the background of the so called soldier emperors of the third century?
The close-cropped soldier emperors of the crisis- filled third century were usually from humbler backgrounds, from the danube area provinces etc. They certainly didn`t have the time and opportunity to learn all the eloquence (in greek and latin) and form the political relations needed (with the senate in Rome etc.) to run the empire succesfully like the emperors in the previous centuries had to. So did the more ritualized way of ruling with greater outward signs of power & more elaborate court routines offer a kind of readymade tool / framework to rule the empire in a time when emperors sometimes didn`t even see Rome in their lifetime and the traditional ways to rule the empire didn`t work anymore (like dealing with the senate in a more subtle ways etc.)?
The rulers of the persian empire ("king of kings") did have as their subjects vast amount of people / peoples and perhaps the only way to rule them effectively was having an identity of this kind highly-formalized demigod and not some "inherent" cruelty in in oriental persons? I will apologize if this sounds silly but could there be any grounds of thinking more pragmatically about third century roman emperors and their "new" conduct too in this context?
Virilis / Jyrki Halme
PHILODOX
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PHILODOX
Moderator
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