The Goal of Rome’s Foreign Policy

What methods of diplomacy, statecraft and military skill did the Romans employ to reconcile the Italians to Roman rule and eventually to incorporate them into the Roman state? Support your discussion with specific historical examples?

• Romans did not simply conquer and exploit the peoples of Italy,in the same way, for example, that the Assyrians exploited the peoples of the Near East.

• The Romans were astute at diplomacy as they were tenacious at warfare.

• Within Italy, Rome did not establish an empire, in the usual sense of that word, but rather formed the Italian peoples into a powerful confederation.

• Rome did not enslave or annex that state, but rather they signed a treaty of alliance and friendship with it.

• The goal of Rome’s foreign policy

o to transform its former enemies into supporters, into enthusiastic particiapnts in its own expansion and prosperity, not into sullen exploited subjects.

o The security for their city, and Romans realized that surrounding themselves with hostile states, waiting for any opportunity to rise in revold, would not achieve security.

• Italian peoples were forced into a federation of allies, with Rome as its senior member and leader.

• Through a policy of establishing different degrees of privilege and responsibility among the Italians, they were gradually Romanized and became full Roman citizens.

• The result: one language, Latin and one culture, Greco-Roman became standard throughout Italy by the late 1st Century BE.

In the long process of doing so, Romans first set up a kind of hierarchy of privilege and responsibility by which the conquered peoples could work their way up into full Roman citizenship. The status of Italians fell into three main categories: (hierarchy order)

• most favored communities( those who had been Rome’s most loyal allies and most of then never have been enemies) These were granted full Roman citizenship at an early date( they enjoyed the same privilege as Romans did from holding public office to same protection under Roman law)

• Communities became “citizens without suffrage” : these people enjoyed the full protection of Roman law and the right of intermarriage with Romans, but not the right to vote or hold office. They also had the responsibilities of citizenship and were subject to draft into the Roman army. This status seems to have been a temporary one for communities who had proven themselves loyal allies but were still not fully Romanized or were located too far away from Rome to participate in the day-to-day poliltical activity of the state. When Romans became comfortable with states being so far away, these were granted full