PositiveThe Sunday Times (UK)This is a book for lovers of traditional, grand sweep narrative history with a Boy’s Own flavour. There are descriptions of the army, the origins of the gladiator and the invention of concrete. The limitations of the book mirror the limitations of the material — we don’t have much of a record of a female experience, a slave experience, a Briton on the other side of Hadrian’s Wall, or a vanquished Dacian ... This is not a book for those who seek analysis, interrogation of the material, a shifting of the ways we understand the past, thinking around the implications of this template of empire. Fascinating as the book is, there were times when I longed for an argument.