INTRODUCTION

Absurd as it may sound, during the last few decades the image of the Roman Empire has undergone a noticeable change. The unitary model of the Roman Empire, in which laws issued by the emperor were followed equally from Egypt to Spain after AD 212, has been crumbling. Instead of this model of a quasi-modern state, historical studies based on sources found in the provinces offer a model of a heterogeneous empire, in which local rules and customs are more prominent. This chapter seeks to offer some insights into the implication of this development, proceeding from a juxtaposition of contemporary studies through the concepts of centre and periphery, universalism and particularism. These concepts are then applied to the debate over the Constitutio Antoniniana, as is fitting to any discussion on the legal unification of the Roman Empire. Finally, I shall explore the contradictory tendencies of centralisation and disintegration apparent in the historical scholarship today.

The context of this chapter is the historical image of ancient Rome, or the Rome of scholarship. It is an imaginary place where we as historians of ancient Rome wander alongside people like Gaius, Ulpian and Mommsen. In the Rome of scholarship it is sometimes difficult to discern the difference between ancient Romans and dead Germans. As Elizabeth Meyer has correctly stated, Romanists have tended to see Rome as an orderly Mommsenian commonwealth with the rule of law, a Rechtsstaat. This tendency has, in effect, modernised the Rome of scholarship.