Hadrian's Wall is the most important surviving memorial to the military might of Rome—much admired and emulated as a model of frontier management. Yet the author's provocative study vigorously attacks tradition, calling the wall a military triumph but a political disaster. The failure of the Romans to pacify the Caledones produced a military situation that compelled the establishment of a strongly defended frontier, the maintenance of which upset the economic balance of the province. This book is an impressive study of a province militarily uncertain, economically unviable, and politically unstable. It is also a clear, thoughtful, and eminently readable history of the Roman occupation of Britain through four centuries of existence.