The Pax Romana

CHAPTER 7 · AD 14–180 · The Rise and Fall of Rome, 264 BC – AD 476

This is the map at high tide — pause on AD 117 and look. Under Trajan the empire runs from the Atlantic to Mesopotamia: Britannia invaded under Claudius in 43 (an emperor needing a triumph; the arrow across the Channel), Dacia conquered in two brutal wars (101–106; the twin arrows over the Danube) for its gold and its defiance — the loot funds 123 days of games and a forum, and the province plants the Latin that becomes Romanian — and, in Trajan’s last adventure, Armenia and Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf (the long eastern arrow), held for about two years before his successor Hadrian, doing i

The turn: Hadrian’s Wall, AD 122.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.