Capital Accumulation, Supply Networks and the Composition of the Roman Senate, 14–235 ce

Abstract

Abstract In the first two centuries ce, the Roman senate transformed from an assembly of Italian landowners into a multi-regional group. The admission of thousands of provincials into Rome’s governing elite is often taken as evidence for the successful integration of subject populations. This article challenges such views of the senate as an inclusive institution. It shows that the overwhelming majority of non-Italian senators came from merely four (out of more than thirty) provinces: Baetica (in southern Spain), Narbonensis (Provence), Africa (the coastlines of Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) and Asia (western Anatolia). The elites of these regions entertained close links to Italy since the second century bce. In the first centuries ce, they acquired enormous wealth through predation, through investments in capital-intensive agriculture and through their ability to exploit state supply networks for their own benefit. The steep rise in the number of provincial senators should thus not be read as evidence for the large-scale participation of conquered groups in the imperial administration. Rather, it chiefly was a product of the new opportunities for wealth accumulation and exploitation generated by Roman imperialism.