It is important in considering the Roman Empire’s frontiers to firstly identify why a ‘grand strategy’ might have been necessary. During the last two centuries of the Republic Rome had gone on from conquering Italy to encompass the entire Mediterranean into its borders, showing its dominance in Spain, Gaul, North Africa, Greece and even Asia Minor yet all of this far reaching Empire was governed from Rome with just a provincial governor and in certain provinces a garrison of troops to oversee order. Naturally therefore the larger the Empire grew the less sustainable it became due to Rome’s style of governing and the time taken to send messages from Rome itself to the far reaches of its territory, so for our period of the early Empire it was of utmost importance that Rome, a society built on military glory, developed at least some sort of strategy towards its ever expanding frontiers. Whether part of such a ’grand strategy’ or just common sense the Roman Empire, after Augustus, did see a drastic change in policy towards frontiers and expansion across numerous contrasting Emperors, adding only Britain, Dacia and briefly Mesopotamia across two centuries, perhaps following the advice of Augustus on his death bed to be ‘satisfied with their present possessions’ or risk losing what they already owned. This paper will consider this psychological precedent set by Augustus, the first Emperor, the nature of fortified frontiers and the concept of apparent natural borders as well as of course the roles of the Emperors themselves in order to help us assess to what degree there really was a ‘grand strategy’ towards the frontiers in the period from Augustus through to Commodus. One of the great benefits of considering such a broad timespan is that we do have several primary sources to draw our information from.
Considering then our primary sources, we will rely largely upon the works of Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Pliny the Younger as well as of course Augustus’ own Res Gestae which provides a great insight into the precedent he set on a frontier strategy. Considering firstly then Augustus’ Res Gestae, as a funerary inscription it of course, in the Roman way, celebrates his deeds throughout life; but far from being useless bias it in fact suggests that perhaps he was far more imperialistic than the works of Suetonius or Cassius Dio reveal. It is noted that Augustus was ‘saluted as Imperator twenty one times’ and led nine kings before his chariot in triumphs. Indeed Tim Cornell highlights the work of Brunt who argues convincingly that in fact Augustus was as imperialistic as any of the warlords and that if any ‘grand strategy’ in regards to the frontiers was set upon his death it was simply to ensure no one ever usurped his legacy. Therefore perhaps there was not a grand strategy at all towards the roman frontiers or at least not the traditional concept of one set by Augustus’ precedent. Both Suetonius and Cassius Dio present the orthodox opinion that Augustus ‘never made war on any nation without just and due cause’ though as contemporary sources their work reflects the time in which it was written and doesn’t really stand up to the evidence considering that Augustus conquered the most territory of any individual to that point in Roman history.
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