man, even if the book HADNT been great, i would STILL be indebted to arkady martine for introducing me to the quote “they make desolation and call it peace.” just an absolute banger

These plunderers of the world [the Romans], after exhausting the land by
their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their
enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West:
the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage,
to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make
a desert, they call it peace.