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1 results

  • 13 - Warfare and diplomacy

  • from PART IV - FOREIGN RELATIONS AND THE BARBARIAN WORLD
  • Edited by Averil Cameron, University of Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    11 December 1997, pp 411-436

  • Summary

    In the Roman tradition diplomacy, that is, 'direct communication state-to-state', was viewed mainly as an adjunct or epilogue to war, as when a victorious general negotiated the surrender of a defeated enemy, or an alliance was struck for a military goal, or a truce was agreed to forestall an attack or bury the dead. Information from the works, contextualized by the enormous amount of data now available from archaeology, makes it possible to construct a fairly ample account of the warfare of the period. The Greek and Latin sources begin to show a greater interest in diplomatic activity only during the later part of the reign of Theodosius II. Diocletian and Constantine completed the work of the third-century soldier-emperors in saving the Roman empire from its external enemies. The dangers latent in the federate settlements became clear soon after the death of Theodosius and the division of the empire between his ineffective sons, Arcadius and Honorius.