Aurelian And The Third Century

Another review has been completed for our Roman Books section, thanks to community member Ursus.

Sandwiched between the end of the early empire and the beginning of the late empire is the often overlooked figure of Lucius Domitius Aurelianus, better known in English as Aurelian. Brief though his five-year reign was, Aurelian achieved the extraordinary feat of reuniting an empire torn by foreign invasion and internal fracture. To my knowledge, Watson's book is the only major treatment of Aurelian in the English language, and it is an overwhelmingly sympathetic view. It should not be mistaken for a biography in the traditional sense of the word. The author admonishes that there are too many gaps in the historical knowledge of Aurelian, and the information we do have is often biased or conflicting. Instead the book seeks to critically examine the literary and material evidence of Aurelian's reign and place it within the wider scope of Rome's Third Century...

...read the full review of Aurelian and the Third Century by Alaric Watson

Bestselling author Philip Matyszak has now also written a review

Those who know Roman history might assume that the word 'crisis' has been accidentally left off the title of this book, for it is hard to think of the third century AD without considering how great a mess the Roman empire was in at that time. In fact this issue is the very first which Alaric Watson deals with in a book which achieves the rare feat of being both academic and very readable. He points out that what we call 'the third century crisis' was in fact at least three crises, overlapping but not exactly contemporaneous. He also points out that there was more to the third century than these crises, for a number of cultural and religious issues came to the fore in this period, and understanding these is the key to understanding the culture of fourth-century Rome....

....read the full review of Aurelian And The Third Century by Alaric Watson