Giusto Traiana's 428 AD is a welcome rejoinder to what Averil Cameron, in her preface to the 2009 English translation, describes as the ‘otherwise often sterile debate about the fall of Rome’ (p. ix). A series of recent books have advanced a view of the fifth century as a period of military and political collapse ushered in by barbarian invasions in a relentless loss of comfort and security. Against this grand narrative, Traiana weaves a compelling argument for the survival of a ‘complex and delicately balanced geopolitical reality’ in which in the west, as in the east, there remained a ‘degree of cohesion’ in an empire that was, in the words of Evelyne Patlagean (quoted by Traiana, p. xvii), ‘a stable unit in its cultural diversity, [and one which] still formed an intricate totality’ (p. xvii). Traiana traces the intersection of people and the sequence of events across the empire in an ‘apparently unexceptional year’ (p. xv), 428, when the most significant political event – the deposition of Artashes iv, the last Armenian king – is no more than a passing sentence in histories of the fall of Rome.

Traiana's first chapter, ‘The travels of Flavius Dionysius and the end of Armenia,’ is an excellent introduction to his approach. Indeed, this region is Traiana's special field of research and the chapter shows the depth of his knowledge as well as his command of the scholarship. He then takes the reader on a journey through the empire, going back with Flavius Dionysius from Armenia to Antioch and then on to Constantinople before leaving him and going west, discussing people and events in Italy, Gaul, Spain, Britain and north Africa before returning to the east in Iran. This approach allows Traiana to demonstrate with telling detail the interconnectivity of individuals and institutions. The spread of Christianity is one unifying theme in this book, although this religion's success is shown to vary according to local circumstances. So, for instance, in Athens, paganism is embedded in social and educational networks that explain its survival there (p. 45), though Christianity was making inroads. Not all areas are equally well served, but the method adopted by Traiana succeeds in arguing his theses both about the critical importance of considering events within their local contexts and, more importantly, that, in 428, despite military and political mishaps, we can still discern a coherence in the Roman Empire.

In addition, Traiana aims to show how, in the fifth century, new forms of power and new bases for the expression of that power arose. In Traiana's opinion, this development was closely connected to the ‘process of Christianization, which radically altered the prerogatives of power’ (p. xvi.). (This view may explain the decision to translate the title as ad 428 rather than ce 428. This assumption strikes me as problematic, for it leads Traiana to emphasise the spread of Christianity at the expense of other factors potentially more relevant to the unity and transformation of the empire in specific contexts (i.e. economic, social, demographic and cultural factors). Admittedly, this would have made for a longer book. But, Traiana's assumption about the power of Christianity tends to produce a teleological narrative; since Christianity will triumph, according to Traiana we need to consider how it shaped the political world in the middle decades of the fifth century rather than how that world, as it changed, enabled the successful spread of Christianity. Indeed, Traiana's presumption about the power of this religion predisposes the reader to consider events in terms of the positive or negative advancement of Christianity. I would have preferred that Traiana had demonstrated the power of religion rather than assuming it.

Traiana's book is, however, an important statement about the nature of empire in the fifth century. His decision to consider this ‘ordinary’ year has allowed him to demonstrate, with great clarity and in a lively manner, his primary thesis. In 428 the empire still cohered as a political entity, the reality of which Traiana has brilliantly captured in this study. His interpretation should be required reading for students of Roman history who assume, wrongly in my view, that the military defeats of the early fifth century signified the end of empire.