The Roman Empire was a remarkable achievement. It had a population of 60 million people spread across lands encircling the Here, historian Christopher Kelly covers the history of the Empire from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius, describing the empire's formation, and its political, religious, cultural, and social structures. It looks at the daily lives of the Empire's people: both those in Rome as well as those living in its furthest colonies. Romans used astonishing logistical feats, political savvy, and military oppression to rule their vast empire.Mediterranean and stretching from northern England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates, and from the Rhine to the North African coast. It was, above all else, an empire of force--employing a mixture of violence, suppression, order, and tactical use of power to develop an astonishingly uniform culture.

Christopher Kelly is a classicist and historian with a wide range of interests in the ancient world: these include government and power, its use and abuse, the society and culture of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Justinian, the rise of Christianity, and Edward Gibbon and the Grand Tour. Current projects include an edited volume – The Pattern of Empire – of essays by Keith Hopkins (for Cambridge University Press) and a monograph, Confronting the Classical: The Making of the Past in late Antiquity.  He is Reviews Editor of the Journal of Roman Studies.