ROME’S GRAND STRATEGY

For decades, academic opinion on the success of the Roman Empire has claimed that its leaders, emperors and dictators did not look to Rome’s long-term strategic growth and dominance across the known world, focusing instead on immediate threats and opportunities.

Now Dr James Lacey’s book Rome: Strategy of Empire is set to cause controversy in university history departments around the world, challenging many well-established theories surrounding the expansion of the Empire’s territories and institutions over centuries. Author and historian Edoardo Albert spoke with Dr Lacey about his research and why he thinks the Romans did in fact have a long-term imperial strategy, and executed it so successfully.

The idea of Roman military strategy started with Edward Luttwak’s 1976 book The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. For readers who haven’t read it, could you describe Luttwak’s thesis…

Edward Luttwak was a strategist, not a historian. In his book, Luttwak broached a topic that no Roman historian had ever explored before. We have tremendous narratives of Roman history but nobody had ever asked if