Peter Fibiger Bang, University of Copenhagen
This paper probes the relationship between law and bureaucracy in the Roman Empire. Often law has been understood as a tool of bureaucratic dictate and central regulation. But Rome was a tributary empire, based on conquest, and with a miniscule state apparatus. It’s government was not that of an elaborate bureaucracy, but of a small number of aristocratic officials sent out to preside over provincial elite society. Tight control was far beyond their means. What they could do, however, was to serve as adjudicator in the conflicts of provincials. Instead of directly regulating life in the empire, Roman government depended on making people appeal to it. In this perspective, law becomes a set of tools and precedents that provincial elites could employ to strengthen their position in communities.