ABSTRACT
The empire over which the princeps ruled was a huge area of variegated peoples and cultures. The core remained the inhabitants of the Mediterranean coastal strip, but Caesar’s conquest of Gaul shifted the balance of empire into northern Europe. Trajan’s campaigns in Dacia and against Parthia and his incorporation of Arabia as a province added much territory in the Balkans and the Near East, albeit some of it only temporary: the addition of the provinces of Armenia and Mesopotamia saw the empire reach its fullest extent. In strategic terms these accessions rendered the land-mass north of the Mediterranean the communications artery of the empire, with increasing military traffic from northern Italy across the Balkans and the Anatolian plateau. The other disparate regions of the empire were also physically linked by a network of military roads, constantly upgraded and extended, as many extant milestones proudly boast.
