Expansion of Rome under the Romans

Dr Peter Jones – Roman Provinces & Lepeis Magna
OR
How The Romans Controlled Their Provinces!!

Peter, who has visited the club before, came this evening to take us back in time to 117AD, when Europe became enfolded into the ‘Roman Way’.
This was a fascinating talk on how the small town of Rome conquered most of Europe, but not Germany or our friends North of the Border!!
How did they do this? Well, according to Peter, they made Friends Out Of Enemies and after five hundred years they become masters of Italy before conquering much further afield.

This they did by……
• Conquering lands with military expertise, then the ownership of the land and taking its produce would follow to be a key to a conquest.
• Secondly, they got the local population on board by encouraging Roman citizenship, local power, ‘Roman’ lifestyle, riches and money.
• Thirdly, as they set up in the major towns & cities, installing a Governor, (possibly local), four to five senior administrative managers and a civil service to include expert trades’ people from all nationalities.
• Fourthly the newly conquered country / province was protected from attack by a Legion of professional soldiers, (4-6,000), and their Auxiliary troops, Cavalry etc, as the Roman Empire had thirty-three Legions on which to call.
• Having secured the new province they enabled the local dignitaries to join them, become citizens of Rome, get rich, develop organisational skills and introduce the Roman way of life with a building programme of luxurious social and administrative amenities.
• Lastly, outside a city was given over to farming and food production. This they encouraged and developed on a huge scale, building waterways, roads, harbours, baths, sanitation channels, bridges, viaducts etc and making it possible for trades people to move around from one country to another. So, people, products and produce could and would travel thousands of miles, from one province to another without fear of attack from a foreign neighbour, as they were all part of ‘The Empire’.

Peter showed us many slides of plans, maps, places, buildings etc and gave us a few examples of letters written from various governors to presiding Caesars explaining the administrative politics of local issues!!! These were fascinating in their similarity to today’s politics...and extracts were read and highlighted by Peter’s assistant for the night our very own Liz!!

And to sum up Peter describes the Romans as ‘Liberal Imperialists’ and with a vote of thanks from fellow Rotarian Ian we finished the evening.

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