Pax Romana

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The Pax Romana is famous, for peace has been rare in the history of the world, which makes the centuries of stability and 'Roman Peace' from 27 BC to 180 AD all the more remarkable. Yet the Romans were conquerors, imperialists who took by force a vast empire stretching from the Euphrates in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west. Their peace came from Roman victory and was not about co-existence with neighbours, but strength and dominance. The Romans were aggressive and ruthless, and during the creation of their empire millions died or were enslaved. Empires are no longer fashionable, and these days many scholars paint as dark a picture of life under Roman rule as they do of the years of Roman expansion. Pax Romana looks at how and why the Romans came to control so much of the world, and asks whether the old and favourable image of the Roman peace is a true one. This is also a tale of rebellions by the conquered, of why these broke out, why most failed, and how they became very rare. Hostility was only one reaction to the arrival of Rome, and from the start there was alliance, collaboration and an enthusiasm for joining the invaders, all of which increased as resistance movements faded away.Roman rule and the Roman Peace changed the world, and nothing quite like it has ever again held sway for such a long time over so wide an area. The Pax Romana was real, not merely the boast of emperors, and some of the regions in the empire have never again lived for so many generations free from major wars. Adrian Goldsworthy's brilliant book vividly describes this unique achievement.