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AMERICAN EMPIRE? ANCIENT REFLECTIONS ON
MODERN AMERICAN POWER*
* I wish to thank for their help with this paper at various stages David Courtwright,
Nino Luraghi, Ellen Wagner, Joshua Fineberg, Carwina Weng, Ralph Rosen, Matthew
Santirocco, and the anonymous readers for Classical World. Responsibility for any
remaining errors (and dubious opinions) is entirely my own.
I The full security strategy statement (from September 2002) is available from
the White House at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html. It is also archived as: U.S.
Executive Office of the President, The National Security Strategy of the United States
of America (Washington, September 2002), available at GPO Access: http://purl.access
.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS22467 (retrieved July 18, 2005).
35
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36 ERIC W. ROBINSON
2 See the on-line petition circulated by the group Historians Against the War.
The document declares its opposition to "the expansion of United States empire"
(http://personalpages.tds.net/%7Emarcbecker/petition2.html [retrieved July 18, 2005];
see also the story published March 23, 2004, on the History News Network, at http://
hnn.us/articles/4319.html [retrieved July 18, 2005]).
3 See, for example, N. Ferguson's recent books Empire (New York 2002) and
Colossus (New York 2004); A. Bacevich, American Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 2002);
P. K. O'Brien and A. Clesse, Two Hegemonies: Britain 1846-1914 and the United
States 1941-2001 (Aldershot 2002); and most recently the series of articles devoted
to imperialism and American empire in Daedalus 134.2 (2005), especially A. Iriye,
"Beyond Imperialism: The New Internationalism," 108-16.
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AMERICAN EMPIRE? 37
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38 ERIC W. ROBINSON
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AMERICAN EMPIRE? 39
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40 ERIC W. ROBINSON
" Hist. 1.49, from the Loeb edition (Tacitus: The Histories Books 1-3, tr. C. H.
Moore [Cambridge, Mass., 1925]): maior privato visus dum privatus fuit, et omnium
consensu capax imperii nisi imperassyet.
12 JRS 81 (1991) 1-9. The provincia discussion is at 7, n.58.
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AMERICAN EMPIRE? 41
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42 ERIC W. ROBINSON
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AMERICAN EMPIRE? 43
20 Imperialism as a word has been avoided in the discussion to this point be-
cause of the highly charged, pejorative sense that has long attached to it, even in the
context of scholarly discussions of ancient history. (See, for example, P. D. A. Garnsey
and C. R. Whittaker, "lntroduction," in Garnsey and Whittaker, eds., Imperialism in
the Ancient World [Cambridge 1978] 1-6.) For the origins of the negative connota-
tion in nineteenth- and twentieth-century political/economic discourses, see B. Semmel,
The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire: Theories of Imperialism from Adam
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44 ERIC W. ROBINSON
Smith to Lenin (Baltimore 1993). Nevertheless, the term has been employed frequently
to characterize (negatively) American actions in the world, underscoring the polemi-
cal value of associating a nation's policies with empire.
21 Schroeder (above, n.5).
22 P. A. Brunt, "Laus Imperii," in Imperialism in the Ancient World, 159-91 (= Roman
Imperial Themes [Oxford 19901 288-323). See, e.g., Cic. Phil. 6.19: Populum Romanum
servire fas non est, quem di immortales omnibus gentibus imperare voluerunt....
Aliae nationes servitutem pati possunt, populi Romani est propria libertas ("Subser-
vience is not appropriate for the Roman people, whom the immortal gods themselves
have determined should rule all nations. . . . Foreign peoples can endure servitude;
liberty belongs to the Roman people"). On earlier Roman attitudes, see J. A. North,
"Roman Reactions to Empire," SCI 12 (1993) 127-38.
23 Contra the arguments (which have failed to gain general acceptance) of Fergus
Millar and some others that, by the time of the late Republic, Rome had in fact be-
come a kind of democracy. F. Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Ann
Arbor 1998), with earlier articles cited therein; see the judicious comments by J. A.
North, "Democratic Politics in Republican Rome," P&P 126 (1990) 3-21. Interest in
the question has continued since: H. Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in Late Republi-
can Rome (Cambridge 2001) firmly rejects the Millar thesis. On the Roman distaste
for and discouragement of Greek democracy, see the discussion in G. E. M. de Ste.
Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (Ithaca 1981) 306-15.
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AMERICAN EMPIRE? 45
have left less and less room for political freedom, democratic or
otherwise.
Nevertheless, to claim on this basis that political freedom can
never mix with empire is to paint with too broad a stroke. This
comes clear from the example of the ancient Athenians. For, as
noted above, in the fifth century B.c. Athens had a democracy-in
some ways more truly democratic than the kind modern nations
practice, in other ways less so, but a democracy nonetheless24-
and yet for half a century Athens simultaneously maintained an
oppressive empire. Subject states within the empire importantly,
many of them also democracies-had to pay annual tribute to Athens.
Their loyalty to Athens and its military policies was not just ex-
pected, it was positively required by oaths before the gods. Any
attempt to abandon allegiance to Athens met with brutal force; and
when under pressure of war the Athenians felt no compunction about
demanding that vulnerable third parties join their empire or face
extinction. The Greek word most often used to describe this em-
pire, naturally enough, was not yqTyeovia, but apro'. Thucydides
the historian of the Athenian empire and the war it fought with
Sparta, constantly uses apxq' when referring to it. Other meanings
of 4px'x also accord well with Latin imperium-for apxq' could signify
at times a public office, the power that a public official wields,
or his command of military forces.25
So the Athenians of the fifth century B.C. showed quite clearly
that true empire and democracy could coexist. That it does not in
the modern United States, as I hope I have demonstrated, is espe-
cially worth noting given the striking similarities in the rise to
power of each state and the concomitant radicalization of their
democracies. It has not often happened in the history of the world
that democratic states have attained dominant economic, cultural,
and especially military power on the international scene, like Ath-
ens and the United States. Both achieved their status by helping
to win massive wars: World War II for the United States, the Per-
sian wars for the Athenians. Both then went on to form grand new
alliances to solidify the gains from the struggles recently concluded
and to protect themselves and others from foreign threats coming
from the East. Where the Americans established NATO, the Athe-
nians formed the Delian League, a voluntary alliance of Athens
with smaller Greek states located in and around the Aegean Sea
and thereby most vulnerable to the Persian threat. The Persians
may have been defeated in their famous invasions of central Greece
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46 ERIC W. ROBINSON
in 490 and 480 B.C., but they did not disappear from the scene
afterwards. The huge Persian Empire remained, continuing to oc-
cupy many eastern Greek cities and possibly threatening further
danger in the future. Thus, as the United States and NATO were
faced with the Soviet Union and its empire, Athens and its league
confronted the Persians.
Another key parallel to point out is that, for both the United
States and the Athenians, in the decades following their wartime
victories as they shouldered their new international obligations their
democracies at home were deepening in important respects. In the
United States, one thinks of the civil rights movement and women's
movement; in Athens, a number of changes similarly made it easier
for marginalized groups to play fuller roles in the state. I refer to
members of the thetic class, who owned little or no property, and
poor residents in Attica generally, who during this time partici-
pated more actively and visibly in the state, in part because of
public programs like payment for service on juries and for rowing
in the fleet.26
And yet, despite these striking similarities of the growth and
prospering of democratic power, the courses of Athens and the modern
United States have diverged. First, as already noted, Athens took
up empire. What had begun as a voluntary league of Aegean states
against the Persians changed over the years into an involuntary
one, in which members were compelled to remain in the league,
assaulted or colonized if they balked, and required to send tribute
to Athens long after the threat that had originally justified the con-
tributions had receded. Thucydides, the author who traces this evolution
for us, uses ',yeg,ovia and its cognates to describe the initial Athe-
nian leadership (at 1.96-97), and then switches to a4pxT' or its cognates
when Athens takes up a more imperial role (at 1.99). It is true
that Athens continued to treat a few members of its league almost
as allies rather than subjects: for decades the island states of Chios,
Lesbos, and Samos provided their own military forces to joint ventures
instead of paying annual tribute to Athens, and thus retained a
greater sense of independence than the others.27 But Athens remained
in sole command, and brooked no disobedience from these states
any more than the others. Eventually, and at different times, each
found itself trying to revolt from or otherwise contravene the wishes
of Athens, and each predictably faced a forceful, belligerent reac-
tion. The contrast with American behavior is noteworthy: however
willing the United States has shown itself to intervene militarily
26 For a good summary of social and political changes in the Athenian democ-
racy at this time, see K. A. Raaflaub, "The Transformation of Athens in the Fifth
Century," in D. Boedeker and Raaflaub, eds., Democracy, Empire, and the Arts in
Fifth-Century Athens (Cambridge, Mass., 1998) 15-41.
27 Aristotle calls them "guardians of the empire [apx')]" and stresses their a
tonomy at Ath. Pol. 24.2. See T. J. Quinn, Athens and Samos, Lesbos and Chios,
478-404 B.C. (Manchester 1981).
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AMERICAN EMPIRE? 47
around the world, it does not target "core allies," from whom dis-
sent is tolerated.28 Such dissent, it should be stressed, has included
not only verbal castigation of U.S. policy, but refusals to join in
American ventures, defection from key alliances, denial of over-
flights, dismissal of U.S. bases, and withdrawal of troops in the
middle of joint operations (as with the Spanish and others recently
in Iraq). No "ally" of Athens could have contemplated behavior
of this kind without anticipating military assault in response.
Why this different course? We may find a clue in a further,
subtler contrast, one involving the attitude of the Athenians and
Americans toward democracy outside their homeland. The United
States takes it as its mission to spread the benefits of freedom
and democracy wherever it can.29 It has become central to the American
approach to foreign policy. Consider this striking statement placed
at the very beginning of the official National Security Strategy
document cited earlier:
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48 ERIC W. ROBINSON
3' It is remarkable not least because of the ironic truth that at its founding the
United States considered itself to be no democracy at all; indeed, the architects of the
new government purposely avoided that term and its dangerous (classical Athenian)
connotations, preferring the title "Republic" after the allegedly more stable and sober
Roman government. Over time, of course, and especially by the later nineteenth cen-
tury, America embraced the language and ideals of democracy. See the Federalist Papers,
especially #10; B. Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cam-
bridge 1967) 22-54; G. S. Wood, "Democracy and the American Revolution," in J.
Dunn, ed., Democracy: The Unfinished Journey (Oxford 1992) 91-105; G. Wills, Lincoln
at Gettysburg (New York 1992); and J. T. Roberts, Athens on Trial: The Antidemo-
cratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton 1994) chs. 9-11.
32 Consider this statement from John Kerry's 2004 campaign Web site: "Support
for democracy, human rights and the rule of law are among the most fundamental
principles on which America was founded, and John Kerry and John Edwards will
fight to restore America's longstanding, bipartisan commitment to supporting the spread
of democracy, with the understanding that America will be safer in a world of de-
mocracies" ("Promoting Democracy, Human Rights, Development and Rule of Law"
[retrieved Oct. 1, 2004, from http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/national_security/
democracy.html; archived at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2004/
kerry_natl-security-plans democracy.htm [retrieved July 18, 2005]).
33 Reported by Andrew Hammond of Reuters (Nov. 20, 2003).
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AMERICAN EMPIRE? 49
3 The most revealing answers in the February 2004 poll are those to questions
15 through 19. Question 17 shows "Democracy" and "Democrats" winning out over
"Strong Leader" and "Islamic State"/"Religious Politicians." But question 1 5B indi-
cates a preference for "A (single) strong Iraqi leader" over "An Iraqi democracy," at
least in the near term. In the June poll, question 21 A through C continues to show a
slight preference for "A (single) Strong Leader" over democracy in the near term,
with a somewhat greater preference for democracy in the longer term. Full results of
this survey are at http://www.oxfordresearch.com/publications.html (retrieved July 18,
2005).
35 In American foreign-policy circles the presumptive and broadly perceived benefits
of democracy have been further reinforced in recent years by the theory of demo-
cratic peace, which holds that, statistically speaking, open warfare has been extremely
rare between states sharing liberal or democratic forms of government. The more de-
mocracies we can plant across the world, the implication seems to be, the more peaceful
it will become. Political scientists, historians, and others still debate the validity of
the theory for various eras, but the notion is especially enticing to an American audi-
ence already convinced of democracy's virtues and desirous of promoting it around
the world. For a debate on the theory's applicability to the ancient world, see The
Journal of Peace Research 38.5 (2001). For a critique of the idea that quickly in-
stalling democracy abroad is always the best course, see F. Zakaria, The Future of
Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York 2003).
36 For discussion of Athenian policy in this regard, see R. Meiggs, The Athenian
Empire (Oxford 1972) 208-13.
37 For an argument that the Athenians did not feel as personally invested as is
sometimes supposed in democracy at home either, see L. J. Samons, "Democracy,
Empire, and the Search for Athenian Character," Arion 8.3 (2001) 128-57.
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50 ERIC W. ROBINSON
38 Thuc. 1.96.1, 6.76.3; but see 3.10.3. Meiggs (above, n.36) 42-47, 463-64.
39 Schroeder (above, n.5).
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