Honor and The Performance of Roman State Identity

Abstract

Principate. 1 The argument advanced proposes the Roman world was ensconced by a metavalue of honor that significantly shaped the personal identities of Rome’s aristocratic decision-making classes. Competition for honor subsumed aristocratic life and shaped not only the personal identities of the elite, but also the persona of the Roman state. The Romans extrapolated their psychological framework, in which the stratification of domestic society rested on personal identities of honor, to their outlook on foreign policy. Akin to their domestic lives, those executing foreign policy conceptualized Rome as engaged in a status competition for honor with the polities existing its world system. Preserving and enhancing one’s honor relative to others was fundamental in domestic life, and this was also the state’s primary objective in relation to all others. The identity of the Roman state, therefore, was an aggressive status seeker. A survey of historical world systems reveals a variety of cultural and institutional environments. The way historically situated actors conceptualize the nature of international relations often depends upon these contexts, as is the content of legitimate foreign policy. Reus-Smit (1997, 1999) argues that historical world systems are embedded in constitutional structures. These are normative complexes comprising metavalues that provide foundations for the fundamental institutions operating in differing world systems. For instance, those undergirding multilateralism in the modern era and the system of dispute arbitration among the ancient Greek city-state system. This article builds on Reus-Smit’s basic insight that cultural environments shape institutional type. However, instead of fundamental institutions, the focus here explores how cultural environments influence personal and subsequently state identity. Constructivists have advanced the field of International Relations (IR) regarding the sources and dynamics of state identity. State identity is fundamental because it indicates how we should expect states to act and makes intelligible the types of policies they pursue. Constructivists locate the sources of state identity in many places, including national discourses, international norms and practices, and the collective notions of Self shared among states. However, constructivists 1