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Traditions of Empire, East and West

Translatio Imperii: "Eternal Rome"

Empires are many, or so we are accustomed to think. We can classify and typologize them - ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, land and overseas empires - but that is merely to put them into some sort of order. Most modern studies of empire see in them a fundamental diversity and plurality. "Empires," rather than "empire," feature in their titles as much as in their analyses.

But an earlier tradition of use and reflection tended to see empire as a singular and unitary enterprise. For most Western Europeans, until about the eighteenth century, there was only one empire, the Holy Roman Empire, inaugurated by Charlemagne in 800 CE (Koebner 1961: 19). It might, from the fifteenth century onward, come to be called "The Holy Roman Empire of the German People," but, ruled as it was by the multinational Habsburgs for much of the time, that did not, in the eyes of most people, confine it to the Germanic states. It stood for all Europe, all Christendom. Its "Roman" title pronounced its universality as much as its association with the German states indicated the political power that was the "carrier" of the imperial idea (Koebner 1961: 31-3; Wilson 2016: 1-3).1 When Napoleon abolished it in 1806, that was in order to replace it with his own empire, the Napoleonic Empire, which also strove to be pan-European, if not global. German or French, there could only be one empire in existence at any one time. The element of continuity, despite the rupture, was proclaimed first by having Napoleon's coronation as emperor in 1804 blessed by the pope, as had been Charlemagne's; and also by Napoleon's marriage to Marie-Louise, the daughter of the last Holy Roman Emperor, the Habsburg emperor Francis II (Heer 2002: 276).2

That was one reason why European kings and queens, such as those of France and Britain, who often ruled over large realms - later called empires - were for long reluctant to call themselves "emperors" or to call their realms "empires." They preferred to call themselves monarchs, leaving the imperial title to the Holy Roman Emperors (Koebner 1961: 55-6; Muldoon 1999: 9, 114).3 If they used the term "empire," that was generally in the old sense of "sovereignty" or "absolute authority." When Henry VIII famously declared, in the Act in Restraint of Appeals of 1533, that "this realm of England is an empire," he meant by this that the king of England acknowledged no superiors in his realm - that his rule was absolute and allowed of no appeal to a higher power, such as the pope (Ullmann 1979). He did not mean that England was a particularly extensive state, or that it ruled over a multiplicity of states and peoples, as the idea of empire had come to imply in addition to its original meaning of absolute sovereignty. He certainly meant no challenge to the Holy Roman Empire (though, as he had shown by putting himself up for election in 1519, like a number of other rulers he was not averse to the idea of offering himself as a candidate for the office of Holy Roman Emperor) (Scarisbrick 1970: 97-105).

The Holy Roman Empire self-consciously and self-professedly saw itself as a direct descendant of the original Roman Empire, the more so as that empire from the time of Constantine had already declared itself a Christian empire. The Holy Roman Empire was a renovatio imperii, a renewal of empire; and empire meant Rome. The way the West declared the unique, unitary, and universal nature of empire was by privileging a tradition that pivoted on the Roman Empire. It was acknowledged that the earlier empire of Alexander the Great - none other was seen as relevant - had been important. But, it was argued, that was relatively short-lived, and its Hellenizing mission had in any case been taken over and put on a firmer and more permanent footing by Rome. Rome, in its own self-understanding, was coterminous with civilization itself, with the whole oecumene of the known world. "The world and the city of Rome occupy the same place," declared the poet Ovid. Rather like the Chinese with their idea of their empire being "the Middle Kingdom" (Zhongguo), beyond which was simply barbarism, the Romans looked on the world beyond their empire as filled with uncouth tribes and kingdoms. Later, when in the fourth century the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the state religion, to the barbarism of the tribes could be added their paganism. Rome's "civilizing mission" could take on, in addition, its Christianizing mission.

There was and could be only one empire, the Roman Empire. As the great classicist Theodor Mommsen put it, it was "a familiar concept to the Romans that they were not only the first power on earth, they were also, in a sense, the only one" (in Pagden 1995: 23). What is more, as proclaimed by a host of contemporary - echoed by later - commentators, it was indispensable to the peace and prosperity of the world (Kumar 2017: 47-59). The "fall of the Roman Empire" - its break-up in the West in 476 CE - did little to shake this conviction, nor the belief that there could be only one empire.

For one thing, the Roman Empire as a whole did not fall - only its Western part. It continued in the East for another thousand years, in the form of the Byzantine Empire, whose citizens always called themselves Romans: Rhomaioi. Then there was the renewal of the Roman Empire with the inauguration of the Holy Roman Empire by Charlemagne - blessed by Pope Leo III - on Christmas Day 800 CE. The justification of the move, at least in part, was that, with the deposition of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VI in 796 by his mother Irene and her assumption of power, the throne of Byzantium was technically vacant, since it was argued that a woman could not rule. "To its supporters, the [Holy Roman] Empire was not an inferior, new creation, but a direct continuation of the ancient Roman one with the title simply being 'translated' (transferred) by Leo from Byzantium to Charlemagne and his successors" (Wilson 2016: 27).

The idea of the "translation of empire" - translatio imperii - allowed for the persistence of the Roman Empire in various guises, from Constantine's Rome to Byzantium, to Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire. Since the Holy Roman Empire lasted for a thousand years, to 1806, there was a Roman Empire in existence for a very long time. If we accept, as the Catholic Church claimed, that it was the true successor and continuation of the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire is with us still.

But later empires could also claim to be continuing the Roman inheritance, even if not necessarily giving themselves the Roman title. Richard Koebner has shown that, in opposing the claims of the Holy Roman Empire to rule all of Italy, the Italian humanists of the fifteenth century revived the classical meaning of imperium as relating to extensive states in general, not necessarily tied only to the Roman title (Koebner 1961: 50-60). This meant that, in time, other states could challenge the Holy Roman Empire's claim to be the only empire, the only one inheriting the dignity and mission of Rome. By the eighteenth century, the Ottomans, the Spanish, the British, the French, and the Russians could claim to have empires every bit as grand as, if not grander than, the Roman Empire. In the Russian case, there was indeed the declaration that Moscow was the "third Rome," following on the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in 1453. But the Ottomans, British, and French did not feel the need to call themselves Romans. "Romans are dead out, English are come in," declared Thomas Carlyle triumphantly in 1840 (in Kumar 2017: 14).4

But whether or not they called themselves Roman, all the Western empires felt that they, more than an increasingly weak and disorganized Holy Roman Empire, had taken on the mantle of Rome, in promoting the imperial mission of civilization in the world. Still, there should be ideally only one empire. Dante had expressed that idea with classic force in his De Monarchia (c.1314).

Mankind is the son of heaven, which is quite perfect in all its working . Therefore mankind is in its ideal state when it follows in the footsteps of heaven, insofar as its nature allows. And since the whole sphere of heaven is guided by a single movement (i.e. that of the Primum Mobile), and by a single source of motion (who is God), in all its parts, movements and causes of movement . then if our argument is sound, mankind is in its ideal state when it is guided by a single ruler (as by a single source of motion) and in accordance with a single law (as by a single movement) in its own causes of movement and in its own movements. Hence it is clear that monarchy (or that undivided rule which is called "empire") is necessary to the well-being of the world. (Dante [1314] 1996: 13-14)

In his plea for universal monarchy or empire, Dante singled out the Roman Empire as the providentially ordained agency for bringing peace, justice, and righteousness to the whole world: "The Roman people were ordained by nature, carrying out God's purpose, to rule; therefore the Roman people by...