Thank you NetGalley for the eARC. I am a history lover so I requested this book but i didn't get too far with it. Sorry. It didn't have enough for me and I stopped mid-way

This is a very good book - but perhaps not because of its headline topic. There is not really enough specific personal information from or even about Constantius III to create a biography in the usual sense. What we get is a survey of what information we have and some ways that it could probably all fit together to create a slightly distant 3rd person account of Constantius.

He seems to have been one of the many military emperors emerging from the camp in Nis (modern Serbia). This was a period in which military emergency and imperial rule started to completely overlap - there is no coverage of normal politics, culture (poetry, architecture, scholarship) that makes the late republican period so vivid. So, expect coverage of wars and the machinations of military leaders and a slightly bewildering array of break-away groups and power-brokers.

That said, Hughes is equally diligent in his research and organised in his presentation. He does create strands and threads to move us from one key event to the next and Constantius is re-inserted into a series of familiar episodes in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The book reads well, but it repays closer study and, as the author remembers to mention at the start, it sits particularly well in relation to his other books tracing the lives of other similarly obscured figures of the time (his book on Gaiseric is still my favourite, though).

NB: free copy received for honest review

In the early 400s CE, the western Roman Empire was in a precarious state. Emperor Honorius had taken the throne while still a child, and his rule was heavily influenced by his advisors, whose counsel changed dramatically depending on who was in favour at the time. This led to frequent changes of political direction, and growing dangers to the empire. There were times when Honorius ruled little more than Italy itself, and even that was not safe: his rule saw Rome sacked by the Goths.

The thrust of this book is that the return of Gaul and Hispania to the Roman fold toward the end of Honorius's reign is largely due to the efforts of Constantius III, who briefly became so-Emperor before an unexpectedly early death, and that Constantius has been unfairly overlooked in the history of great Roman leaders. Probably because the long term effects of some of his decisions were to prove detrimental to the empire's safety.

This is a good read, clearly laid out, and with an open and frank discussion of the (multiple) places where the historical record is unclear, contradictory, or otherwise unreliable, and the author's best judgement has been used. If you've an interest in the history of the decline of the western Roman empire, and the struggles to preserve it against that decline, it is well worth checking out.