<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The Pax Romana (Latin for "Roman Peace") was a long period of relative peace and minimal expansion experienced by the Roman Empire between the end of the Final War of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Crisis of the Third Century, a span of roughly two hundred years . During this period, the Roman empire achieved its greatest territorial extent, and its population reached a maximum of up to 70 million people . Since it was inaugurated by Augustus, it is sometimes called the Pax Augusta . Its span was approximately 206 years (27 BC to AD 180), from the accession of Augustus to the death of Marcus Aurelius . </P> <P> The Pax Romana is said to have been a "miracle" because prior to it there had never been peace for so many centuries in a given period of history . However, Walter Goffart wrote: "The volume of the Cambridge Ancient History for the years A.D. 70--192 is called' The Imperial Peace', but peace is not what one finds in its pages". Arthur M. Eckstein writes that the period must be seen in contrast to the much more frequent warfare in the Roman Republic in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC . Eckstein also notes that the incipient Pax Romana appeared during the Republic, and that its temporal span varied with geographical region as well: "Although the standard textbook dates for the Pax Romana, the famous "Roman Peace" in the Mediterranean, are 31 BC to AD 250, the fact is that the Roman Peace was emerging in large regions of the Mediterranean at a much earlier date: Sicily after 210 (BC), the Italian Peninsula after 200 (BC); the Po Valley after 190 (BC); most of the Iberian Peninsula after 133 (BC); North Africa after 100 (BC); and for ever longer stretches of time in the Greek East ." </P>

What does pax romana mean and why is it important