Imperial Triumph: The Roman World from Hadrian to Constantine (AD 138-363)

Imperial Triumph presents the history of Rome at the height of its imperial power. Beginning with the reign of Hadrian in Rome and ending with the death of Julian the Apostate on campaign in Persia, it offers an intimate account of the twists and often deadly turns of imperial politics in which successive emperors rose and fell with sometimes bewildering rapidity. Yet, despite this volatility, the Romans were able to see off successive attacks by Parthians, Germans, Persians and Goths and to extend and entrench their position as masters of Europe and the Mediterranean. This books shows how they managed to do it. Professor Michael Kulikowski describes the empire's cultural integration in the second century, the political crises of the third when Rome's Mediterranean world became subject to the larger forces of Eurasian history, and the remaking of Roman imperial institutions in the fourth century under Constantine and his son Constantius II. The Constantinian revolution, Professor Kulikowski argues, was the pivot on which imperial fortunes turned - and the beginning of the parting of ways between the eastern and western empires. This sweeping account of one of the world's greatest empires at its magnificent peak is incisive, authoritative and utterly gripping.

Review: This is a wonderfully broad sweep of Roman history. It tells the fascinating story of imperial rule from the enigmatic Hadrian through the dozens of warlords and usurpers who fought for the throne in the third century AD, to the Christian emperors of the fourth -- after the biggest religious and cultural revolution the world has ever seen. * Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge *
A genuinely bracing and innovative history of Rome for a general audience. * TLS *
This was an era of great change, and Mr. Kulikowski is an excellent and insightful guide to the process -- Adrian Goldsworthy * Wall Street Journal *
Insightful, coherent and articulate. * BBC History Magazine *
Demonstrates impressive mastery of a vast and complex field * Australian Book Review *
A breezy and animated, yet authorative look at this remarkable time ... sure to be of interest to anybody with a taste in character-driven history. * Military History Review *
A fascinating account showing just what it was like to be a Roman emperor - the endless court politics, the shock of outside events, the need to bring in reforms, and, above all, the constant struggle to stay alive and keep your place on the throne. * Jerry Toner, Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge *
Kulikowski's lucid narrative deftly navigates one of the most tangled periods of Roman imperial history. Triumphing over treacherous source material, he shows Rome's third century nightmare as part of a sequence of events that convulsed the whole of Eurasia. Imperial Triumph is a dramatic and a revealing history of cataclysm and recovery. * Greg Woolf, Director, Institute of Classical Studies, University of London *
Kulikowski's great triumph is to present, in an engaging and lively manner, a new historical narrative with a clear, distinctive line of interpretation for the crucial and complex era of transformation from the world of the high empire to late antiquity. * R. W. Benet Salway, University College London *
A lively, accessible, up-to-date account of the ancient world during the critical period of Rome's domination of her powerful and diverse empire. * Alan Bowman, Formerly Camden Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford *
Kulikowski provides an energizing depiction of the Roman Empire at its height. His light prose style masks a deep engagement with the period and the problems posed to the Empire from within and beyond its borders. * Hugh Elton, Trent University *
An impressive book with an incisive fresh exposition of how Rome's rulers triumphantly remade their empire in response to relentless pressures over two-and-a-half centuries. A page-turner set on a vast physical canvas stretching from Scotland to Ethiopia and China. * Richard Talbert, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill *