This debate piece offers a critique of some recent ‘new materialist’ approaches and their application to Roman expansionism, particularly those positing that the study of ‘Romanisation’ should be about ‘understanding objects in motion’—a perspective that carries important political and ethical implications. Here, the authors introduce the alternative notion of a ‘predatory’ political economy for conceptualising Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome. The aim is to illuminate the darker sides of Roman expansionism in order to produce more balanced and inclusive accounts. Two cases studies—the archaeology of the Roman conquest and of rural communities—illustrate the potential of such a perspective.

中文翻译：

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帝国的阴暗面：对象机构和掠夺性政权之间的罗马扩张主义

这篇辩论文章对最近的一些“新唯物主义”方法及其在罗马扩张主义中的应用提出了批评，特别是那些认为“罗马化”的研究应该是关于“理解运动中的物体”的观点——这种观点具有重要的政治和伦理意义. 在这里，作者介绍了另一种“掠夺性”政治经济学概念，用于概念化晚期共和时代和早期帝国罗马。目的是照亮罗马扩张主义的阴暗面，以产生更平衡和包容性的帐户。两个案例研究——罗马征服的考古学和农村社区的考古学——说明了这种观点的潜力。