ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the intimate connection between the idea of peace and imperialist politics in the Roman empire. It focuses instead on the cognate verb pacare and past participle pacatus, usually translated as 'pacify' and 'pacified' respectively and taken to exemplify the equation of pax with subjugation in the external sphere. The tropes of 'peace-making' are a familiar feature of the discourse of pax, but they have received little analysis. The tendentiousness of Roman claims of peace-making was not lost on reflective Roman writers. But this mistranslation comes at a cost. It obscures both the ambition of the claims being made and the surprising ambiguities to which they give rise by blurring the distinction between violence and other pillars of the imperial order. 'Make peaceful' might work, but most translators have rightly preferred a circumlocution such as 'bring peace to' or 'bring into a state of peace'.
