Explainers Should Explain Things

I’m the last person to complain about a good listicle, but an explainer and a listicle are not the same thing. This Vox piece purports to be the former, but is actually the latter, trying to explain the institution of the Imperator through a discussion of the characteristics of a few of its most colorful holders. And it’s too bad, because the explanation is really pretty simple. The Roman elite was exhausted by the civil wars of the first century BC, and in general had come to grips with the idea that the structures of the Roman Republic were insufficient to governance of the empire. It was simply too easy for a provincial governor to act as an independent warlord, amassing wealth, engaging in conquest, and developing a powerful army, then turn that wealth and power on the Senate. The institution of the Imperator as central, permanent military figure didn’t solve this problem entirely, but it helped quite a bit by making the provincial governors accountable to central authority. The tolerance of bad emperors was part of the cost of limiting the extent and frequency of civil wars. In other words, ending the Republic was the price of maintaining the Empire, and it was a price the Roman elite was, largely speaking, willing to pay.

There’s obviously some question regarding the degree to which the Roman elite consciously bought into this reasoning, but I’m generally of the view that people aren’t idiots, and that they understand the logics of their own governance.  It’s also worth noting that the Empire preserved many of the norms of Republican governance (and of elite privilege, even against the Emperor), until at least Diocletian.