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The Empire Stops Here: A Journey Along the Frontiers of the Roman World Paperback – International Edition, July 5, 2010

by Philip Parker (Author)

4.4 16 ratings

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The frontier of the Roman Empire stret-ched for 5,000 kilometres. Yet, far from being at the periphery of the Roman world, the frontier played a crucial role in making and breaking emperors, creating vibrant societies along its course, and ensuring Rome’s cultural legacy.

From the Hardcover edition.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pimlico; First Edition (July 5, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 656 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1845950038
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1845950033
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.04 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 2 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,627,812 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #120,611 in World History (Books)

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4.4 16 ratings

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Philip Parker
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4.4 out of 5

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John F. Cahill

Really damn good

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2010

A consuming read and one that continuously wends from deep place history to ancient travelogue to layman's archaeological survey back to the vast and overreaching history of the Roman Empire, especially in early AD.
The old and little known place names alone make one think of a science fiction universe, but no,those names and that progress led to the modern world as we know it. Superlative writing and deeply informative.

9 people found this helpful

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J Martin

An ambitious and detailed archeological and historical tour of the Roman frontier

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2013

The Empire Stops Here is a grand tour clockwise (starting in modern Britain and ending in Morocco) along the frontier (or limes) of the Roman Empire. The author travels through many countries on three different continents and covers topics as diverse as geography, history, architecture, culture and religion along the borders of the empire. If that sounds like a tall order, well it is and the book clocks in at 650 pages including 150 pages of footnotes!

Each chapter of the book covers a specific Roman province/region and gives a map (I love books with maps) showing the limits of the empire, major Roman towns with modern city names, and some geographic features. The maps are a must and generally well done, but they sometimes are confusing with locations mentioned in the text not shown on the maps (one of my pet peeves), and some geographic features not shown or labelled. The history of the province/region is then told through the ruins encountered along the frontier. Although the book is described as a "travelogue" on the cover and in some other reviews, it is less a travelogue and more an archaeological tour of the ruins found in the modern countries. This is accompanied by quite interesting stories and histories of the legions, emperors, wars, culture and politics of the area. This, I believe is where the book is at its strongest, relating the ruins of today to ancient Rome. The author is good at describing the ruins and fascinating history, with a bit of humour along the way.

However, at times the content becomes too much and there are parts of the book that read as "further down the road is..." followed by "the ruins here are..." which can become a bit numbing. The history of each region can also be overwhelming with many names and dates. There is little actual "travelogue" writing in the book with the author's experiences at the sites rarely mentioned. When this does happen, it is a refreshing change and an interesting insight into how these ruins are seen today (Do the local people care? Why or why not?). I was expecting more of this, instead of archeological descriptions, and I think that it was a bit of a missed opportunity. The author certainly did the research and the stories, particularly of the emperors, are fascinating and the chapters on Britain, Germany, Turkey and Egypt were quite good.

Basic knowledge of the geography of the regions, general history of the Roman Empire, or at least the emperors themselves, I think is a must. Names of emperors (as well as usurpers, consuls etc.) are used quite often so a background of emperors both common (e.g. Augustus, Hadrian, Constantine) and maybe less well known (e.g. Septimius Severus) is useful. I am by no means a Roman expert, but just had a working knowledge of emperors and general history and could follow along reasonably well. There are two sets of black and white pictures in the book which showed several of the larger or important sites. This helped a great deal but the pictures were not referenced in the text (i.e there was no "see picture 12") and it was frustrating to flip back and forth between the text and the pictures to see if there was a picture of the site. I wish more books would reference the pictures!

SUMMARY: This was a tough book to read at times and therefore a tough book to rate. I was quite excited to buy and read it, and the writing is generally good, but it became a slog to read in some chapters. The history is fascinating and, at times, page turning while the descriptions of the sites themselves became a bit dry and somewhat repetitive. I was hoping for less descriptions and more travelogue so that was my bias while reading the book. Overall an interesting, fascinating and yet difficult read. Although my review is 3 read it as about 3.4 (68%), as I cannot quite give it a 4.

7 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Gio19

Very good famous book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 19, 2014

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This book is known as one of the best for people interested in the knowledge of the Roman Empire.
My husband and I are satisfied to own it, as we also visited several Roman cities in North Africa. We would like to recommend it to all sharing our passion for ancient history.

2 people found this helpful

Digby

An excellent book about the far-reaching Roman Empire from the outside ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 6, 2017

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An excellent book about the far-reaching Roman Empire from the outside in, so to speak. Good illustrations and lots of fascinating descriptions and facts.

Nicholas Casley

It could have been so much better ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 20, 2011

Verified Purchase

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.

13 people found this helpful

Ruud van Weert

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2014

Verified Purchase

Very solid. Book covers almost all the Roman frontiers.
Fascinating.

One person found this helpful

stanley simpson

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 17, 2015