Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of Interdisciplinary

History
Review
Author(s): Erich S. Gruen
Review by: Erich S. Gruen
Source: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Winter, 1978), pp. 563-566
Published by: The MIT Press
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Reviews
The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the

Third. By Edward N. Luttwak (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976) 255 pp. $I2.95

Historians become wary, even defensive, when a political scientist ventures onto their turf to instruct them on matters they thought they had

understood. The wariness takes on heightened dimensions when the field

is antiquity and the interloper a former consultant to the Secretary of
Defense-and one who writes articles on missile strategy for Commentary.

Yet Luttwak has produced a book that Roman historians will read
with profit. He did his homework conscientiously. Not, to be sure, in
the primary sources. Although references to ancient evidence-whether
literary, epigraphical, or archaeological-are sprinkled here and there in

the footnotes, Luttwak relies almost exclusively on secondary au-

thorities. Nonetheless, he has chosen his authorities intelligently, has ab-

sorbed a considerable amount of scholarly literature, and avoids for the

most part the temptation to import social science jargon into the study of

Roman imperial strategy. Indeed Luttwak's restraint is admirable. His

book does not lecture to benighted classicists for their failure to discern
the true workings of a military system. Nor does he employ heavy-

handed comparisons between Roman policy and the contemporary

scene. The comparisons are important and lurk behind the whole analysis

but remain, on the whole, implicit rather than overt.

In brief, Luttwak detects three main stages in Rome's method of

controlling her empire. The Julio-Claudian system (from Augustus

through Nero) minimized the exercise of force, deployed armies for
internal security, and utilized client states to absorb the damage of invasion from the outside. The Flavian and Antonine system (from Vespasian
to the Severi) turned to demarcated frontiers buttressed by road networks, forts, and an elaborate "infra-structure"; the linear barriers served
not to foster a Maginot-line mentality but to provide a means for mobile

offensive warfare across the borders wherever necessary to discourage

incursions. That scheme insulated the barbarians within from those

without, thereby promoting Romanization at the margins of empire.

Crisis and collapse in the third century, followed by the reforms of Dio-

cletian and Constantine, evolved a third system, one of "defense-indepth." Here self-contained strongholds took prominence. Mobile forces
continued to exist, but they functioned for "rearward" defense rather
than "forward" defense. The enemy, no longer intercepted in advance of
the frontier, had to be dealt with inside imperial territory, a strategy
which, even when successful, entailed heavy costs in an undefended
countryside and a peasant society. Maintenance of security had now
reached the limits of the empire's resources.
The schemata merit consideration even when they fail to satisfy

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564 I ERICH S. GRUEN

fully. But problems remain that are inadequately recognized or con-

fronted. Luttwak rightly denies that Rome possessed a continuous

perimeter defense in the early Empire. Reliance on client kingdoms,

however, is overstressed. And the argument occasionally seems strained
for effect. Client kingdoms, we are told, must be distinguished from

buffer-states. How so? Clients "absorbed the burden of providing

peripheral security against border infiltration . . . (They) could contribute both their own interposed forces and their capacity to absorb the
threat-in other words they provide geographic depth" (24-26). What
could better characterize buffer-states? The distinction is needless and

serves only to confuse. More troublesome, the transition from JulioClaudian dependence on client-kingdoms to Flavian development of firm
borders is described rather than explained. Absence of explanation stands

out most strikingly in the matter ofJudaea's subjugation. It was accomplished by Vespasian and Titus through the successful collaboration of
client-rulers in the East. "And yet it was none other than Vespasian, the
direct beneficiary of the client-state system, who presided over its sub-

stantial dismantling" (II2). Why? No answer is forthcoming. Under

Trajan "Dacia had to be annexed, paradoxically enough, because the empire had become visibly defensist, and its rulers reluctant to annex" (I 15).

A paradox indeed-and quite unelucidated. On the matter of "defense-

in-depth," one is never quite certain whether Luttwak sees the system as
engendered by the third-century crisis or as a later response by Diocletian

and Constantine. The process is murky and the motivation left in doubt.
Further, there are suggestions awkwardly inserted and insufficiently
integrated. The discussion of the limitanei (I71-172) seems to bear little
relevance to the strategic pattern which Luttwak discerns in the later
Empire. The same holds for development of central field armies (I82-188). And we receive neither preparation nor explanation for Luttwak's
allusive comment about Rome's cultural and economic influence creating
"a cultural and political basis for common action against it" (I93). The
trails lead in a number of directions that never get followed up.
Luttwak's experiences in U.S. defense strategy play a muted and
unobtrusive role. Yet their impact is felt throughout as an undercurrent
to the argument. They surface with explicitness in the appendix entitled
"Power and Force: Definitions and Implications." Efficient exercise of
power stands in inverse proportion to the overt use of force. When
power must be demonstrated, its effectiveness correspondingly diminishes. It is "perceived power" that counts (I97-200). We are in the
realm here of a strategy of "deterrence"; no one needs to be told the
modern context from which that notion arises. Luttwak's message on
Rome is clear: her policy rode to success while clients could visualize her
power without having to feel it; deterioration came when Roman authority sank to the level of actual resources.

The conception provides a useful vantage-point-so long as one

does not press it very hard. For Rome had no single major adversary who

needed to be "deterred." Rather a plethora and variety of foes or poten-

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REVIEWS 565

tial foes. There was little in common between Decebalus and Parthia, between barbarous Britons and the nomad tribesmen of the Sahara, and be-

tween Gothic invaders and Sassanian Persia. The distinctions, when recognized, place a heavy strain on Luttwak's theory. He acknowledges
them briefly but offers a dubious resolution: the primitive peoples of continental Europe had to be kept in line with the direct application of force,

but client rulers in the East were sophisticated enough to understand

power "in the abstract" (32-33, 47). Perhaps so. But four legions stood
in Syria, even in the Julio-Claudian era-not an abstraction which had to
be "visualized" in the mind's eye. The Romans knew better than to rely
exclusively on eastern "sophistication."
This raises a larger issue. The political scientist's tendency to overrationalize will trouble historians who know that events are not always
dictated by human calculation. Luttwak sees design everywhere. Irregularities are explained away, submerged, or made to fit the scheme,

even as "paradoxes." Luttwak concedes that Rome faced serious re-

cruitment problems stemming from manpower shortages in the early

Empire and that the financial burden of maintaining an army was consid-

erable. Yet all this is dismissed: the small number of legions, he asserts,
was determined by "a rational scheme of deployment, in which it was
the desired level of forces that set the costs, rather than the other way
round" (I6-I7). The Roman frontier in Britain was shifted more than
once in response to the difficulties of pacification, and the establishment

of a Rhine-Danube perimeter line took over a century of false starts and

changing boundaries. Luttwak smooths over the bumps: again and again
we read of"rational admini sLative policy," "systematic consolidation,"
"coherent plan," and "consistent pattern" (87-96). Trajan's conquest of
Dacia, jutting out well beyond the Danube line, is explained as creating
"a strategic shield for the region as a whole" (ioI, 115). And that emperor's ill-fated Parthian expedition, which, Luttwak admits, brought
conquests too extensive to be successfully consolidated, is nevertheless
given a pragmatic purpose, the installation of a new eastern frontier
(I o-I i). When "defense-in-depth" became the policy of the late Empire, its implementation was far from uniform. As Luttwak observes, the
Romans continued to press for a "forward defense frontier" in the East
by contrast with their actions in Europe and North Africa. Reasons for
the difference are not given, but both policies are declared "rational" and
"with obvious deliberation" (I59). The unsettled nature of the strategy
seems more pronounced than its coherence-a fact obliquely noted but
swiftly passed over (132).
To put it on the most general plane: "those who controlled the destinies of Rome" practiced "the firm subordination of tactical priorities,
martial ideals, and warlike instincts to political goals" (2). So speaks the
professional defense analyst. But Rome did not have professional defense
analysts. No Pentagon, no Joint Chiefs of Staff, no Department of Defense formulated long-range strategy. The broad pattern can be conceived only in retrospect and Luttwak's constructs offer a legitimate basis

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566 | J. WAYNE BAKER

for discussion. But they should not close our eyes to the erratic, the fluctuating, and the inconsistent features of Roman behavior. Nor should the

interpreter's vision be confused with deliberate design on the part of

Rome.

Erich S. Gruen

University of California, Berkeley

Zwingli. By G. R. Potter (New York, Cambridge University Press,

1976) 432 pp. $39-50

Potter's Zwingli is obviously a labor of love, but hardly uncritical. More

than a biography, it is a history of the Zwinglian reformation. Potter
spends the first two chapters on Zwingli's thirty-five years before arriv-

ing in Zurich and devotes the remainder of the book to Zwingli's nearly

thirteen years as reformer and prophet of Zurich.

It is almost impossible in a review to do justice to the nuances of Pot-

ter's treatment. He skillfully weaves Zwingli's development as a reformer into the internal policies of Zurich, the political and religious

conflicts within the Swiss Confederation, the barely concealed rivalry be-

tween Zurich and Berne, and Zurich's relationships with the South Ger-

man cities and territories. The fluidity of the situation along the northern
borders of the Swiss Confederation and the possibility that parts of Ger-

many, such as Constance and Strassburg, might join the Confederation

become clear as one follows Potter's arguments. Zurich's defeat by the
Catholic states at Kappel in 1531 ended both the expansionist policies of
Zurich and the possibility of a larger Switzerland.
Along the way Potter emphasizes two personal struggles which
plagued Zwingli as a reformer. The first, the radical challenge of the
Zurich Anabaptists, has received much attention from American Mennonite historians. On the one hand, Potter seems to concede too much to
this modern Mennonite scholarship (174); on the other hand, he is much
too critical a historian not to recognize the real threat that the radicals
posed for Zurich and Zwingli. Potter appears to be torn between seeing
the intolerance in Zurich from a modern perspective and understanding
the problem of radicalism within the sixteenth-century context.
Zwingli's second personal struggle was with Luther, and here Potter
is superb. Zwingli's insistence on his independence from Luther is gener-

ally accepted today ( i, n. 4). It was not, however, only a matter of

theological independence; it was also necessary politically for Zwingli to

keep his distance from Luther-Luther and his followers were under the
ban of the Empire and excommunicants. As it turned out, Luther did not
wish to claim Zwingli either. Potter dances between fine theological lines
in the chapters devoted to Zwingli and Luther; but even here the interna-

tional political implications were not lacking. Zurich and Wittenberg

were competing for the allegiance of the south German cities.

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