Pacified and Unarmed? Reconsidering Roman Military Presence in Greece during Imperial Times

From the early part of the 2nd c. BC and Rome’s expansion over the Hellenistic world to the period when the armies and navies of Roman generals fought against each other for supremacy over Italy and the eastern Mediterranean, Greece notably became a theatre of numerous brutal and long-drawn wars and military operations. By the time of Augustus and with the re-carving of Rome’s conquered territories under the empire, the southern and northern Greek mainland and the islands were reconfigured into distinct provinces and declared “pacified and unarmed”. But what does this rather commonplace general designation mean? Surely no legionary units were stationed in the Greek provinces, as they were on the north European, British, North African and eastern frontiers, and no campaigns of the Roman army were fought on Greek soil. Yet, it would be a misconception to think that under the Principate Roman military presence in Greece was scant or insignificant. 

This paper provides a first attempt at reconsidering the nature, extent and function of Roman military presence in Greece under the Empire. To discuss the parameters of this presence, we wish to focus upon three main themes, namely visibility, interaction, and impact, and explore a number of relevant questions. To what extent was the Roman army present in the cities and the countryside? How did soldiers identify and distinguish themselves from the rest of provincial society? What were the main duties of army personnel and how were they involved in controlling the territory? What economic, social and cultural impact did their presence have on provincial society? And how did this presence change from the Early to the Late Imperial period? Drawing upon relevant epigraphic and archaeological evidence, we attempt to show that the presence, as well as the interaction and impact of military personnel in Roman Greece were far more common than hitherto acknowledged, and this needs to be further and more seriously explored in the future.

Dimitris Grigoropoulos (BA 1999 Athens; MA 2001 Durham; PhD 2006 Durham) is Senior Research Staff Member and Head of Archive at the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI), Athens department. His research interests include the archaeology of Roman Greece, pottery studies, archaeological data management and the history of Classical archaeology. Since 2012, he has been a member of the organising committee of the Roman Seminar.

Vasilis Evangelidis is a Research Associate at Athena Research Center, specializing in Roman & Digital Archaeology. He holds a Bachelor's degree in History and Archaeology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and has completed the 1st (Master of Arts, 1998) and 2nd (PhD, 2007) Cycles of Postgraduate Studies at the same institution. He also holds a Master of Science degree (2001) in Digital Archaeology from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Southampton, where he studied as a scholar of the Lambrakis Research Foundation. He has authored a monograph on the Agoras of the Greek cities during the Roman period, and has written several articles on various aspects of the archaeology of Roman Greece and the use of digital technology in archaeology. His research interests also include the urbanization and architecture of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, material culture, fortifications, Cultural Technology, and the applications of computers in archaeology, particularly in three-dimensional restorations and archaeological Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  He is co-organizer of the Roman Seminar in Athens, a collective effort dedicated to showcasing research in all facets of the society and culture of Roman Greece while he has recently published (2022) in collaboration with Oxbow publications a monograph about the Archaeology of Roman Macedonia which focuses on features of the built environment.