6. The Roman Empire, 27 B.C.E.–284 C.E.

What was life like in the Roman Empire during the period of the pax Romana? Chapter 6 examines the first three centuries of Roman imperial rule. In 27 B.C.E., the civil wars were largely over and Augustus had emerged the victor. With peace came prosperity, stability, and a new political order that retained the trappings of the republic while concentrating power in the hands of one man. Under Augustus and the rulers that followed him, the boundaries of the Roman Empire expanded in all directions. Gaul, Germany, Britain, and eastern Europe were introduced to Greco-Roman culture. A new religion, Christianity, developed in the eastern Roman province of Judaea, and spread throughout the empire. By the third century C.E., civil wars had returned, however, and it seemed as if Augustus’s creation would collapse.