Riot Control and Imperial Ideology in the Roman Empire

Ancient accounts of riots in the Roman Empire provide good evidence for elite attitudes to riot control, although not for the actual behaviour of the authorities in particular cases. They suggest that the authorities were generally expected to control all riots, whatever their causes. There was, however, deep ambivalence about the propriety of using military methods of control, and a belief that such methods could cause considerable bloodshed and damage to the urban fabric.