The Roman empire remains unique. Although Rome claimed to rule the world, it did not. Rather, its uniqueness stems from the culture it created and the loyalty it inspired across an area that stretched from the Tyne to the Euphrates. Moreover, the empire created this culture with a bureaucracy smaller than that of a typical late-twentieth-century research university. In approaching this problem, the book does not ask: Why did the Roman empire fall? Rather, it asks, Why did the empire last so long? The book argues that the longevity of the empire rested not on Roman military power but on a gradu ... More

The Roman empire remains unique. Although Rome claimed to rule the world, it did not. Rather, its uniqueness stems from the culture it created and the loyalty it inspired across an area that stretched from the Tyne to the Euphrates. Moreover, the empire created this culture with a bureaucracy smaller than that of a typical late-twentieth-century research university. In approaching this problem, the book does not ask: Why did the Roman empire fall? Rather, it asks, Why did the empire last so long? The book argues that the longevity of the empire rested not on Roman military power but on a gradually realized consensus that Roman rule was justified. This consensus was itself the product of a complex conversation between the central government and its far-flung peripheries. The book investigates the mechanisms that sustained this conversation, explores its contribution to the legitimization of Roman power, and reveals as its product the provincial absorption of the forms and content of Roman political and legal discourse. Throughout, the book is informed by thinking on social formation by theorists such as Max Weber, Jürgen Habermas, and Pierre Bourdieu.