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Print Price: $104.50

Format:
Hardback
272 pp.
17 b/w illustrations, 135 mm x 216 mm

ISBN-13:
9780198805632

Publication date:
August 2017

Imprint: OUP UK

Pax and the Politics of Peace

Republic to Principate

Hannah Cornwell

Series : Oxford Classical Monographs

Perhaps in defiance of expectations, Roman peace (pax) was a difficult concept that resisted any straightforward definition: not merely denoting the absence or aftermath of war, it consisted of many layers and associations and formed part of a much greater discourse on the nature of power and how Rome saw her place in the world. During the period from 50 BC to AD 75 - covering the collapse of the Republic, the subsequent civil wars, and the dawn of the Principate - the traditional meaning and language of peace came under extreme pressure as pax was co-opted to serve different strands of political discourse. This volume argues for its fundamental centrality in understanding the changing dynamics of the state and the creation of a new political system in the Roman Empire, moving from the debates over the content of the concept in the dying Republic to discussion of its deployment in the legitimization of the Augustan regime, first through the creation of an authorized version controlled by the princeps and then the ultimate crystallization of the pax augusta as the first wholly imperial concept of peace. Examining the nuances in the various meanings, applications, and contexts of Roman discourse on peace allows us valuable insight into the ways in which the dynamics of power were understood and how these were contingent on the political structures of the day. However it also demonstrates that although the idea of peace came to dominate imperial Rome's self-representation, such discourse was nevertheless only part of a wider discussion on the way in which the Empire conceptualized itself.

Readership : Scholars and students of Roman history, politics, and archaeology, especially of the fall of the Republic and early Augustan period, as well as war studies.

Frontmatter
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Roman Imperialism and the Meaning of Peace
1. The Meaning of pax
Perceptions of Peace
pax in the Landscape of the Republic
The Visual Language of pax
The Development of pax
2. Peace in Civil War
Shifts in Political Language
Visions and Versions of pax
- Possibilities of negotiating peace
- Debates on the meaning of pax
The Victory of Peace
3. Peace over Land and Sea
The Rhetoric of terra marique and orbis terrarum
- The Sicilian prelude
- The commemorations of 29 BC
A City of Victory and Peace over Land and Sea
4. Peace in the New Age of Augustus
The Year of 'Returns'
- Mars Ultor
- The Parthian arch
- The arch and the aedes Vestae
The Perpetuation of Peace
5. The pax augusta
The Altar of Augustan Peace
- Archaeological remains and location
The Meaning(s) of the ara Pacis Augustae
- Pax Augusta and Roma Victrix
- Rome s past and the pax deorum
- Religion, statecraft, and the Pax Augusta
Dedications to Augustan Peace outside Rome
6. Conclusion: From pax augusta to pax Romana
Endmatter
Bibliography
Index

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Hannah Cornwell received her doctorate in Ancient History from Brasenose College, University of Oxford. She is currently a Lecturer in Ancient History and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Birmingham, as well as a non-stipendiary Fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies in London. She has previously worked as a researcher for the AHRC-funded Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions Project, and held a Mougins Museum Rome Award at the British School at Rome in 2014. Her research focuses on examining the production of space as a means to understanding diplomacy as a social practice in the Roman world.

Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin
Stasis and Stability - Benjamin Gray
Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367- 455 - Dr. Meaghan A. McEvoy

Special Features

Offers a new perspective on a central period of Roman history by foregrounding peace, rather than war or victory, as a central ideology.
Supplements detailed analysis of material evidence and specific monuments with illustrations throughout the text.
Scrutinizes the history of the concept within a chronological framework, enabling readers to engage with its development in tandem with that of historical events.