Conclusion

This chapter has argued that Roman treaties - to wit, ancient instruments of international law - offer a significant lens onto the forms of power that Rome sought to exercise in the passage from a multipolar to a unipolar word, and from hegemony to empire.

The creation of the Roman empire out of this world was accomplished through the creation of so-called provinces, large territorial units of adminis­tration to which Rome dispatched a supervisory governor. But within provinc­es, Roman rule operated not through the direct administration of persons or households. Instead, in many instances, it continued to strike treaties with se­lect cities, into whose power and control were delivered the communities in what became their hinterlands. Put otherwise, provinces were subdivided into territories, in each of which one city alone was recognized as superordinate and named a polity; networks of such city-states were then aggregated so as to encompass the totality of land and persons within the province. The commu­nities excluded from treaty relations were perforce excluded from politics. The ongoing performance of elaborate rituals of recognition - the regular renewal of treaty relations - was thus an act of exclusion that amounted to act of domination.^{[231] [232]}

The use of treaties, and the instrumentalisation of local political communi­ties more broadly, to construct the empire is also revealing of the nature and limits of Roman power.