The Empire Stops Here: A Journey along the Frontiers of the Roman World [Hardcover]

Written in a captivating style, exhaustively researched and backed up with a very impressive and thorough grasp of the history of the time, this is an extraordinarily well written academic book which can also act as a travel guide.

Philip Parker has managed to fuse contextual depth and scholarly rigour to a travel book, and to make an academic tome of ancient history jump to life.

If you are interested in Roman history, this is a terrific book to further your knowledge, written by an expert on the subject, but it also serves as an unrivalled and invaluable guide to take with you and to read, perhaps piecemeal, during a trip to a ruined temple on a dusty desert plain, a hilltop fort or ancient villa, or any other Roman remain or town that one might visit in Syria, Morocco, Egypt, Spain, Britain, Eastern Europe, or any of the far flung fringes of the Roman empire.

Definitely worth getting - this might be a model for how all history books will be written in the future.

I wrestled with this book, both figuratively and literally. More of this, later.

This is a review of the 2010 paperback edition. It has an introduction, eleven chapters, and a conclusion. It was bought because of a good review by Tom Holland in The Guardian. Ultimately, it is for me a disappointing book, hence the three stars.

In his introduction, Philip Parker writes, "It is here, along the vast length of its frontier that I have chosen to investigate the complex entity that was Rome. I have concentrated deliberately on the edge of the Roman world, on the lands that promised victory, booty and glory, and yet so often left the bitter taste of compromise or defeat instead." Parker goes on to ask, "How did Rome come to conquer such an enormous territory, and where and why did its expansion halt and fold in upon itself to leave a joint legacy for the citizens of more than thirty modern countries?" Parker promises, therefore, a great deal. I'm not sure that he fulfils his obligations; and if he does, it is done in such a convoluted and unhelpful manner.

But first, what portions of the Roman world does he cover, since its frontier was different from one decade to the next? Parker answers, "In general I have chosen the maximum extension of the Empire ... as long as the occupation was more than ephemeral." Thus the Scottish lowlands are included but not the transient occupation of Assyria. Parker makes the point that the area today would comprise the world's seventh largest country in terms of area, the size of an Australia or Brazil.

So having defined his structure, what about the content? Parker takes us on a clockwise imaginary journey (I doubt he did the trip in the order that he takes us on the page, or in one go) from Hadrian's Wall to the Atlantic sands of Morocco. The chapter headings say it all: Britannia first, then Germania, Raetia and Noricum, Pannonia and Moesia, and a whole chapter on Dacia - roughly, then, up the Rhine (and not down it, as Parker states) and down the Danube. From here he crosses directly over to Cappadocia (ignoring the coast of the Black Sea, where previously he had covered the North Sea coast of Britannia). In Asia, though, there was no geographic feature such as a major river that could act as a natural barrier. Subsequent chapters are titled Syria, Arabia, Egypt and Cyrenaica, Africa, and finally Numidia and Mauretania. Along the way there are a few detours into the heart of the Empire, such as to Trier and Augsburg, to Antioch and Alexandria, and the journey through North Africa covers the coast as well as the interior. The trip up the Nile goes as far as Aswan

So what of the wrestling referred to at the start of this review? Firstly, the text is not a travelogue: the instances of first-person accounts are rare indeed. This is not an account of an actual journey where tales of hardship and derring-do are interspersed with comic episodes with the natives. Instead, much of the text is a detailed description of the remains to be seen along the frontier. Consequently, the text is often as dry as the dust that covers them.

But one hesitates to move swiftly over paragraph after paragraph because hidden within them can be a nugget of useful information about Roman life on the frontier or about the high politics (and low politics) that led to the Romans being there in the first place. Thus we learn a little about, say the origins of Mithraism or the history of Donatism. But these gems are, I feel, a poor return on the investment of having to wade through the descriptions of ruined baths and temples and forts. However, one feature of Parker's journey is that we learn of the almost constant level of revolt that occurred along the frontier, as well as the sometime constant jockeying of power between emperors or those who aspired to be so, with names that have long vanished into the minutiae of history: who can remember the lives and acts, let alone the names of emperors Hostilianus or Probus or Maurice?

These descriptions would not be half as ponderous if we had at least a decent illustration of the ruin being reviewed. Instead we have a paltry selection of plates in black and white of a bare one percent of the treasures on offer to the visitor. I longed to see represented the finds to be seen in Cologne's Romisch-Germanisches Museum, for instance, or the fresco Lady of Viminacium, or the remains at Zeugma that "cling precariously to slopes at the water's edge." Perhaps the book should have been in two volumes, one covering Europe, the other covering Asia and Africa. Or it might have been better for the author to have included an introductory essay for each Roman province, and then to have referred to the remains to be found there in a separate section in the manner of a Pevsner guide.

Sometimes Parker mentions something that promises great interest, such as the emperor Constantine's inauguration of the longest bridge in classical antiquity, but nothing further is told. There is, alas, another problem with this book with which the reader must wrestle if he or she wants to fully appreciate what the book has to offer, namely the need for four bookmarks: one for the text, another for the endnotes (there are seventy-five pages of them), another one for the map that commences each chapter, and yet another for the plates.

Parker concludes his journey making comparisons with the EU. He writes, "The Roman Empire gave rise to a culture with many elements in common, but still containing an astonishing diversity among its 200 million-plus inhabitants. To travel along its frontier ... is to gain just a dim sense of this." Alas, for me, too dim. This book might be fine as a guide for those wanting to explore in person the Roman remains anywhere along the Roman frontier, but as a book of such a journey it failed to inspire this reader. It could have been so much better.

This is an interesting book, but I doubt if many people will read it from cover to cover. It's an academic tome.
Good and informative , but a heavy read. Good to dip into if you are visiting any of the places on the old Roman frontier.