Thinking about the Roman Empire

On the narrow plain of Marathon in Greece one battle altered the course of Western civilization. On one side was the army of the Persian Empire, the most powerful fighting force in the world. On the other side was the much smaller army of Athens led by the famed Greek general Miltiades. Learn about this battle of brilliance in the face of overwhelming odds, a battle for the future of Greece and the supremacy of the ancient world.

"Julius Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful men in the Roman Republic. When his former allies turned against him, he defeated them in a brutal civil war. Then he declared himself dictator for life. Was Caesar responsible for the downfall of one of history's first great experiments in democracy?"--Back cover.

"At the start of the first millennium AD, southern and western Europe formed part of the Mediterranean-based Roman Empire, the largest state western Eurasia has ever known, and was set firmly on a trajectory towards towns, writing, mosaics, and central heating. Central, northern and eastern Europe was home to subsistence farmers, living in wooden houses with mud floors, whose largest political units weighed in at no more than a few thousand people....

A groundbreaking and comprehensive history of the Roman Peace from one of the leading historians of the ancient world Best-selling author Adrian Goldsworthy turns his attention to the Pax Romana, the famous peace and prosperity brought by the Roman Empire at its height in the first and second centuries AD. Yet the Romans were conquerors, imperialists who took by force a vast empire stretching from the Euphrates to the Atlantic coast. Ruthless, Romans...