Diplomats And Diplomacy In The Roman World

The Roman world was fundamentally a face-to-face culture, where it was expected that communication and negotiations would be done in person. This can be seen in Romea (TM)s contacts with other cities, states, and kingdoms a " whether dependent, independent, friendly or hostile a " and in the development of a diplomatic habit with its own rhythms and protocols that coalesced into a self-sustaining system of communication. This volume of papers offers ten perspectives on the way in which ambassadors, embassies, and the institutional apparatuses supporting them contributed to Roman rule. Understanding Roman diplomatic practices illuminates not only questions about Romea (TM)s evolution as a Mediterranean power, but can also shed light on a wide variety of historical and cultural trends. Contributors are: Sheila L. Ager, Alexander Yakobson, Filippo Battistoni, James B. Rives, Jean-Louis Ferrary, Martin Jehne, T. Corey Brennan, Werner Eck, and Rudolf Haensch.

Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World offers a new contribution to the ongoing reassessment of early modern international relations and diplomatic history. Divided into three parts, it provides an examination of diplomatic culture from the Renaissance into the eighteenth century and presents the development of diplomatic practices as more complex, multifarious and globally interconnected than the traditional state-focussed, national paradigm allows. The volume addresses three central and intertwined themes within early modern diplomacy: who and what could claim diplomatic agency and in what circumstances; the social and cultural contexts in which diplomacy was practised; and the role of material culture in diplomatic exchange. Together the chapters provide a broad geographical and chronological presentation of the development of diplomatic practices and, through a strong focus on the processes and significance of cultural exchanges between polities, demonstrate how it was possible for diplomats to negotiate the cultural codes of the courts to which they were sent. This exciting collection brings together new and established scholars of diplomacy from different academic traditions. It will be essential reading for all students of diplomatic history.

In this bold new interpretation of the origins of ancient Rome's overseas empire, Dr Burton charts the impact of the psychology, language and gestures associated with the Roman concept of amicitia, or 'friendship'. The book challenges the prevailing orthodox Cold War-era realist interpretation of Roman imperialism and argues that language and ideals contributed just as much to Roman empire-building as military muscle. Using a constructivist theoretical framework drawn from international relations, Dr Burton replaces the modern scholarly fiction of a Roman empire built on networks of foreign clients and client-states with an interpretation grounded firmly in the discursive habits of the ancient texts themselves. The results better account for the peculiar rhythms of Rome's earliest period of overseas expansion - brief periods of vigorous military and diplomatic activity, such as the rolling back of Seleucid power in Asia Minor and Greece in 192–188 BC, followed by long periods of inactivity.

This interdisciplinary volume explores core emerging themes in the study of early modern literary-diplomatic relations, developing essential methods of analysis and theoretical approaches that will shape future research in the field. Contributions focus on three intimately related areas: the impact of diplomatic protocol on literary production; the role of texts in diplomatic practice, particularly those that operated as 'textual ambassadors'; and the impact of changes in the literary sphere on diplomatic culture. The literary sphere held such a central place because it gave diplomats the tools to negotiate the pervasive ambiguities of diplomacy; simultaneously literary depictions of diplomacy and international law provided genre-shaped places for cultural reflection on the rapidly changing and expanding diplomatic sphere. Translations exemplify the potential of literary texts both to provoke competition and to promote cultural convergence between political communities, revealing the existence of diplomatic third spaces in which ritual, symbolic, or written conventions and semantics converged despite particular oppositions and differences. The increasing public consumption of diplomatic material in Europe illuminates diplomatic and literary communities, and exposes the translocal, as well as the transnational, geographies of literary-diplomatic exchanges. Diplomatic texts possessed symbolic capital. They were produced, archived, and even redeployed in creative tension with the social and ceremonial worlds that produced them. Appreciating the generic conventions of specific types of diplomatic texts can radically reshape our interpretation of diplomatic encounters, just as exploring the afterlives of diplomatic records can transform our appreciation of the histories and literatures they inspired.

So many books, monographs and articles have been written around the "Roman Question" that a word of explanation or even of apology for the present study may be called for. Before as well as after 1929, the year in which the Lateran Treaty declared resolved the conflict which had divided Italy and the Papacy for nearly sixty years, professors and their students in a dozen lands have one after the other committed to the learned world their particular analysis of the international position of the Papacy. The variety of opinions which can be found in these studies is itself a remarkable testimony to the unique cha racter of the Holy See in the modern organization of international society. Even today, more than two decades after the dispute between the Quirinal and the Vatican had been finally resolved, it cannot be said that perfect uniformity of views yet prevails among writers in international law. Even today, when partisan passions have had time to cool and to leave the court clear for objective studies, there are many questions that cannot be adequately explained by any of the conventional criteria. Perhaps, indeed, the reason for the apparent futility of many of these writings has been the belief that the Papacy could really be forced into everyone of the categories developed by modern international law.

Argues that language and ideals contributed just as much to Roman empire-building as military muscle.

The Impact of Mobility and Migration in the Roman Empire assembles a series of papers on key themes of Roman mobility and migration, discussing i.a. the mobility of the army, of the elite, of women, and war-induced mobility and deportations.