BMCR 2009.06.12: Geraci on Forsen, The Province Strikes Back: Imperial Dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean. Papers and Monographs of the Finnish Institute at Athens, 13

Bjoern Forse/n, Giovanni Salmeri (ed.), The Province Strikes Back:
Imperial Dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean. Papers and Monographs
of the Finnish Institute at Athens, 13.  Helsinki:  Suomen
Ateenan-instituutin saeaetioe, 2008.  Pp. 214.  ISBN 9789519880686.
EUR 25.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Giovanni Geraci, University of Bologna
([email protected])
Word count:  1695 words
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[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

This book gathers the papers given at the conference "Experience of
Empires--Responses from the Provinces" held at the Finnish Institute of
Athens in June 2006. It was part of a project of comparing pre-modern
Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean area, in order to investigate
common lines or interpretation models for the topic ('Tributary Empires
Compared: Romans, Mughals and Ottomans in the Pre-Industrial World from
Antiquity till the Transition to Modernity').

Forse/n and Salmeri in their introduction ('Ideology and Practice of
Empire') question at length the relevance of some recent concepts like
that of "globalisation" to the "territorial" empires of the ancient
world, in particular the Roman Empire, for which they suggest adopting
"with all due caution, the notion of mondialisation, based on fluxes
and movements, and which is commonly referred to the last part of
nineteenth century, which saw the beginnings of economic
internationalisation" and emphasize as its outward characteristics the
permeability of borders and administrative fluidity. They stress also
that the case studies in this volume, which explore how the people in
"provincial" societies respond to the action of the "imperial"
government and how the inhabitants related to every change of
"imperial" rule, deal mainly with areas of the Eastern
Mediterranean--Anatolia, Crete, Greece--starting from the Persian to
the last century of the Ottoman Empire. Some papers relate to more
general issues such as 'Empire and collective mentality' or 'Empires
and migration trends'. They admit also that "much of the study of the
provincial responses to imperial government still concentrates on the
e/lite, while the impact of Empire on the lower strata of the
population is more difficult to grasp" (so that it must be borne in
mind that in most cases the focus in the papers here is on e/lites than
the "ordinary" population).

V. Gabrielsen ('Provincial Challenges to the Imperial Centre in
Achaemenid and Seleucid Asia Minor') treats the empires of Asia Minor
from 550 to around 63 B.C. and contrasts the empires of the
Achaemenids, of Alexander and of the Seleucids with the Athenian
Empire, contemporary and rival of the Achaemenids. According to
Gabrielsen's reconstruction the Achaemenid Empire is a good example, in
the author''s words, of 'Empire-as-integration' which moved after
Alexander towards an 'Empire-as-disintegration'. Gabrielsen discusses
also how problematic it is to consider the satrapy in "provincial"
terms and identifies other actors (some of them above and others below
the satrapy-level) that must be taken into consideration in the
relationships between centre and periphery. To them he adds vassal
kings, dynasts, cities, 'temple-states' and ethne. Gabrielsen draws a
concentric and complex imperial system built on an empire-wide
hierarchy of relationships between bases of power and the imperial
centre, which gave rise to both versatility and fluidity in the
administrative action. Revolts and uprisings too are treated as means
of shaping the empires in terms of integration and disintegration, like
the action and role of ruling relatives which involves an analysis of
what Grabrielsen calls an 'Empire-as-family'.

C. Bre/laz ('Maintaining Order and Exercising Justice in the Roman
Provinces of Asia Minor') resumes a topic already developed in his book
'La se/curite/ publique en Asie Mineure sous le Principat (Ier--IIIe s.
ap. J.-C.). Institutions municipales et institutions impe/riales dans
l'Orient Romain' (Basel 2005). Particular attention is devoted to the
splitting of responsibilities between local jurisdiction and imperial
power and the extent of the local autonomy is emphasized except in
military sovereignity and in matters of supreme jurisdiction such as
capital punishment and the court of appeal.

With S. Faroqhi's paper ('Local Elites and Government Intervention in
the Province of Anadolu') the reader moves to the Ottoman Empire from
the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth century, with a study on a
particular way of interaction between the central authorities and local
e/lites in the managing of the province. Faroqhi scrutinizes the role
of the pious foundations and local charities (financing mosques,
schools or dervish lodges) that some of the administrators sent by the
central government established in the provincial towns of Anadolu. It
is in this context that Faroqhi investigates the strategy of the local
e/lites in keeping alive the privileges of  most of the more relevant
foundations and so finding a way of interaction between upper (state)-
and lower (local)-level nobility.

Three essays are on Roman, Byzantine-Venetian and Ottoman Crete,
respectively written by A. Chaniotis ('What Difference Did Rome Make?
The Cretans and the Roman Empire'), M. Georgopoulou ('Crete between the
Byzantine and Venetian Empires') and A. Anastasopoulos
('Centre-Periphery Relations: Crete in the Eighteenth Century').

Chaniotis shows that the coming of Rome was a substantial turning point
in the history of Crete and that the new rule put an end to the
political fragmentation of the island and thus gave a new orientation
of the Cretan economy and society, integrating them into a unified
Mediterranean system. Chaniotis reads the effects of the main changes
in terms of economic, social  and cultural complexity, nevertheless
underlining that all this was not introduced or invented but simply
changed in character and enhanced by the Romans.

Rather different was the situation under the Venetian Empire when the
island became a colony, not a province, of the ruling power. Cultural
and political forms were then imported from Venice to Crete, but often
in a very peculiar way when reused in different political situations.
As an example Georgopoulou traces the history of the origins and
development of the church of St. Mark  and its platea as it was
re-created (but not copied nor imitated) in Candia/Herakleion.

Crete was ruled by Venice until the middle of the seventeenth century
when it was taken by the Turks. Anastasopoulos argues that the passage
from the control of an aristocratic Catholic republic to that of a
monarchic Muslim empire meant that the island was politically linked
anew to the eastern Mediterranean. The changes in the profile of the
island's population, the emergence of Muslim communities created mainly
by conversion rather than immigration, the process of formation of the
local e/lite and the relations between centre and periphery are seen
mostly in the field of administration and taxation.

The last part of the volume deals with more general topics, with four
papers given by G. Salmeri ('Empire and Collective Mentality: The
Transformation of Eutaxia from the Fifth Century BC to the Second
Century AD'), J. Haldon ('Provincial Elites, Central Authorities:
Problems in Fiscal and Military Management in the Byzantine State'), B.
Forse/n ('Empires and Migrational Trends: The Case of Roman and Ottoman
Greece') and I. Arnaoutoglou (''Dia doxan ekeinon kai kleos tou
ethnous'. The Philomousos Society of Athens and Antiquities').

Salmeri shows how Roman Empire introduced transformations and
innovations into the sphere of collective mentality. He studies the
development of the word "eutaxia" from the fifth century B.C. to the
second A.D.: from the military sphere and the ideal of civic
responsibility it moves to the meaning of discipline and good conduct
of life in terms of individual behaviour, till it passed as a key word
in the political debate in the cities of Asia Minor in the first half
of the second century A.D. to express the need for law and order on the
part of local notables so becoming an ideological support to preserve
their acquired privileges.

Haldon carries out an analysis (mainly based on his chapter 'Social
e/lites, wealth and power' in 'A Social History of Byzantium' of the
structural contraints which determined the patterns of evolution of the
Byzantine state from Late Roman to Byzantine forms. The stress is on
the relations, tensions and competitions between the imperial court,
the aristocracies, the cities and the provincial and urban e/lites of
the empire concerning the distribution of resources and also the
management of the system of taxation.

Forse/n looks in depth at the migrational trends in Greece under the
Roman and Ottoman Empires. Similarities between the two regimes can be
seen in the foundation of colonies, compulsive urbanisation,
large-scale forced population relocations and deportations. The
creation of tax or trade incentives and larger market advantages then
facilitated voluntary movement. The ultimate aim of the paper is to
develop a model for gaining a better understanding of the effects
created by comparable actions in pre-modern empires.

In the final contribution Arnaoutoglou focuses on the history and
activities of the Philomousos Society, founded in Athens in 1813 by
members not only of the Athenian e/lite, but also many of the local
Greek communities, Britain and other European countries, with the task
of saving and conserving antiquities for the education of younger
generations of Greeks. It is a fine piece of scholarship on the life of
a cultural institution between the last years of the Ottoman rule and
the first of the new Greek national state.

After all this is a quite interesting book but unfortunately a bit
disappointing both for the very small number of somewhat disconnected
case studies, and in part also for their choice, which appears
sometimes offhand. The final impression is that it is a useful
collection of papers but that most of the topics promised by the (very
ambitious) title of the book remain here untouched.

Table of Contents:

Bjoern Forse/n and Giovanni Salmeri, Ideology and Practice of Empire
(pp. 1-13)

Vincent Gabrielsen, Provincial Challenges to the Imperial Centre in
Achaemenid and Seleucid Asia Minor (pp. 15-44)

Ce/dric Bre/laz, Maintaining Order and Exercising Justice in the Roman
Provinces of Asia Minor (pp. 45-64)

Suraiya Faroqhi, Local Elites and Government Intervention in the
Province of Anadolu (pp. 65-81)

Angelos Chaniotis, What Difference Did Rome Make? The Cretans and the
Roman Empire (pp. 83-105)

Maria Georgopoulou, Crete between the Byzantine and Venetian Empires
(pp. 107-122)

Antonis Anastasopoulos, Centre-Periphery Relations: Crete in the
Eighteenth Century (pp. 123-136)

Giovanni Salmeri, Empire and Collective Mentality: The Transformation
of eutaxia from the Fifth Century BC to the Second Century AD (pp.
137-155)

John Haldon, Provincial Elites, Central Authorities: Problems in Fiscal
and Military Management in the Byzantine State (pp. 157-185)

Bjoern Forse/n, Empires and Migrational Trends: The Case of Roman and
Ottoman Greece (pp. 187-200)

Ilias Arnaoutoglou, 'Dia doxan ekeinon kai kleos tou ethnous'. The
Philomousos Society of Athens and Antiquities (pp. 201-214)