The (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for ; ) is a roughly 200-year-long period of

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

that is identified as a

golden age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...

of increased and sustained Roman imperialism, prosperous stability, hegemonic power, regional expansion, and relative peace and order, although it still featured a number of internal revolts and external wars, including the Roman–Persian wars. Traditionally, the onset is understood to be the ascent of

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

, who also founded the

Roman principate The Principate was the form of imperial government of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the Dominate. The principate was cha ...

, in 27 BCE. Conversely, the end of the era is considered as 180 CE with the death of

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors ...

, the last of the "

Five Good Emperors 5 (five) is a number, numeral (linguistics), numeral and numerical digit, digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. Humans, and many other animals, have 5 Digit (anatomy), digits ...

". It was as part of this period that the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

achieved its greatest territorial extent under

Trajan Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier ...

in 117 CE. Additionally, the Roman Empire's population is estimated to have peaked at 70 million people during the Pax Romana, accounting for 33% of the world's population. According to

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history of ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

, the dictatorial reign of

Commodus Commodus (; ; 31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was Roman emperor from 177 to 192, first serving as nominal co-emperor under his father Marcus Aurelius and then ruling alone from 180. Commodus's sole reign is commonly thought to mark the end o ...

, later followed by the

Year of the Five Emperors The Year of the Five Emperors was AD 193, in which five men claimed the title of Roman emperor: Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus, and Septimius Severus. This year started a period of civil war when multiple rulers vie ...

and the

Crisis of the Third Century The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as the Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis, was a period in History of Rome, Roman history during which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressure of repeated Barbarian invasions ...

, marked Rome's descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".

Overview

Impero romano sotto Ottaviano Augusto 30aC - 6dC

The Pax Romana, spanning from 27 BCE to 180 CE, stands as one of the longest enduring periods of peace in history. However,

Walter Goffart Walter André Goffart (February 22, 1934 – February 14, 2025) was a German-born American historian who specialized in Late Antiquity and the European Middle Ages. He taught for many years in the history department and Centre for Medieval Studie ...

wrote: "The volume of the ''Cambridge Ancient History'' for the years CE 70–192 is called 'The Imperial Peace', but peace is not what one finds in its pages". Though, Arthur M. Eckstein writes that the period must be viewed in contrast to the much more frequent warfare in the 3rd and 4th centuries BCE under the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...

. Eckstein also notes that the initial Pax Romana appeared during the

Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

, and that its temporal span varied upon geographical region as well: "Although the standard textbook dates for the Pax Romana, the famous 'Roman Peace' in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

, are 31 BCE to CE 250, the fact is that the Roman Peace was emerging in large regions of the Mediterranean at a much earlier date:

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

after 210 CE the Italian Peninsula after 200 CE the

Po Valley The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain (, , or ) is a major geographical feature of northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetian Plain, Venetic extension not actu ...

after 190 CE most of the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

after 133 CE

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

after 100 CE and for ever longer stretches of time in the

Greek East Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the ''lingua franca'' (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, t ...

." Similarly,

Thomas F. Madden Thomas Francis Madden (born 10 June 1960) is an American historian, a former chair of the history department at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, and director of Saint Louis University's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. ...

explained the dating of 27 BCE as avoiding the civil wars of the 1st century BCE. The real origins of Pax Romana for him are in the 2nd century BCE, after Rome had eliminated all of its serious military rivals and brought an unprecedented peace and prosperity to the lands of their empire. The first known record of the term ''Pax Romana'' appears in a writing by

Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger ( ; AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca ...

in CE 55. The concept was highly influential, and the subject of theories and attempts to copy it in subsequent ages.

Arnaldo Momigliano Arnaldo Dante Momigliano (5 September 1908 – 1 September 1987) was an Italian historian of classical antiquity, known for his work in historiography, and characterised by Donald Kagan as "the world's leading student of the writing of history ...

noted that "''Pax Romana'' is a simple formula for

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

, but a difficult subject for research." For most historians, the Pax Romana began when Octavian (

) defeated

Mark Antony Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman people, Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the Crisis of the Roman Republic, transformation of the Roman Republic ...

and

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

in the

Battle of Actium The Battle of Actium was a naval battle fought between Octavian's maritime fleet, led by Marcus Agrippa, and the combined fleets of both Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC in the Ionian Sea, near the former R ...

on 2 September 31 BCE and became Roman emperor. He became

princeps ''Princeps'' (plural: ''Principes'') is a Latin word meaning "first in time or order; the first, foremost, chief, the most eminent, distinguished, or noble; the first person". As a title, ''Princeps'' originated in the Roman Republic wherein the ...

, or ''first citizen''. Lacking a good precedent of successful one-man rule, Augustus created a junta of the greatest military magnates and stood as the front man. By binding together these leading magnates in a coalition, he eliminated the prospect of

civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. The Pax Romana was not immediate, despite the end of the civil wars, because fighting continued in

Hispania Hispania was the Ancient Rome, Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two Roman province, provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divide ...

and in the

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

. Nevertheless, Augustus closed the Gates of Janus (a ceremony indicating that Rome was at peace) three times, first in 29 BCE and again in 25 BCE. The third closure is undocumented, but Inez Scott Ryberg (1949) and Gaius Stern (2006) have persuasively dated the third closure to 13 BCE with the commissioning of the

Ara Pacis The (Latin, "Altar of Augustan Peace"; commonly shortened to ) is an altar in Rome dedicated to the Pax Romana. The monument was commissioned by the Roman Senate on July 4, 13 BC to honour the return of Augustus to Rome after three years in Hisp ...

. At the time of the

Ludi Saeculares The Secular or Saecular Games () was an ancient Roman religious celebration involving sacrifices, theatrical performances, and public games (). It was held irregularly in Rome for three days and nights to mark the ends of various eras () and to ...

in 17 BCE the Concept of Peace was publicized, and in 13 BCE was proclaimed when Augustus and

Agrippa Agrippa may refer to: People Antiquity * Agrippa (mythology), semi-mythological king of Alba Longa * Agrippa (astronomer), Greek astronomer from the late 1st century * Agrippa the Skeptic, Skeptic philosopher at the end of the 1st century * Ag ...

jointly returned from pacifying

and the

. The order to construct the Ara Pacis was probably part of this announcement. Romeinse keizers Gordianus III antoninianus Antiochie 243-244

Romans regarded peace not as an absence of war, but as a rare situation which existed when all opponents had been beaten down and lost the ability to resist. Augustus' challenge was to persuade Romans that the prosperity they could achieve in the absence of warfare was better for the Empire than the potential wealth and honor acquired when fighting a risky war. Augustus succeeded by means of skillful propaganda. Subsequent emperors followed his lead, sometimes producing lavish ceremonies to close the Gates of Janus, issuing coins with Pax on the reverse, and patronizing literature extolling the benefits of the Pax Romana. After Augustus' death in CE 14, most of his successors as Roman emperors continued his politics. The last five emperors of the Pax Romana are known as the "

Influence on trade

Roman trade in the

increased during the Pax Romana. Romans sailed East to acquire silks, gems, onyx and spices. Romans benefited from large profits, and incomes in the Roman empire were raised due to trade in the Mediterranean. As the Pax Romana of the western world by Rome was largely contemporaneous to the

Pax Sinica ''Pax Sinica'' (Latin for "Chinese peace"; ) is a historiographical term referring to periods of peace and stability in East Asia, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia led by China. A study on the Sinocentric world system reveals th ...

of the eastern world by

Han China The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

, long-distance travel and trade in

Eurasian history The history of Eurasia is the collective history of a continental area with several distinct peripheral coastal regions: Southwest Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Western Europe, linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian Ste ...

was significantly stimulated during these eras.

Pax imperia: analogous peaces

The prominence of the concept of the ''Pax Romana'' led to historians coining variants of the term to describe other systems of relative peace that have been established, attempted, or argued to have existed. Some variants include: *

Pax Americana ''Pax Americana'' (Latin for , modeled after ''Pax Romana'' and ''Pax Britannica''), often identified with the " Long Peace", is a term applied to the concept of relative peace in the Western Hemisphere and later in the world after the end of ...

* Pax Assyriaca *

Pax Atomica Pax Atomica (Latin for “Atomic Peace”) is one of the terms that has sometimes been used to describe the period of severe tensions without a major military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The term is ...

Pax Britannica ''Pax Britannica'' (Latin for , modelled after '' Pax Romana'') refers to the relative peace between the great powers in the time period roughly bounded by the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. During this time, the British Empire became the ...

* Pax Europaea * Pax Guptana *

Pax Hispanica The ''Pax Hispanica'' (Latin for "Spanish Peace") refers to a period of twenty-three years from 1598 to 1621, when Spain disengaged from the European wars of religion that characterised the previous century. Peace was signed with the Kingdom of F ...

* Pax Khazarica * Pax Kushana * Pax Mafiosa (Pax Narcotica) *

Pax Mongolica The Pax Mongolica (Latin for "Mongol Peace"), less often known as Pax Tatarica ("Tatar Peace"), is a historiographical term modeled after the original phrase '' Pax Romana'' which describes the stabilizing effects of the conquests of the Mongol ...

* Pax Ottomana *

Pax Porfiriana The Porfiriato or Porfirismo (, ), coined by Mexican historian Daniel Cosío Villegas, is a term given to the period when General Porfirio Díaz ruled Mexico under an authoritarian military dictatorship in the late 19th and early 20th centurie ...

* Pax Sovietica * Pax Syriana * Pax Tokugawana More generically, the concept has been referred to as ''pax imperia'' (sometimes misspelled as ''pax imperium''), meaning ''imperial peace'', or—less literally—''hegemonic peace''.

Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; ; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his ...

notes that imperial peace—peace achieved through

hegemony Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states, either regional or global. In Ancient Greece (ca. 8th BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of ...

can—sometimes, but not always—become civil peace. As an example, the

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

's imperial peace of 1871 (over its internal components like

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

) slowly evolved into the later German state. As a counter-example, the imperial peace of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

's empire dissolved because the Greek

city states A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...

maintained their political identity. Aron notes that during the Pax Romana, the

First Jewish–Roman War The First Jewish–Roman War (66–74 CE), also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, the First Jewish Revolt, the War of Destruction, or the Jewish War, was the first of three major Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire. Fought in the prov ...

was a reminder that the overlapping of the imperial institutions over the local ones did not erase them and the overlap was a source of tension and flare-ups. Aron summarizes that, "In other words, ''imperial peace'' becomes civil peace insofar as the memory of the previously independent political units are effaced, insofar as individuals within a pacified zone feel themselves less united to the traditional or local community and more to the conquering state." The concept of Pax Romana was highly influential, and there were attempts to imitate it in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

, and in the

Christian West The terms Christendom or Christian world commonly refer to the global Christian community, Christian states, Christian-majority countries or countries in which Christianity is dominant or prevails.SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christen ...

, where it morphed into the

Peace and Truce of God The Peace and Truce of God () was a movement in the Middle Ages led by the Catholic Church and was one of the most influential mass peace movements in history. The goal of both the ''Pax Dei'' and the ''Treuga Dei'' was to limit the violence o ...

(''pax Dei'' and ''treuga Dei''). A theoretician of the imperial peace during the Middle Ages was Dante Aligheri. Dante's works on the topic were analyzed at the beginning of the 20th century by

William Mitchell Ramsay Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (15 March 185120 April 1939) was a British archaeologist and New Testament scholar. He was the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor, and a leading scholar in the study of the New Testament. R ...

in the book ''The Imperial Peace: An Ideal in European History'' (1913).

References

Bibliography

* Burton, Paul. 2011. "Pax Romana/Pax Americana: Perceptions of Rome in American Political Culture, 2000–2010". ''International Journal of Classical Tradition'' 18.1:66–104. . * Cornwell, Hannah. 2017. ''Pax and the Politics of Peace: Republic to Principate''. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. * Galinsky, Karl. 2012. ''Augustus: Introduction to the Life of an Emperor''. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. * Goldsworthy, Adrian. 2016. ''Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World''. New Haven: Yale University Press. * Hardwick, Lorna. 2000. "Concepts of Peace". In ''Experiencing Rome: Culture, Identity and Power in the Roman Empire'', edited by Janet Huskinson, 335–368. London: Routledge. * Lopez, Gennaro. 2002. "Pax Romana/Pax Augusta". ''Invigilata Lucernis'' 24: 97–110. * Stern, Gaius. 2015. "The New Cult of Pax Augusta 13 BC–AD 14". ''Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae'' 55.1–4: 1–16. * Yannakopulos, Nikos. 2003. "Preserving the Pax Romana: The Peace Functionaries in Roman East". ''Mediterraneo Antico'' 6.2: 825–905.

External links

United Nations of Roma Victrix History: Pax Romana

Pax Romana Discussion group
{{Paxes

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...