The background behind that scene is just the “to each his laws” principle of the Roman legal system: a few, very few, criminal matters would be defined by Rome and apply to everybody (“thee shalt not try to kill the Emperor” kind of stuff); for minor criminal matters (that is, anything not listed at the all-of-Rome’s-lands level), a person would be subject to the laws of his own people. As for civil law, a person would again be subject to his own people’s laws; in a contract between two parties from different peoples, if one was a Roman then Roman law applied, if neither was a Roman then they had to make “which laws apply” part of the agreement (this leads to the current custom, common or required in many countries, of indicating which “forum” will solve disputes). (Yeah, I figure you know that, writing for general readership here).
Pilates’ hands were as tied as those of Jesus, even if the ties weren’t made from actual rope. If he had refused to execute someone which the Supreme Tribunal of the Jews had deemed required executing, he would have been accused of imposing his criteria on a legally-appointed body and any social unrest which took place during the next until-they-got-tired-of-it years would have been directly blamed on him.
I used to be a bit of an armchair historian when it came to ancient Rome, and I recall that individual envoys who went abroad to negotiate with foreign powers had the implied power of the Roman legions behind them, even if they went alone or with a small retinue (I believe this was indicated by their ability to bear the Fasces when on official business). Essentially, they were telling the people they were negotiating with that it would be a Bad Idea ™ to ransom or kill them.
I recall that there is a phrase which translates from Latin as “the ram has touched the wall”. It reflected the reality that negotiation is often an exercise in brinkmanship, and the aggressors had to be able to definitively bring that to an end. Hence, a policy that negotiation could continue up to the moment the head of the ram touched the defender’s wall, whereupon it was total war and devil take the hindmost.
The policy put power to terminate negotiations back into the hands of the (Roman) aggressors. No doubt it also served operationally to prevent confusion and hesitation among Roman soldiers at the “tip of the spear” about what was going on.
The point is that such a policy (if it existed, or if it was ever strictly observed) implies that it was possible to negotiate with Romans on a rules-based set of principles, albeit that the Romans made it clear they held the upper hand.
I remember a lecture I read once that said the Romans were not bent on world dominaton. they started off as a pretty good regional power, who got asked to help their neighbours. The better they got, the more they won, the more they got dragged into additional wars and found themselves controlling bigger chunks of territory. Beating the neighbour and going home just meant the neighbour came back bigger and meaner with more friends, so takeover was the safest approach.
By the third punic war they were getting rather tired of these Carthagian fellows, IIRC. Basically, they had fought two very exhausting wars. After the second one, they thought they’d won. Then Carthage started attacking its neighbours and suggesting they did not have to remain peaceful. Rome did not care who started what, Carthage on the warpath was a really really bad idea from their point of view. So they eliminated them once and for all.
IIRC there was a similar-minded faction after WWII that suggested Germany be stripped of all industrial capablity and left as an agricultural country, a Switzerland with the cows but no alps. Obviously that argument did not win…
I am definitely going to have to start using this phrase in my pre-trial mediations. “I grow weary of this exercise, $40k is my final offer. You have 2 weeks to take it, after that the ram hits the wall and it’s up to the jury.”
Considering what else has been said about Roman’s negotiating practices, whether it’s leaving local laws in place or helping their neighbours, I have to wonder what their main objectives were in building an empire. What they were after might enlighten us as to how they negotiated to get it.
Was it glory, either of Rome as a whole or of individual generals and politicians?
Did they loot a lot of resources they could not have otherwise gotten or which would have been more expensive to buy without the war? Did they chiefly want safe trading routes?
Was it chiefly about getting slaves? If that’s the case, it seems like they allocated a lot of freemen in their military, paid them and gave them lands, in order to get slaves.
The Empire may have started out somewhat “accidentally” as a result of self-defense and expansion for some resources, but it became such an ingrained aspect of Rome itself over it’s lifetime (remember how long it lasted from the Early Republic to it’s fall, after all) that I think they became an Empire for Empire’s sake, in a way. They had huge armies and used them because that’s what they’d “always” done, as it were. In the end, the Cult of the Emperor demanded expansion and war (or so the Emperor’s thought) so aside from an exception here or there, that’s what Rome did.
Aside from that, your answer is the same as it always is when asking why someone does something - follow the money.
I seem to recall a charming bit of hypocrisy from Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars.
Caesar was warring with some (I believe Germanic) tribe who attacked him at a parley. Caesar went on in great detail about how vile and untrustworthy these people were for attacking him at a parley.
Later, Caesar was warring with some other (I think also Germanic) tribe. Caesar captured their leader at a parley then used him as a hostage. Caesar went on in great detail about how stupid these people were for falling for his trick.
In (I think) Africa, there was a Roman official that simply stepped in between two opposing armies and forbade them to fight. I can’t find the cite right now….
Check out Post 17. The Roman idea of “won” was “you guys will not bleat without our permission”, a way of treating other nations which isn’t exactly conductive to peace (for a more-recent example see: how did treatment of WWI losers lead to WWII).
Reminds me of a favorite scene from The Sopranos. Tony and his goons are roughing up some Jewish guy, and he tells them the story of Masada, and ends with something like “See! Don’t fuck with the Jews. Where are the Romans now?!” and Tony says “You’re lookin’ at 'em!”
In fairness to Caesar, said tribe had previously used a ruse of false diplomatic negotiations to ambush Romans, so in the eyes of 'ole Jules, they were probably viewed as completely untrustworthy scum who deserved no diplomatic protection. One thing you can say about the Romans: they usually took the informal rules of diplomacy and neutrality extremely seriously.
Err… I’m not quite certain how to put this, but Christianity (and certainly in particular Catholicism) is more like the force which succeeded the Empire, not a vestige of it. Until the very later years, they were officially enemies, often explicitly persecuted, and while claiming the authority to confer the title to the Roman Empire, did not think to much of its earthly law, authority, or culture.
Saying Catholicism is a vestige of the Roman Empire is a bit like saying modern Chinese business combines are the heirs to the Ming Dynasty Mandarins: true only in an extremely tortured and roundabout fashion constructed just to say that it is.