WI: The Roman Empire became a totalitarian police state?

Deleted member 97083

What if the Romans, during the height of their power, had established a completely centralized secret police that eventually increased in power and took over the state? What might this look like?

Historically, the Romans were not unfamiliar with espionage. In the 2nd century, Hadrian established a secret service, the frumentarii. Ostensibly wheat collectors, allowing them to come into contact with locals and natives across the far-flung regions of the Roman Empire, the frumentarii collected information and relayed it to the Emperor. They lasted until the 3rd century. The Agentes in rebus from the 4th to 7th centuries were an imperial courier service who relayed messages, but also supervised the arrest of senior officials. The Byzantines also established the Bureau of Barbarians from the 5th to at least the 8th century. It was not strictly a secret service, but kept close watch on all visiting foreigners and kept records on the subject.

So one might wonder, was a police state feasible in the pre-industrial era?

I would say it was very much possible. We can look to the examples of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which had agents of the king in every province and foreign exiles giving information about far flung territories. Much later, Ivan the Terrible established the Oprichnina infamous for its secret police and suppressive action. While early modern, this was still before any sort of faster industrial travel, and when printing was prohibitively expensive in Russia. The later Okhrana, though established in the 19th century, functioned in the least densely populated and least industrialized state in Europe, the Russian Empire.

Hypercentralization was also possible in the pre-industrial and even ancient world, as evidenced by Cleopatra's Egypt. Ministers and agents of the pharaoh controlled all sources of revenue in the country, in a highly rigid bureaucratic system with many state functionaries and regulations, long before any sort of modern state. This didn't involve much espionage but involved heavy documentation with papyri, long before printing.
 
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Hypercentralization was only possible in Egypt because Egypt was a fairly geopgraphically confined and relatively small and cohesive state. This is not the case with an empire as far flung and heterogeneous as the Romans. Roman administration relied heavily on local elites to manage the day to day affairs in cities, at least until Diocletian, when they were co-opted by imperial officials. The Romans state under Diocletian was about as centralized and draconian as you could realistically get in an empire of that size.
 

Deleted member 97083

Hypercentralization was only possible in Egypt because Egypt was a fairly geopgraphically confined and relatively small and cohesive state. This is not the case with an empire as far flung and heterogeneous as the Romans. Roman administration relied heavily on local elites to manage the day to day affairs in cities, at least until Diocletian, when they were co-opted by imperial officials. The Romans state under Diocletian was about as centralized and draconian as you could realistically get in an empire of that size.
Hence the mention of Ivan the Terrible's Oprichnina and the 19th century Okhrana (whose predecessor, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was founded in 1802, decades before any railroads were built in Russia and when the literacy rate was so low that even many provincial leaders were illiterate).

European Russia + Ukraine + Belarus is about the same size and population as the Roman Empire, with several heterogeneous groups, but even slower to travel than the Roman Empire.

Many Chinese dynasties were the same size as the Roman Empire or larger, and China had a highly centralized bureaucracy for many centuries with some interruptions.
 
Hence the mention of Ivan the Terrible's Oprichnina and the 19th century Okhrana (whose predecessor, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was founded in 1802, decades before any railroads were built in Russia and when the literacy rate was so low that even many provincial leaders were illiterate).

European Russia + Ukraine + Belarus is about the same size and population as the Roman Empire, with several heterogeneous groups, but even slower to travel than the Roman Empire.

Many Chinese dynasties were the same size as the Roman Empire or larger, and China had a highly centralized bureaucracy for many centuries with some interruptions.
Ivan IV's Russia was not extremely heterogeneous like Rome (in fact, it was almost completely Russian), and even Imperial Russia arguably wasn't, over half of the population of Russia in 1897 was Russian.
 

Deleted member 97083

Ivan IV's Russia was not extremely heterogeneous like Rome (in fact, it was almost completely Russian), and even Imperial Russia arguably wasn't, over half of the population of Russia in 1897 was Russian.
And all of the core parts of the Roman Empire, and nobility in the far-flung provinces came to identify themselves as Roman and Christian, and spoke Latin or Greek which were regarded as equally Roman.

In that sense, the Roman Empire was more homogeneous than the Russian Empire.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
and how effective are those various organization ? Ophrichnina and Okhrana is more famous for its terror than efeective Surveillance. Tsarist Russia and Iranian Shah is overthrown despite infamous reputation of its intelligence.

and Remember the Devil in the Bible, its have reputation of encouraging people to sin, analyst had argue that this protrayal is pre-industrial intelligence service : more interested in profiting from people under accusation rather than providing accurate intelligence. Roman proscription and 'whisperer' had bad reputation of only desiring wealth from people accused of treason rather than successful prevention of plot.

Pre-industrial spy service generally regard3d as 1)bribable 2)more interested in finding fault than accurate information 3) use of terror to frighten other people 4) more responsive to monarch pqranoia than actual plot.

Even modern spy service suffer from this, i think totalitarian police state is only possible - in 20th century - for limited time (several decade at most)

For Roman (or other pre-20th century state) totalitarian police state is impossible.
 

Deleted member 97083

I recommend that everyone in this thread should read the short, freely/publicly available article "Neo-Assyrian Military Intelligence" by Tamás Dezső. It goes over the advanced system of military intelligence used by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC.

This was 900 years before the Roman Empire, sustained by the very first empire in its region, an empire that was constantly at war with rebellious lords and foreign kingdoms, to the extent that the king was essentially always on campaign. If the Neo-Assyrian Empire could afford this extensive system, why would the much richer, much more stable Roman Empire not be able to do the same?

If you add an extensive, but feasible system of military intelligence, to the pontifex maximus role of the emperor, or the Pope (who can be controlled by the emperor) to control religion, plus a typical pre-industrial secret police to target individuals, even as corrupt as the Oprichnina, then that would come pretty close to a totalitarian Roman Empire.

Depends on which period you are talking about.From the start of the Eastern Han Dynasty to somewhere during the middle of the Tang Dynasty,the government was dominated by bureaucrats who were basically aristocrats that possess private armies and large estates from which they basically run like a personal fief,with very little regard towards laws.

@darthfanta

By any chance do you know about Embroidered Uniform Guard of the Ming period? I can't find any more information on it than the Wikipedia article.
 
Hence the mention of Ivan the Terrible's Oprichnina and the 19th century Okhrana (whose predecessor, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was founded in 1802, decades before any railroads were built in Russia and when the literacy rate was so low that even many provincial leaders were illiterate).

European Russia + Ukraine + Belarus is about the same size and population as the Roman Empire, with several heterogeneous groups, but even slower to travel than the Roman Empire.

Many Chinese dynasties were the same size as the Roman Empire or larger, and China had a highly centralized bureaucracy for many centuries with some interruptions.
It was not very effective in China.The Ming Dynasty was basically the closest thing to being a state run by secret police.At one point in time,there were FOUR different secret police agencies in China.The different secret police groups basically competed with one another and often tried to indict people for crimes they did not commit.The different secret police organizations were primarily used to silent officials who were critical of the emperor.

It is a misunderstanding however that China had a highly centralized bureaucracy for much of it's existence.There was no government below the county level.For a large period of time,from the start of the Eastern Han Dynasty to somewhere during the middle of the Tang Dynasty,large parts of the country was under the direct control of large landed aristocrats who controlled private armies and ran land under their ownership as though it were their private domain.These aristocrats also dominated government.For a significant period between the middle of the Tang Dynasty towards the start of the Song Dynasty,the country was divided under the control of many warlords who only paid lip service to whatever authority they supposedly own allegiance towards.
 
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I recommend that everyone in this thread should read the short, freely/publicly available article "Neo-Assyrian Military Intelligence" by Tamás Dezső. It goes over the advanced system of military intelligence used by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC.

This was 900 years before the Roman Empire, sustained by the very first empire in its region, an empire that was constantly at war with rebellious lords and foreign kingdoms, to the extent that the king was essentially always on campaign. If the Neo-Assyrian Empire could afford this extensive system, why would the much richer, much more stable Roman Empire not be able to do the same?

If you add an extensive, but feasible system of military intelligence, to the pontifex maximus role of the emperor, or the Pope (who can be controlled by the emperor) to control religion, plus a typical pre-industrial secret police to target individuals, even as corrupt as the Oprichnina, then that would come pretty close to a totalitarian Roman Empire.



@darthfanta

By any chance do you know about Embroidered Uniform Guard of the Ming period? I can't find any more information on it than the Wikipedia article.
Quite a bit.If you are familiar with the game,the Elder Scrolls,the Embroidered Uniform Guard were basically like the Blades.A part of it functioned as the bodyguard of the emperor and were responsible for order during Imperial Court meetings.They were responsible for canning officials who got out of line in court proceedings.The bulk of the organisation however were spread across the country,where they have local branches
like the FBI.It's also known that they seemed to have maintained covert presence overseas in places like Japan and Korea as well,as they provided intelligence during the Imjin War.They expertised in infiltrating the homes of important people as servants etc and can lay dormant there for many years.During the reign of Zhu Di,it's reported that the emperor knows the exact number of women an official had sex with on the previous night.The group were rivals with other agencies like the Eastern Depot and the Western Depot.At the height of the emperor's paranoia,the guard frequently tried to fabricate incidents of treason amongst officials in order to gain power--which resulted in massive purges.Nonetheless though,along with the Eastern Depot,the guard was a major weapon against officials who tried to gang up on the emperor and marginalise him from politics.Membership in the Embroidered Uniform Guard is partly hereditary much like other military units--since the guard is formally still a military unit.
 
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The most logical starting point would be the expansion of the praetorian guard beyond the game of Emperor making and deposing into the basis of a totalitarian state. give each governor a praetorian guard in charge of a network of agents (even though there was no formal secret police there would have been various spy rings controlled by local elites and the senatorial class as well the emperor himself throughout the republican and imperial periods) and tie it into the tax system and bobs your uncle one totalitarian state. Essentially this would most likely form into some kind of Shogun system with the head of the guard being the effective ruler and the emperor the religious figurehood. the best time for this to happen would be under Tiberius and Sejanus any thoughts anyone?
 
Many Chinese dynasties were the same size as the Roman Empire or larger, and China had a highly centralized bureaucracy for many centuries with some interruptions.

China was more centralised than most other states of the period, but even then the central government required the cooperation of local elites to rule effectively. Compared to most modern countries I don't think the Chinese dynasties would be considered particularly centralised, and they certainly wouldn't be in the same league as Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, which are the examples most people think of when they think of totalitarian police states.
 
They tried... I forget which emperor it was, but one of them set up a police state that would have been terrifying if it weren't so incompetent.
 
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