While I generally think your point is valid, I think you may be overstating your case a bit. For example, take this claim, “No other ancient civilisation that we know of exercised such widespread and violent punishment for insurrection or crime.”
I can think of one example immediately that makes the Romans look tolerant - the Neo-Assyrian empire. For example, here’s an inscription from Ashurnasirpal II:
"In strife and conflict I besieged [and] conquered the city. I felled 3,000 of their fighting men with the sword ... I captured many troops alive: I cut off of some their arms [and] hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, [and] extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops. I made one pile of the living [and] one of heads. I hung their heads on trees around the city.”
It’s likely true that the Romans were above the norm for brutality, but they’re not alone. There’s also the confounding factor that, smaller societies never produced an empire as large as Rome, and thus simply practiced violence on a less impressive scale.
This is a great point, Dylan. Thank you. And that is a pretty graphic and unpleasant evocation of punitive violence. For cases like the Neo-Assyrian Empire we also don't know nearly as much about the everyday in order to know how usual or unusual such acts were, whereas we can see the ubiquity of violence in the Roman Empire, just we we can see everything else about the Romans, in much more detail, which further compounds your point about scale. As I say in the post, the Romans are definitely not alone: violence is inherent to empire. Any effort to quantify is hopeless given the source-base.
I think what stands out to me, though, is the extent to which violence in the Roman Empire, and a general sense of life being cheap, was not confined to the battlefield or even the law: it was brought home. Ashurbanipal did not bring the severed limbs and heads to *his own* capital and hang them in the trees, whereas that is what the Romans did (allowing for different cultural specificities of torture) with many of their enemies.
I read a fascinating and chilling article (Jongman, Willem M., ‘The Roman Economy: From Cities to Empire’, in The Transformation of Economic Life under the Roman Empire, ed. by de Blois, Lukas and Rich, John (Brill, 2002), pp. 28–47) that discussed, among other things, the finds of human remains from a Roman cemetery in Britain. The majority showed signs of having been gnawed by dogs, suggesting that they were poorly buried or not buried at all. Also from that article, an emperor is recorded as being frightened by the bad omen of a dog bringing a human hand in and dropping it under his breakfast table one morning. The point of the story was what a scary coincidence that was in light of other things going badly, not the fact of a dog bringing human remains into the palace. The indications collected by Jongman suggest that, apart from a rich elite, in many parts of the Roman Empire, especially cities, the dead were treated more or less like refuse. Disposal of the dead is notoriously diverse, but I can't think of another large-scale society that regarded the deceased as rubbish.
The practice of numbering children (Secundus (2nd), Sixtus (6th), Septimius (7th), Octavius (8th) etc. were all common Roman names), also hints at a very culturally specific response to high infant mortality rates.
I'm not generally a fan of historical top trumps - I'd rather take past societies as they come. However, in the case of the Roman Empire, even if it isn't possible (or necessary) to say that they were The Most Violent Empire in History (TM), when it is so often presented, explicitly and implicitly, in the modern world as a paragon of progress, civilisation and order, I think it is especially important to un-gloss-over the fact that the Romans were, at the very least One of The Most Violent Empires in History (TM). (I very much hope that no card game ever ensues from this comment!)
That's a very interesting point about the Roman naming convention vis-a-vis high infant mortality rates, I've never considered that aspect, and you're probably correct. I have always thought it was oddly robotic of the Romans to give their children serial numbers instead of personal names (and many women ONLY had the serial numbers, plus a family name, at least the men have a praenomen).
I am in ~90% agreement with your overall point, though I personally would argue that the flavor of Roman society very much flows from its unusual degree of militarism -- in other words, that the brutality that is so evident in the sources is a consequence of the militarism, instead of an unmotivated cultural idiosyncrasy. But this does support your point -- it is definitely true that Rome was unusually brutal for an ancient empire.
As a side note, I think it's very funny that the example you chose of an un-Assyrian expression of violence (that Romans might do), specifically that "Ashurbanipal did not bring the severed limbs and heads to *his own* capital and hang them in the trees," is actually one of the few things that we KNOW the Assyrians did, SPECIFICALLY Ashurbanipal. There's a gypsum relief in the British Museum [1] that shows Ashurbanipal reclining at a banquet, having some food/wine, and the severed head of Teumman, king of Elam, is hanging from a tree next to him. And this relief was in the palace! I strongly doubt this was an everyday occurrence -- I imagine this is either political propaganda, or at the very least, unusual, but it definitely speaks to a level of comfort with death and murder as an expression of political power [2] that (in my opinion) at least equals Rome's.
Wow, thank you so much for these! My expertise are definitely stronger for the first millennium CE than BCE so I'm definitely willing to modify my underlying point here: I think the Romans were probably one of the more (most!) brutal empires in the world they inhabited and, because of their scale, spread that more widely than others had before. However, these images clearly show a similar level of glorying in suffering so this may represent more of an extension of tendencies already clearly laid down, at least in some places. And I completely agree with your point about the underlying cause probably being mainly militarism. I definitely don't think the Romans were just arbitrarily weird or that there was 'something in the water' in Rome and centring the huge significance of the army, its dominant role in economic and cultural representation as well as political sources, all makes sense. It also fits, for me, the jarring matter-of-factness of Roman responses to death that it might be tied up with a high level of professionalisation in the army. Much to keep thinking with! I appreciate it!
While I generally think your point is valid, I think you may be overstating your case a bit. For example, take this claim, “No other ancient civilisation that we know of exercised such widespread and violent punishment for insurrection or crime.”
I can think of one example immediately that makes the Romans look tolerant - the Neo-Assyrian empire. For example, here’s an inscription from Ashurnasirpal II:
"In strife and conflict I besieged [and] conquered the city. I felled 3,000 of their fighting men with the sword ... I captured many troops alive: I cut off of some their arms [and] hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, [and] extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops. I made one pile of the living [and] one of heads. I hung their heads on trees around the city.”
It’s likely true that the Romans were above the norm for brutality, but they’re not alone. There’s also the confounding factor that, smaller societies never produced an empire as large as Rome, and thus simply practiced violence on a less impressive scale.
This is a great point, Dylan. Thank you. And that is a pretty graphic and unpleasant evocation of punitive violence. For cases like the Neo-Assyrian Empire we also don't know nearly as much about the everyday in order to know how usual or unusual such acts were, whereas we can see the ubiquity of violence in the Roman Empire, just we we can see everything else about the Romans, in much more detail, which further compounds your point about scale. As I say in the post, the Romans are definitely not alone: violence is inherent to empire. Any effort to quantify is hopeless given the source-base.
I think what stands out to me, though, is the extent to which violence in the Roman Empire, and a general sense of life being cheap, was not confined to the battlefield or even the law: it was brought home. Ashurbanipal did not bring the severed limbs and heads to *his own* capital and hang them in the trees, whereas that is what the Romans did (allowing for different cultural specificities of torture) with many of their enemies.
I read a fascinating and chilling article (Jongman, Willem M., ‘The Roman Economy: From Cities to Empire’, in The Transformation of Economic Life under the Roman Empire, ed. by de Blois, Lukas and Rich, John (Brill, 2002), pp. 28–47) that discussed, among other things, the finds of human remains from a Roman cemetery in Britain. The majority showed signs of having been gnawed by dogs, suggesting that they were poorly buried or not buried at all. Also from that article, an emperor is recorded as being frightened by the bad omen of a dog bringing a human hand in and dropping it under his breakfast table one morning. The point of the story was what a scary coincidence that was in light of other things going badly, not the fact of a dog bringing human remains into the palace. The indications collected by Jongman suggest that, apart from a rich elite, in many parts of the Roman Empire, especially cities, the dead were treated more or less like refuse. Disposal of the dead is notoriously diverse, but I can't think of another large-scale society that regarded the deceased as rubbish.
The practice of numbering children (Secundus (2nd), Sixtus (6th), Septimius (7th), Octavius (8th) etc. were all common Roman names), also hints at a very culturally specific response to high infant mortality rates.
I'm not generally a fan of historical top trumps - I'd rather take past societies as they come. However, in the case of the Roman Empire, even if it isn't possible (or necessary) to say that they were The Most Violent Empire in History (TM), when it is so often presented, explicitly and implicitly, in the modern world as a paragon of progress, civilisation and order, I think it is especially important to un-gloss-over the fact that the Romans were, at the very least One of The Most Violent Empires in History (TM). (I very much hope that no card game ever ensues from this comment!)
That's a very interesting point about the Roman naming convention vis-a-vis high infant mortality rates, I've never considered that aspect, and you're probably correct. I have always thought it was oddly robotic of the Romans to give their children serial numbers instead of personal names (and many women ONLY had the serial numbers, plus a family name, at least the men have a praenomen).
I am in ~90% agreement with your overall point, though I personally would argue that the flavor of Roman society very much flows from its unusual degree of militarism -- in other words, that the brutality that is so evident in the sources is a consequence of the militarism, instead of an unmotivated cultural idiosyncrasy. But this does support your point -- it is definitely true that Rome was unusually brutal for an ancient empire.
As a side note, I think it's very funny that the example you chose of an un-Assyrian expression of violence (that Romans might do), specifically that "Ashurbanipal did not bring the severed limbs and heads to *his own* capital and hang them in the trees," is actually one of the few things that we KNOW the Assyrians did, SPECIFICALLY Ashurbanipal. There's a gypsum relief in the British Museum [1] that shows Ashurbanipal reclining at a banquet, having some food/wine, and the severed head of Teumman, king of Elam, is hanging from a tree next to him. And this relief was in the palace! I strongly doubt this was an everyday occurrence -- I imagine this is either political propaganda, or at the very least, unusual, but it definitely speaks to a level of comfort with death and murder as an expression of political power [2] that (in my opinion) at least equals Rome's.
[1] The 'Garden Party' relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (Room S), https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-garden-party-relief-from-the-north-palace-of-ashurbanipal-room-s/QAFmvzeZOigV7g?hl=en
[2] Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death, Erika Belibtreu, Editor, H. S. (2002;2002). BAR 17:01 (Jan/Feb 1991). Biblical Archaeology Society. https://faculty.uml.edu/ethan_spanier/teaching/documents/cp6.0assyriantorture.pdf
Wow, thank you so much for these! My expertise are definitely stronger for the first millennium CE than BCE so I'm definitely willing to modify my underlying point here: I think the Romans were probably one of the more (most!) brutal empires in the world they inhabited and, because of their scale, spread that more widely than others had before. However, these images clearly show a similar level of glorying in suffering so this may represent more of an extension of tendencies already clearly laid down, at least in some places. And I completely agree with your point about the underlying cause probably being mainly militarism. I definitely don't think the Romans were just arbitrarily weird or that there was 'something in the water' in Rome and centring the huge significance of the army, its dominant role in economic and cultural representation as well as political sources, all makes sense. It also fits, for me, the jarring matter-of-factness of Roman responses to death that it might be tied up with a high level of professionalisation in the army. Much to keep thinking with! I appreciate it!