Friedrich von Blowhard opens his The Roman Way, Part I with a quote from Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — which I immediately recognized, since I’d just read it a few weeks earlier:
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.
Of course, Friedrich brings it up in order to disagree. He sees the Romans as too militaristic:
Compared to the Senatorial class in Rome, the Spartans were a group of gentle pacifists quietly minding their own business. For Roman aristocrats, warfare was business and conquest was their ‘business model.’
Of course, sometimes unparalleled militarism leads to a Pax Romana. I enjoyed this comment by MQ:
At some level war was the “business model” for the elite in almost all powerful pre-capitalist states (which is a major reason why capitalism is such an epochal improvement from previous systems). The Romans were just particularly good and particularly vicious. Golden age Athens certainly had colonialism and the resulting tribute as a major source of wealth, and the roots of Greek democracy in many ways lay in war — citizen soldiers demanded participation.
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I think you’re presenting a somewhat one-sided picture of the Roman achievement though. The empire seems to have generated wealth more effectively than states for many hundreds of years before its rise or after its fall. Part of this was due to economies of scale in trading (including the creation of the world’s largest free trade zone up until that time) and agriculture. But part was due to the amazing level of Roman skill in civil engineering and administration. By pretty much all of the indirect measures of wealth and market development we are able to use — population, city size, number of cities, road networks, division of labor, financial institutions, etc. — Rome was wealthier than Europe in the late middle ages and some argue even in the early modern period. (Look at Peter Temin’s work for the argument that Rome was as wealthy as 17th century Europe; I’m don’t think I buy it but he has lots of good and interesting arguments). The Romans were brutal, destructive, creative, and constructive all at the same time, and looking at just one side will lead you to caricature them.