With the excellent book here under review, Jon Lendon has refined this whole discussion. He adroitly and cogently delineates an aspect of Roman mentality ... a read, and a really important contribution. He begins to show us the precise ways in which the Romans' socially-oriented mentality affected directly, constantly, and thoroughly the gritty day-to-day business of running an empire ... If we make of Lendon's book a garden, then it is one both beautiful and luxuriant. It is, in fact, a garden that must be visited by anyone interested in understanding how the imperial Romans governed their empire.
Michael Peachin, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
There is no doubt that Lendon describes a central feature of the way in which the inhabitants of the Roman Empire thought.
The International History Review