VULNERABLE MISSION

UNVEILING EMPIRE
Of course, in this setting, the emperor’s nudity shows not his incompetence, but rather
his heroic strength. 7 The relief makes clear through its hierarchical imagery the power of
Rome, embodied in the emperor himself. Thus, above is to below as man is to woman as
Rome is to the nations as conqueror is to conquered. 8 Further, the partial nudity of both
figures, man and woman, suggests undertones of sexual violence. In this instance, the
rape of Britannia is both figurative and literal; as Tacitus tells us, one of the grievances
the woman warrior Boudicca names against the Romans is that “nowadays Roman rapacity
does not even spare our bodies. Old people are killed, virgins are raped.” 9 As I
intend to show in the following section, the rape of Britannia described above reveals the
lust for domination lying at the heart of empire.
While empire is a term frequently employed in political and philosophical discussions, it
avoids easy definition. Political scientist Herfried Münkler describes a few characteristics
of empires, analyzing empires from ancient Rome to modern nation-states:
First, “Imperial boundaries . . . involve gradations of power and influence”: that is, there is a structural
difference between imperial and nonimperial space.
Second, “Imperiality . . . dissolves . . . equality and reduces subordinates to the status of client states or
satellites”: that is, international relations are not between equals, but between a “center”
and a “periphery.”
Third, “Most empires have owed their existence to a mixture of chance and contingency”: that is, there
need not be a “will to empire” (i.e., “imperialism”) or a “grand strategy,” but rather, a series
of circumstances that lead to increased power and control of people and/or territory.
Fourth, “The capacity for reform and regeneration . . . makes an empire independent of the charismatic
qualities of its founder (or founding generation)”: that is, there is temporal continuity that transcends
the original situation that generated the empire.
Fifth, “An empire cannot remain neutral in relation to the powers in its sphere of influence”: that is, it
cannot allow either independence or nonparticipation without retaliation. 10
These five aspects provide a good frame for descriptive purposes; however, they fail insofar
as they do not account for nonpolitical entities which still exert massive control
over economics and the daily lives of individuals. 11 For instance, a corporate entity such
7 Christopher Hallett, The Roman Nude: Heroic Portrait Statuary 200 B.C. to A.D. 300, Oxford Studies in Ancient
Culture and Representation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
8 Davina Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered: Reimagining Paul’s Mission, Paul in Critical Contexts (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2008), 42–48.
9 Tacitus, Annals, trans. Michael Grant (New York: Dorset Press, 1984), cited in Neil Elliott, The Arrogance of
Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire, Paul in Critical Contexts (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 184.
10 Herfried Münkler, Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States, trans. Patrick
Camiller (Maldon, MA: Polity Press, 2007), 4–14. I use the quotes and summaries provided by Wes Howard-
Brook, retaining his emphasis, in “Come Out, My People!”: God’s Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis, 2010), 8.
11 To be sure, traditional nation-states still wield immense power. The nations of the Global North, in particular,
use military strength across the globe in order to pursue their interests. I assume that readers of this essay
are familiar with imperial tendencies of modern nation-states. For critiques of the nation-state, especially in
regard to war-making, see Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Bringing the
State Back In, ed. Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985), 169–87, and William Cavanaugh, “Killing for the Telephone Company: Why the Nation-State Is
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