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The Military Policy of the Ancient Roman Empire against the Near East from 31 BC to AD 200

Youngsik Cho 1

1공군사관학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The existing researches on the policy of the ancient Roman empire against the near eastargues that the policy was defensive in nature. ButI would rather emphasize the policy was aggressive and offensive. When Roman emperors started the war with hostile countries near them, they mobilized their own forces stationed nearby as well as allied forces from far away country to stage the all-out war.They would not tolerate the failure in the war,but enhanced their pride through maintaining the hegemony by winning in the war. In thisrespect, they were always aggressive and offensive to win the war.Though theJulio-Claudian and Flavian dynasty had sustained intermittently peaceful period with the hostile neighboring countries,it was just at emporary period. The Roman imperial wars with statesin near east were fought in large areas than any othe rwars the Romans fought. Roman emperors tried to keep the strong boundaries tightly controlled by the central government. Since the latter part of the second century,the system of client-kingdom which served as buffer states to stop the Parthian Empire disappeared. the people in those areas were subject to the direct control of Rome. This study shows the general tendency reflected in the individual incidents and war sin the near east during the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasty before the third century. As the individual historical incidents occurred under the different situations and backgrounds, the military policy adopted by the Roman emperors were diverse. The diverse historical realities at the times of the succession of each emperor played a key role in the policy making processes of the emperor. Before the third century, with some differences in each emperor,there was consistency in Roman empire's near east policy. Roman empire, per se, maintained expansion of the empire based on keeping hegemony.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.