"“Rome and Persia: The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry”" Topic

by Adrian Goldsworthy

"arrative history at its best, Adrian Goldsworthy's Rome and Persia is informative, readable, carefully sourced, and cautious in its judgments about events that occurred between 90 BCE and the 600s CE in the Mediterranean world, north Africa, and western Asia. It is also instructive about imperial rivalries, geopolitical competition, and human nature across the ages—including our present one.

After Carthage, Rome's most lasting rival was Parthian and later Sasanian Persia—based in what today we call the Middle East and portions of central Asia. Rome and Persia were the superpowers of their day, but as Goldsworthy notes, there were other, smaller powers situated nearby who were recruited as allies by both empires, and central Asian nomadic peoples—Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Turks, Avars—who periodically raided the borderlands of both Rome and Persia. Both empires suffered from internal political squabbles and at times civil war. And both empires had contact, including trade, with China…"

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Armand

Interesting.
Thanks

A good account of the relations between Rome and the Parthian/Sassanid Persian Empires but light on military details if that's what you are looking for. One of Goldsworthy's primary points is how much of the time that relations between the two empires were relatively peaceful despite the fact that the preserved ancient accounts tend to emphasize the conflicts between the empires rather than the periods when there wasn't open conflict.

Chris

A votre service mon ami…

Armand