Pax

This narrative history covers the Roman Empire from the death of Nero and the civil war of 69 CE through the Flavian dynasty and on to Trajan and Hadrian. Holland follows the Year of the Four Emperors, Vespasian's restoration, the Jewish War and the fall of Jerusalem, the eruption of Vesuvius, the building of the Colosseum, Trajan's wars in Dacia and the East, and Hadrian's consolidation of the frontiers. The argument is that the so-called Roman peace was kept by continual military violence at the edges and sometimes at the centre. It is a political and military history of the high empire, not a survey of daily life alone.

Bound in violet cloth printed and blocked in black with a portrait by Kent Barton. Plain blue slipcase.