Aurelian is one of my favourite Roman Emperors - a brilliant fighter, and quite canny politician, who only reigned for a short time but won a swath of battles and reunited the Empire after the Crisis of the Third Century. A great "what if" of history is what if Aurelian had hung on another decade or so... would he have stabilised things more? Maybe not - any Empire run by dictators was inherently unstable. But, you never know...
Aurelian still packed in a lot during his life time. He may never have been Emperor had it not been for the early death of Claudius II (a decent emperor, with a short reign, completely overshadowed in public memory by Claudius I). Aurelian lost an early battle but then had a run of victories few other Emperors ever matched; his best known adversary was Queen Zenobia (a one time Roman ally). He died in an interesting way - a dodgy assistant worried he'd be killed told some officers that Aurelian wanted to kill them, so they offed him.
This is a very good book, accessible and well researched, and I hope White gets to write a bunch more like it.
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