In his opening paragraph, Hoyos speaks of ‘the power of Rome’s memory’ (p. 1), later noting how it ‘remains an eventful and instructive theme of study’ (p. 5). Not only does it remain a topic full of questions, it also remains one that fascinates. Investigation into the nature of the Roman empire has been a prominent trend in recent scholarship, for example Woolf’s Rome: An Empire’s Story and The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture.1 Rome Victorious: The Irresistible Rise of the Roman Empire makes a detailed, insightful, and informative contribution to the field. Like Woolf, Hoyos does not focus on a single period, but is narrower in scope, ending in AD 212. The choice is an interesting one. Not only had the empire reached its greatest extent by this point, but the year also saw the enfranchisement of the majority of the empire’s freeborn population by Caracalla. Hoyos even questions whether the term ‘empire’ can really be used from this point, as Rome effectively ceased to rule subject peoples (p. 199).