2019/01/01 by N.G.A.M. Roymans · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Classical Antiquity Studies #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Historical and Religious Studies of Rome #CONQUEST #Frontier #Indigenous #Ethnic group #State (computer science) #History #Ancient history #Political science #Ethnology #Geography #Archaeology #Law
paper · doi:10.1017/s1047759419000229
openalex publication_date 2019/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The Late Republican to Early Imperial period was one of spectacular territorial expansion into the surrounding ‘tribal periphery’ of the Roman West. There, the indigenous societies were confronted with state-organised warfare on an unprecedented scale and with a range of new military technologies and strategies. The direct societal impact of conquest on the subjected groups varied greatly. Conquest could strengthen certain polities and stimulate processes of state formation, but it could have disastrous effects on other groups. Here I will investigate Roman warfare in the tribal zone, with a special focus on two topics: the use of extreme mass violence against resistant groups, and the relationship between disproportional use of violence and negative ethnic stereotyping of the ‘tribal other’. I hope to show that archaeology can contribute to a wider debate on these topics among historians and anthropologists 1 by assessing the short-term demographic impact of conquest.