Time, Space, Power, Warfare and Conquest through Roman 'Maiestas-ideology' and the Mediterranean Eco-system of Community Glory in the Middle Republic

我的研究致力于系统地尝试重新概念化公元前3-1世纪罗马力量在地中海的扩张。围绕罗马帝国主义的问题吸引了大量的学术关注，但我认为，这些问题被锁定在一套不合时宜和简单化的框架中，这些框架曲解了整个现象的很大一部分。最值得注意的是，这场争论涉及到“进攻性帝国主义与防御性帝国主义”的争论，这场争论最著名的发起人是威廉·哈里斯，如今，阿瑟·埃克斯坦和保罗·伯顿运用国际关系理论，在很大程度上与他们的初衷背道而驰。我采取了一种意识形态(意识形态被粗略地理解为包括一组特定的想法及其相关的信仰、价值观、情感和话语)来理解罗马权力的放大：也就是说，认识到权力的表现是文化上的，物质力量通过当代社会的各种概念边界、描绘和类别赋予了意义--用托尼奥·霍舍尔的话说，现实也是一种构造……对现实的感知也是一种构造……这种心理构造是由文化环境决定的，特定于不同历史时期的个别社会“(Hölscher(2003)2)。本文没有考虑罗马帝国主义(通常被认为是一个需要定义和解释的单一现象)，而是用约翰·理查森的话说，把罗马权力视为“帝国模式的马赛克”(理查森(2008)4)。我们的任务与其说是建立罗马帝国主义的原因和明确的分类，不如说是探索罗马意识形态，这些意识形态确立了动机、行动和话语的参数。我们对中世纪罗马帝国建设的研究需要考虑到多种不同的帝国分类，无数不同的分层结构和意识形态塑造了这些分类，以及可以从不同的角度来看待、体验和构建罗马帝国--所有这三种都因时间、地点和个人机构而显著不同。我的中心焦点是重建我称之为maiestas的意识形态(maiestas/Dignitas的情感、价值观、语言和话语的简写)。这种意识形态的重要性来自于它的双重能力，即决定行为(增加或捍卫maiestas和Dignitas可以推动战争、征服和扩张；影响政治家或代表的言论、说话方式和行为；塑造特定地区采用的帝国结构)，并影响罗马人对战争和征服、空间和地理、历史和时间、权力和权威的概念。同时，我要承认，罗马的“帝国主义”并不像人们通常所说的那样，在地理上或时间上是一个统一的过程。然而，它恰恰是在理解“maiestas意识形态”在时间和空间上的不同影响和表现形式(如上所述)，以及它与其他意识形态形式之间的交叉、影响和冲突(例如，作为罗马成功的基础的apx deorum，Domi和民兵，作为定义罗马价值观的德性和诚信的配对，对迦太基和高卢人的恐惧)，特别是在国内政治话语中，这有望提供诱人的洞察力，并引发关于罗马人看待和谈论他们世界的方式的新问题。在我的DPhil的后期阶段，我将能够开始重建意大利、伊比利亚、高卢、非洲、西西里、撒丁岛和东方的不同的帝国动机和建设，从而对罗马在中共和的扩张进行整体的重新概念化。

My research engages in a systematic attempt to re-conceptualise the amplification of Roman power in the Mediterranean from the C. 3rd-1st BC. Questions surrounding Roman imperialism have attracted copious scholarly attention but, I suggest, they are locked in a set of anachronistic and reductive frameworks which misinterprets a substantial portion of the whole phenomenon. Most notably this concerns the 'aggressive vs. defensive imperialism' debate, initiated most prominently in 1979 by William Harris and now sustained, much against their original aims, by Arthur Eckstein and Paul Burton by their use of International Relations Theory. I take an ideological (with ideology being loosely conceived as encompassing a specific set of ideas and their associated beliefs, values, emotions and discourse) approach to understanding the amplification of Roman power: that is, recognising that manifestations of power are culturally contingent where material forces are given meaning by the various conceptual boundaries, delineations and categories of contemporary societies - in the words of Tonio Hölscher 'reality too is a construct... the perception of reality is also a construct... such mental constructs are determined by cultural circumstances, specific to individual societies in different historical periods' (Hölscher (2003) 2). Instead of thinking about Roman imperialism (so often treated as a singular phenomenon to be defined and explained), this paper treats Roman power as, in the words of John Richardson, a 'mosaic of imperial modes' (Richardson (2008) 4). Our task becomes not so much to establish the causes and definite taxonomies of Roman imperialism as to explore the Roman ideologies which established the parameters of motivations, actions and discourse. Our study of Roman empire-building in the Middle Republic needs to allow for a multiplicity of different imperial taxonomies, a myriad of different layered structures and ideologies shaping such taxonomies, and a variety of perspectives from which Roman imperium could be viewed, experienced and constructed - all three significantly differentiated by time, place and individual agency. My central focus is on the reconstruction of what I term maiestas-ideology (a shorthand for the emotions, values, language and discourse of the maiestas/dignitas of the populus Romanus. The significance of this ideology comes from its dual-capacity of 'maiestas-ideology' to determine behaviour (the augmenting or defending of maiestas and dignitas could motivate warfare, conquest and expansion; influence what a statesmen or representative said, how he said it, and how he behaved; shape the imperial structures employed in a given area) and influence the way that the Romans conceptualised warfare and conquest, space and geography, history and time, power and authority. At the same time, I will acknowledge that Roman 'imperialism' was not a geographically or chronologically uniform process, as it is so often treated. Yet it is exactly in understanding the varying influences and manifestations of 'maiestas-ideology' in time and space (as noted above) and the intersections, influences, and conflicts between it and other ideological modalities, (for example, the pax deorum as the basis of Roman success, the domi and militiae, the pairing of virtus and fides as defining Roman values, fear of Carthage and the Gauls), especially within domestic political discourse, which promises to offer tantalising insights and provoke new questions about the way the Romans viewed and talked about their world. In the later stages of my DPhil, I will be able to begin reconstructing the different motivations for and constructions of 'empire' in Italy, Iberia, Gaul, Africa, Sicily, Sardinia and the East, coming to a holistic reconceptualisation of Roman expansion in the Middle Republic.