This book is truly fascinating and a great step away from just the point of view of Rome that focuses on Rome's conquests and internal political issues. This book, on the other refreshing hand, focuses on just this one conflict that played out over 700 years. It goes into great detail explaining not only what happened every time Rome and Persia came into conflict, but also explained what was happening contextually in BOTH empires that led to that particular bout of the conflict.

If you have ever cared about Persia, the middle east politics contemporaneously, or just wanted to know about this major conflict that drastically altered the history of Rome, this is the book you should get!

Netgalley has failed to send this book. Therefore I cannot read it and cannot give it a proper review. Perhaps it is a good book. Perhaps not. I will never know.

I love Adrian Goldsworthy's books, and this was no different! With a resurgence of scholarship and writing about Persia and the ancient Near East (see Persia: The Age of Great Kings by Lloyd Llewllyn-Jones and Assyria by Eckhart Frahm) Goldworthy compares our more familiar understanding of Rome against our more shadowy knowledge of the Parthian and Sassanian Persians. He talks bout sources and how they interacted with each other over the course of over 500 years until the coming of Islam. An easy to read, very interesting book!

I’ve long had a fascination with the Sassanid Empire, and in particular with its long-running conflict with the Roman Empire to its west. Thus, when I saw that NetGalley had a galley copy of noted historian Adrian Goldsworthy’s new book, Rome and Persia: The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry, I knew at once that I was going to have to secure a copy. Having just finished the book, I’m very glad I did. As he has shown in both his monographs and in his numerous appearances in historical documentaries, Goldsworthy is one of the finest historians of the ancient world working today.
Goldsworthy begins his story with a fateful meeting between the Roman Sulla and the representatives of the Parthian king of kings. This would be just one of the many times that representatives from the two great powers of the classical era met with one another to hash out terms for coexistence. For the most part, as Goldsworthy points out, the two empires were content to engage in border skirmishes, and while there were periods of marked conflict–such as the Battle of Carrhae that ended in the ignominious defeat and death of Crassus or the defeat of the emperor Valerian that led him to be taken as a prisoner into the lands of Persia (where he was, some records state, used as a mounting block by the king of kings himself)--for the most part such engagements were limited in scope.
Of particular interest to both parties, as Goldsworthy reminds us again and again, was the land of Armenia, which was long a bone of contention for both these great powers. Each saw it as a key element of their foreign policy to control this particular piece of land. Indeed, geography was a critical reason for both nations to try to maintain at least a measure of peace with one another. It’s very hard to keep your own imperial domains in one piece when you’re constantly engaged in armed conflict of one sort or another.
This all changed during the time of Emperor Heraclius and the King of Kings Khosrow II, the latter of whom launched a remarkable offensive against the provinces of the Roman Empire. What might have begun as a conflict somewhat limited in scale soon became something much more significant, as the king of kings went from victory to victory. It was only the timely ascension (or usurpation) of Heraclius that saved the day for the Romans and, even so, the two empires were exhausted after their war with one another. This, in turn, left them both uniquely vulnerable to the newly-forged armies from Arabia, united as they were under the banner of Islam and with a thirst for conquest. Sassanid Persia was by far the more notable of the casualties of this conflict and, after some nominal resistance, they were ultimately swept away, their last king of kings supposedly slain by a man who didn’t even know who he was. The Roman Empire, meanwhile, lost some of its most lucrative provinces, and it would never be the same.
Goldsworthy has a keen command of how to write narrative history and, while he isn’t afraid to drill down into the nitty-gritty during particular historical periods, he also doesn’t allow his reader to get lost in the weeds. He never loses sight of the bigger picture, and he somehow even manages to make the periods of peace between the two empires seem exciting. While the book is sprawling in scope–covering, as its title suggests, seven centuries of conflict and peace between two of the mightiest and largest empires of antiquity–he also pays key attention to some of the significant individuals who ruled from atop the imperial hierarchies, whether that’s Justinian of the Roman Empire or Shapur I of the Sassanians. These were individuals who left their mark both upon their own domains and upon world history generally.
As he has in several of his other volumes, Goldsworthy also has a keen eye for military history, and he draws our attention to some of the more significant conflicts that erupted between Rome and Persia. He deftly manages providing a macro view of these conflicts while also giving a bit of a deep dive into strategy, material, and army composition. Given just how frequently Rome and Persia were engaged in armed conflict of one sort or another, this is definitely welcome.
At the same time, Goldsworthy is not one of those historians who tries to pass off speculation as absolute fact. He repeatedly pauses to remind us that there is a great deal that we simply don’t know, particularly since the sources for the Persians during this time are remarkably thinner on the ground than those for Rome and its allies. As a result, some of the periods discussed in the book are a bit skewed in the direction of Rome. This is, of course, only what one would expect from a historian who wishes to be as rigorous as possible, but it does make for some difficult reading at times, since there’s only so many times you can be reminded of the fact that there are only sparse records for a period before it becomes a bit tedious.
This is, however, a relatively minor quibble, and it’s to Goldsworthy’s credit that he’s able to weave together this very complex and complicated story into a narrative that even those who aren’t as well-versed or as committed to this particular subject as I am. Furthermore, given the extent to which the last great war between Rome and Persia played such a key role in setting the stage for the rise of Islam, it’s more important than ever to see how such conflicts can have cascading consequences not intended (or foreseen) by either of the main combatants. This book will come to be seen as one of the most important volumes on the subject, and it’s a reminder of the extent to which the conflicts between rival superpowers have long been a familiar part of the theater of history.

This book was solidly researched and written, and excellent as a work on the subject it covers.

The framing of the narrative is an unusual one— though I do find it interesting that it’s Rome and Persia not Persia and Rome. In addition to reasons of euphonyk I would say that the implied hierarchy is very much present in the presentation of the book.

This is largely due to the proliferation of Roman sources being much greater than of Persian ones, and the fact that the author is coming from a Roman history dominant background.

I do find it more balanced than many other books that are similarly split between European and non European powers or individuals.

I do not have as much to say on the direct scholarship and research, as this is thourgouhky outside of my previous areas of research, which tend to be a bit later, and focused more on micro history than broad scale geopolitics. I had some knowledge of the period going in, but not much, and nothing of my own research (I’d listened to the relevant era of the history of Byzantium podcast, as well as a few others to the point that the book looked interesting, and likely to have lots that I did not previously know.)

The prose was good, and easier to read than many similarly academic works.

It would be quite approachable for someone with less of a background in the field who wanted a more serious work on the matter, such as for a high school history project, particularly as compared with other works on similar subjects.

Generally a solid book, fairly fit for purpose, though not outstanding.

Interesting as always with Goldsworthy. I didn't enjoy it as much as his books on Carthage and Caesar, but it was still great. Goldsworthy does an awesome job at laying out all the Persia differences with Rome and how they were destined to come into conflict.