"Veyne, the most eminent living historian of Rome, has written an elegiac lament on the meaning for world history of this looted city. His short book describes how Palmyra, an oasis on the route across the north Syrian desert, around the turn of the common era became immensely wealthy as a staging post in the trade route from the Roman Empire to the Parthian Kingdom and the lands beyond as far as India and China. . . . Veyne's account offers an excellent survey of the relationship between the city and the wider Roman Empire."
– "Times Literary Supplement"