re: #585 Obdicut
I don’t think that it’s ‘revisionism’, it’s just looking at ancient events through modern eyes. We take freedom of religion somewhat for granted, and so a revolt partially based on the desire to practice one’s religion comes across as ‘zealotry’ to many modern readers, I think, including whatever historian LostLake was using for his post.
Pax Romana, I might add, doesn’t really have much to do with policy towards conquered territories; it was mostly an ending of the civil wars and a general halt of expansion of the empire.
Some territories fared very well under the Romans, others were heavily oppressed; it was mostly a matter of the local governors.
The Pax Romana succeeded because Augustus was able to successfully convince the Romans that they could prosper and gain wealth without being at war with a foreign power.
Of course, that didn’t work out to well the further you got from Rome.