Pax Romana

The term Pax Romana which means Roman peace refers to the time period from 27 B.C.E. This long period of time saw unprecedented peace and economic prosperity throughout the Empire, which spanned from England in the too Morocco in the south and Iraq in the east. The Pax Romana was basically a time of peace for all Romans. The Pax Romana was a state of tranquility throughout the Mediterranean world from the reign of Augustus. The Pax Romana was the long period of relative peace and minimal expansions by military. The concept of Pax Romana was first described by Edward Gibbon. Gibbon proposed a period of moderation under Augustus and his successors and argued that generals bent on expansion where checked and recalled by the Emperors. For the Romans it was a time of peace, they were free from war.

It was a new beginning. Pax Romana, according to Gibbon, would have ended with Commodus himself, whose dissentious excesses and despotic misrule destabilized central Roman politics amidst the chaos of the Germanic invasions of the Rhine-Danube frontier. Lacking a good precedent of successful one-man rule, Augustus created a junta of the greatest military magnates and stood as the front man. By binding together these leading magnates in a coalition, he eliminated the prospect of civil war. The Pax Romana was not immediate, despite the end of the civil wars, because fighting continued in Spain and in the Alps. Nevertheless, Augustus twice closed the Gates of Janus first in 29 BC and again in 25 BC. This concludes my essay on the Pax Romana.