Customer Reviews

The Provinces of the Roman Empire From Caesar to Diocletian (Two Volumes in One)

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While the author's admiration for what he calls "the Latin-Greek civilizing process"is unquestionable, his exploration of how the widening circle of Roman influence sustained itself is handled with systematic scrupulousness. Mommsen describes Rome's acquisition and ultimate control of Gaul, Spain, Britain, the Danubian lands, as well as Greece and Asia Minor. He then discusses at equal length Rome's difficult dominion in Egypt, Judaea, Syria, the North African territories, and the frontiers along the Euphrates.

The Provinces of the Roman Empire was originally published as two volumes in Mommen's magnificent multivolume History of Rome, a life's work that contributed to his winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1902. (The award was given for Mommen's eloquent style-the work itself is first-rate historical scholarship.) That Mommsen structured these two volumes as a work that could stand alone within his larger istory is made clar in his introduction, and has been affirmed by later historians.

Theodore Mommsen's Provinces of the Roman Empire will provide an indescribable wealth of material for readers concerned with Rome's military history, expansion and growth, from Caesar to Diocletian. While this book lacks the eloquence and depth of Gibbon, and reads more like reference material than pure history, it still must be regarded as the foremost authority upon the subjects it covers. The only real negative about this immense work is the fact that rarely is anything said about culture. Its hard to believe that a book illuminating the history of the provinces has almost entirely overlooked the cultural impact Rome had on the provinces and likewise that the provinces had on Rome.

Provinces of the Roman Empire gets a bit slow at times, and that is understandable since it is a compiled two volume book on the history of those important provinces of Rome and their contributions to the empire. I agree with the reviewer who said there was not enough culture. After pages upon pages about inscriptions, coins, wars, and revolts it would have been nice to have at least more than a paragraph or two on the native religion and the culture of the people before the hellenization. The best section for me was that dealing with Judea. Since the Jewish religion is so intertwined with the Hebrew state, then Mommsen was forced to include more information of the culture of the populace than what he devotes in the other sections. I'm not qualified to judge this book on its merit as a historical reference, but I have come away from reading it with more information about the lands that were subject to Rome. If you have a thirst for Roman history, then by all means read this book, just don't expect a great deal of information about cultural issues.