Frank Carlson Library

The author discusses how the Roman Empire--an empire without a serious rival--rotted from within, its rulers and institutions putting short-term ambition and personal survival over the wider good of the state.

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 won peace not through coexistence but through dominance; millions died and were enslaved during the creation of their...