![]() Romans regarded peace not as an absence of war, but as a rare situation which existed when all opponents had been beaten down and lost the ability to resist. ĪR Antoninianus of Gordian III, struck at Antioch 243–244 AD with Pax Augusta on the reverseĪugustus faced a problem making peace an acceptable mode of life for the Romans, who had been at war with one power or another continuously for 200 years. The order to construct the Ara Pacis was no doubt part of this announcement. At the time of the Ludi Saeculares in 17 BC the Concept of Peace was publicized, and in 13 BC was proclaimed when Augustus and Agrippa jointly returned from pacifying the provinces. The third closure is undocumented, but Inez Scott Ryberg (1949) and Gaius Stern (2006) have persuasively dated the third closure to 13 BC with the commissioning of the Ara Pacis. Nevertheless, Augustus closed the Gates of Janus (a ceremony indicating that Rome was at peace) three times, first in 29 BC and again in 25 BC. ![]() The Pax Romana was not immediate, despite the end of the civil wars, because fighting continued in Hispania and in the Alps. By binding together these leading magnates in a coalition, he eliminated the prospect of civil war. Lacking a good precedent of successful one-man rule, Augustus created a junta of the greatest military magnates and stood as the front man. The Pax Romana began when Octavian (Augustus) defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC and became Roman emperor. Arnaldo Momigliano noted that " Pax Romana is a simple formula for propaganda, but a difficult subject for research." The concept was highly influential, and the subject of theories and attempts to copy it in subsequent ages. The first known record of the term Pax Romana appears in a writing by Seneca the Younger in AD 55. Eckstein also notes that the incipient Pax Romana appeared during the Republic, and that its temporal span varied with geographical region as well: "Although the standard textbook dates for the Pax Romana, the famous “Roman Peace” in the Mediterranean, are 31 BC to AD 250, the fact is that the Roman Peace was emerging in large regions of the Mediterranean at a much earlier date: Sicily after 210, the Italian Peninsula after 200 the Po Valley after 190 most of the Iberian Peninsula after 133 North Africa after 100 and for ever longer stretches of time in the Greek East." Eckstein writes that the period must be seen in contrast to the much more frequent warfare in the Roman Republic in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. However, Walter Goffart wrote: "The volume of the Cambridge Ancient History for the years AD 70–192 is called 'The Imperial Peace', but peace is not what one finds in its pages". ![]() The Pax Romana is said to have been a " miracle" because prior to it there had never been peace for so many years in a given period of history. Yellow represents the extent of the Republic in 31 BC, while green represents gradually conquered territories under the reign of Augustus, and pink areas represent client states. ![]() Įxtent of the Roman Empire under Augustus. According to Cassius Dio, the dictatorial reign of Commodus, later followed by the Year of the Five Emperors and the Crisis of the Third Century, marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust". During this period of about two centuries, the Roman Empire achieved its greatest territorial extent and its population reached a maximum of up to 70 million people. Since it was inaugurated by Augustus at the end of the final war of the Roman Republic, it is sometimes also called the Pax Augusta. It is traditionally dated as commencing from the accession of Augustus, founder of the Roman principate, in 27 BC and concluding in 180 AD with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the " Five Good Emperors". The Pax Romana ( Latin for 'Roman peace') is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is identified as a period and as a golden age of increased as well as sustained Roman imperialism, relative peace and order, prosperous stability, hegemonial power, and regional expansion, despite several revolts and wars, and continuing competition with Parthia. For other uses, see Pax Romana (disambiguation).
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