Imperial Power, Provincial Government, and the Emergence of Roman Asia, 133 BCE-14 CE

AbstractWhat ambitions lay behind Roman provincial governance? How did these change over time and in response to local conditions? To what extent did local agents facilitate and contribute to the creation of imperial administrative institutions? The answers to these questions shape our understanding of how the Roman empire established and maintained hegemony within its provinces. This issue is particularly acute for the period during which the political apparatus of the Roman Republic was itself in crisis and flux—precisely the period in which many provinces first came under Roman control. This work takes up the challenge by focusing closely on the formation and evolution of the administrative institutions of the Roman empire through a case study of the province of Asia. Comparatively well excavated, Asia’s rich epigraphy lends itself to detailed study, while the region’s long history of autonomous civic diplomacy and engagement with a range of Roman actors provide important evidence for assessing the ways in which Roman empire and hegemony affected conditions on the ground in the province. Its unique history, moving from allied kingdom to regularly assigned provincia to a reconquered and reorganized territory, offers an insight into the complex mechanics of institutional formation during this crucial transition. From an investigation of the institutions which emerged in the province over a long first century (133 bce–14 ce), the book moves to consider the discursive power of official utterances of the Roman state, and the strategies employed by local actors to negotiate a favourable relationship with the empire.