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BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
with the result that even ancient writers referred to them only from time to
time. The point at which a Roman began to speak of social disorder was
clearly much higher than might be true of a person today.
The ubiquity of banditry cannot be expressed in statistical terms. However,
to demonstrate it we need not resort to statistics. On the other hand,
once we regard it as demonstrated, we must not overestimate its effect. Most
people did not fall victim to bandits. However, the likelihood of suffering
this misfortune was high. For the people of the Empire, the bandit was
probably not so much a physical threat as a psychological one, a symptom of
anxiety. People lived in open or hidden fear of the bandit. 123 According to
Velleius Paterculus, in a passage already much cited here, thanks to the pax
Augusta every inhabitant of the Roman Empire, even those in the most
distant regions, needed no longer fear attack by bandits (metus latrociniorum).
This was propaganda. It was part of the standard repertoire of the propaganda
of the Roman ruler, and the more it emphasised pax, securitas and
other endlessly lauded blessings of human existence, the more it suggested
how bad these actually were. 124
In the next chapter I discuss ‘figurative’ latrones, investigating various
types and looking at the picture presented by Roman authors. The findings
of this chapter produce an important supposition, i.e., in characterising
people as ‘bandits, rebels, rivals and avengers’, the ubiquity of the bandit
allowed writers recourse to a motif that provoked a very lively response in
their readers. This partly explains why the bandit motif was so popular and
why it was extended to so many and varied categories of offender.
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