Power and Status. Administration, Appointment Policies and Social Hierarchies in the Roman Empire, AD 193-284

Abstract

This study defines changing power and status relations between the highest ranking representatives of Roman imperial power at the central level, particularly in a period when the central level came under tremendous pressure, AD 193-284. Prosopography has been used as the principal method for analyzing the Empire’s administration, appointment policies and socio-political hierarchies. Hereby, it was possible to trace the political elite of the Empire, consisting of the third-century emperors, the senatorial elite and high-ranking equestrians who served as senior military officers in the army and as senior civil administrators. The examination of these groups, via their status profiles and four power dimensions (in Robert Dahl’s terms, base, scope, domain and amount), shows how the various power and status structures changed in different ways. By integrating prosopographical explorations into an analytical approach and asking sociological questions, this thesis does not aim to analyze each individual senator or eques, but more broadly surveys changes in power and status at the top level in the Roman Empire in the third century. The focus on the third century has been valuable because the difficulties of the era at different levels have revealed changes in power and status relations more visibly. The period under discussion is one for which data are minimal. Yet, exactly such a sociological analysis of power and status relations through prosopography has made it possible to describe and contextualize broader processes. Finally, this dissertation has aimed to demonstrate the advantages of a methodology based on an analysis and comparison of prosopographical data covering a considerable part of the political elite for a period of about a century. This method yielded not only confirmation of various notions put forward in previous studies but also new insights on the diachronic development of imperial administration and social hierarchies.