Empire & Power
One state ruling over others — Athens' maritime archē and Rome's world-spanning imperium.
This concept covers one state's dominion over other peoples: the Greek archē (originally 'rule' or 'command') and the Roman imperium ('the power to command'). Thucydides (5th c. BCE) dissected the Athenian empire and the fear and self-interest that drove it, while Roman writers theorized imperium as legitimate command stretched across the Mediterranean world. Setting the two side by side frames a question that never goes away: is empire just rule, naked power, or both?
How it traveled
- HistoriesThurii (Magna Graecia) · -425explains
- History of the Peloponnesian WarAthens · -400explains
- PanegyricusAthens · -380explains
- On the PeaceAthens · -355explains
- HellenicaAthens · -354explains
- CyropaediaAthens · -354explains
- To PhilipAthens · -346explains
- PanathenaicusAthens · -339explains
- On the CrownAthens · -330explains
- HistoriesMegalopolis · -118explains
- In C. VerremFormiae · -70explains
- De Imperio Cn. Pompei Ad QuiritesFormiae · -66explains
- De Lege AgrariaFormiae · -63explains
- Gallic WarRome · -51explains
- PhilippicaeFormiae · -44explains
- Civil WarRome · -44applies
- Ab urbe conditaPadua · -27explains
- GeographyAmaseia · 24explains
- Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata [attributed]Chaeronea · 120explains
- PompeyChaeronea · 120explains
- PericlesChaeronea · 120explains
- CimonChaeronea · 120explains
- PyrrhusChaeronea · 120applies
- AgesilausChaeronea · 120explains
- Illyrian WarsAlexandria · 150explains
- Civil WarsAlexandria · 165explains
- Mithridatic WarsAlexandria · 165explains
- Syrian WarsAlexandria · 165explains
- Punic WarsAlexandria · 165explains
- Wars in SpainAlexandria · 165explains
- Description of Greece— · 180explains
- Res GestaeRome · 400explains
- Historia RomanaRomeexplains
- Historical LibrarySyracuse (Sicily)explains
- The Jewish War—explains
- De BellisConstantinople (Istanbul)explains
- Jewish Antiquities—explains
- Ἀλεξάνδρου ἈνάβασιςNicomediaexplains
- Orationes 14Smyrnaexplains
- Breviarium historiae romanaeConstantinople (Istanbul)explains
Key passages(20)
Importance and Magnitude of the Subject We shall best show how marvellous and vast our subject is by comparing the most famous Empires which preceded, and which have been the favourite themes of histo
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History of Universal Supremacy Must Be a Universal History By means of these facts I presume that what I more than once asserted at the beginning of my work is now shown by actual experience to deserv
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All the islands of the sea also, the Cyclades, Sporades, Ionian isles, Echinades, the Tuscan isles, the Balearic isles, and all the rest in Libyan, Ionian, Egyptian, Myrtoan, Sicilian, and Mediterrane
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De provinciis consularibus · Cicero
Antiquitates Romanae · Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Breviarium historiae romanae · Eutropius
WARS worse than civil on Emathian plains, And crime let loose we sing: how Rome's high race Plunged in her vitals her victorious sword; Armies akin embattled, with the force Of all the shaken earth be
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Here three full centuries shall Hector's race have kingly power; till a priestess queen, by Mars conceiving, her twin offspring bear; then Romulus, wolf-nursed and proudly clad in tawny wolf-skin mant
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Historia ecclesiastica (fragmenta ap. Photium) · Philostorgius
Naturalis Historia · Pliny, the Elder
The Starting-point of the History My History begins in the 140th Olympiad. The events from which it starts are these. In Greece, what is called the Social war: the first waged by Philip, son of Demetr
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Summary of the Work I STATED in my first book that my work was to start from the Social war, the Hannibalian war, and the war for the possession of Coele-Syria. In the same book I stated my reasons fo
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Extension of the First Plan of the Work And if our judgment of individuals and constitutions, for praise or blame, could be adequately formed from a simple consideration of their successes or defeats,
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Meaning of Surrender I have spoken before about what this implies, but I must in this place also briefly remind my readers of its import. Those who thus surrender themselves to the Roman authority, su
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Views In Greece of Roman Policy THERE was a great deal of talk of all sorts in Greece, first as to the Carthaginians when the Romans conquered them, and subsequently as to the question of the pseudo-P
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The Cloud in the West The best thing of all is that the Greeks should not go to war with each other at all, but give the gods hearty thanks if by all speaking with one voice, and joining hands like pe
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