Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

by Dan Jones

‘They make a solitude and call it peace’

Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace.

how does a state rehabilitate its former enemies; and does opening up membership of a state or society to non-natives strengthen or dilute its blood and character?

The root purpose of the empire was to funnel wealth to be spent in Rome: in that sense it was a racket based on rampant exploitation. Yet through the promise of citizenship – a share in the plunder – conquered aristocrats could usually be brought onside.

‘Those which the sword spares without, famine ravages within,’

‘Britain has kings, but they are tyrants: she has judges, but they are unrighteous men’.

laws as well as glorified with arms, that there may be good government in times both of war and of peace.’