Libido dominandi

David Potter confirms Augustine’s claim that the foreign wars of Rome were an extension of a lust for domination and honor: Roman “thinking [about the outside world] involved terms such as gloria , the glory that was won in battle, the ability to compel a foreign people to do something. That which was to be preserved was decus , or ‘face,’ fastigium , dignity, or the maiestas , ‘majesty’ of the empire. Foreign peoples who challenged the gloria or decus of Rome suffered from superbia , or arrogance, which led them to do iniuriae, injuries, to Rome , which needed, above all, to be avenged.”