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Pax Romana: War, Peace, and Conquest in the Roman World By Adrian Goldsworthy New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016 528 pages $32.50
In 51 BC, Julius Caesar, commander and political czar of Roman efforts in Gaul, ordered the hands of captured Gallic insurgents lopped off as a means to dispirit any hope of further resistance (410). As historian Adrian Goldsworthy demonstrates in Pax Romana, this atrocity and others like it were part of Rome's method for gaining empire. Usually these violent and heavy-handed approaches occurred early in the pacification of conquered peoples and not throughout the duration of occupation. Rome opted for a mixture of cooperation for mutual benefit, threats, and occasional violence, such as Caesar's, to establish a lasting peace still noteworthy for its longevity to this day.
In this expansive and accessible account Goldsworthy, in his politesse British style, implicitly pushes back on the prevailing argument that empire is a negative, especially for conquered peoples. His refreshing argument shows...