Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World

By Adrian Goldsworthy

Yale University Press, 528 pp., $32.50

A few years ago, I was visiting Rome for the umpteenth time and marveling at the city's ancient aqueducts, public baths, paved roads, and sewer system. Swept up in the glories of these feats of technology that benefited the whole populace, I wrote a blog post suggesting that maybe, just maybe, empires aren't all bad.

The online response was fast, furious, and vituperative. My friends to my ideological left were horrified that I could consider such a thing, much less make that opinion publicly known.

Adrian Goldsworthy acknowledges the same danger at the outset of his new history of Rome's unparalleled expansion and centuries of relative peace (and dominance). Opening with a moving reflection on his own upbringing in World War II Britain, he then writes, "Even in the modern world peace is a rare and precious thing. If the Romans really did create conditions where most of the provinces lived in peace for long periods, then it is well worth studying this achievement."

The truth is, those of us who are involved in theology and ministry get most of our information about the Roman Empire through the lens of the New Testament writers based in first-century Palestine. That's a bit like learning about the United...