ads and bridges provided a freeway that led
into the citadel of Roman power.

Under the Caesars the Roman Empire achieved its greatest geographical
extent and exercised its widest cultural influence. The city of Rome was
the capital of the western world. There was one state, one law, one
economy, one official language, one military authority.

Despite its apparent massiveness, Roman civilization was not a monolith.
Rather it was a conglomerate, consisting of many parts held together by
connecting social tissues which Rome and Italy alone supplied. In the
first instance there was a division into provinces, colonies and newly
acquired territories. The provinces, under their Roman appointed
governors, enjoyed a large measure of economic and cultural
self-determination within the Roman Empire. Beyond the Roman Empire lay
territories and peoples associated with Rome by treaties, bound to Rome
by trade and travel, in some cases paying tribute to Rome, but enjoying
sufficient autonomy as peoples, nations and empires maneuvering for
position and advantage, frequently allying themselves with non-Roman
areas and occasionally conspiring to by-pass Roman authority and even to
challenge Roman supremacy.

This political diversity along the defense perimeter of the Roman Empire
existed in a chaos ranging from questioned authority to open defiance
and military challenges to Rome and the threat of Romanization. Along
this defense perimeter were stationed the legions that guarded the
frontiers. Across it moved trade, travel, incursions, invasions and
periodic reprisals as a result of which the more turbulent neighbors
were brought within the sphere of Rome's influence or, in cases of
extreme dissidence and resistance, were depopulated, colonized and added
to the Roman conglomerate.

It goes without saying that the influence of Roman culture extended far
beyond the Roman defense perimeter, reaching peoples, nations and
empires to which Rome was little more than a name. The no-man's land
between what-was and what-was-not Rome not only existed in a state of
perpetual uncertainty, but provided a battle field for the smuggling,
brigandage, the periodic border clashes, the migrations, incursions,
invasions and punitive expeditions that are the characteristic features
of every ill-defined political boundary.

Roman civilization under the Caesars was a centralized absolutism with a
large measure of peripheral deviation and autonomy. It was