TY - JOUR
T1 - Conquest, mass violence and ethnic stereotyping
T2 - Investigating Caesar's actions in the Germanic frontier zone
AU - Roymans, Nico
PY - 2019/10/11
Y1 - 2019/10/11
N2 - The Late Republican to Early Imperial period was one of spectacular territorial expansion into the surrounding 'tribal periphery' of the Roman West. There, the indigenous societies were confronted with state-organised warfare on an unprecedented scale and with a range of new military technologies and strategies. The direct societal impact of conquest on the subjected groups varied greatly. Conquest could strengthen certain polities and stimulate processes of state formation, but it could have disastrous effects on other groups. Here I will investigate Roman warfare in the tribal zone, with a special focus on two topics: the use of extreme mass violence against resistant groups, and the relationship between disproportional use of violence and negative ethnic stereotyping of the 'tribal other'. I hope to show that archaeology can contribute to a wider debate on these topics among historians and anthropologists1 by assessing the short-term demographic impact of conquest.
AB - The Late Republican to Early Imperial period was one of spectacular territorial expansion into the surrounding 'tribal periphery' of the Roman West. There, the indigenous societies were confronted with state-organised warfare on an unprecedented scale and with a range of new military technologies and strategies. The direct societal impact of conquest on the subjected groups varied greatly. Conquest could strengthen certain polities and stimulate processes of state formation, but it could have disastrous effects on other groups. Here I will investigate Roman warfare in the tribal zone, with a special focus on two topics: the use of extreme mass violence against resistant groups, and the relationship between disproportional use of violence and negative ethnic stereotyping of the 'tribal other'. I hope to show that archaeology can contribute to a wider debate on these topics among historians and anthropologists1 by assessing the short-term demographic impact of conquest.
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U2 - 10.1017/S1047759419000229
DO - 10.1017/S1047759419000229
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85073681940
VL - 32
SP - 439
EP - 458
JO - Journal of Roman Archaeology
JF - Journal of Roman Archaeology
SN - 1047-7594
ER -