ABSTRACT

The Roman empire under the principate had banished war to the social and geographic periphery. For the majority of the inhabitants of the empire, wars (as far as they were considered still to exist at all) were almost always the business of professional soldiers on distant frontiers.1 The experience of Greek philosophers under the principate was unlike that of their predecessors. It is thus worthwhile to examine their attitudes to warfare, and to see in what ways their attitudes were shaped by their distinctive historical experience.