The Roman Empire was one of the largest in history, with contiguous territories

throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.[34] The Latin phrase imperium sine
fine ("empire without end"[35]) expressed the ideology that neither time nor space limited
the Empire. In Vergil's epic poem the Aeneid, limitless empire is said to be granted to the
Romans by their supreme deity Jupiter.[35][36][37][38][39] This claim of universal dominion
was renewed and perpetuated when the Empire came under Christian rule in the 4th
century.[n 9] In addition to annexing large regions in their quest for empire-building, the
Romans were also very large sculptors of their environment who directly altered their
geography. For instance, entire forests were cut down to provide enough wood resources
for an expanding empire. In his book Critias, Plato described that deforestation: where
there was once "an abundance of wood in the mountains," he could now only see "the
mere skeleton of the land."[40]
In reality, Roman expansion was mostly accomplished under the Republic, though parts
of northern Europe were conquered in the 1st century AD, when Roman control in
Europe, Africa, and Asia was strengthened. During the reign of Augustus, a "global map
of the known world" was displayed for the first time in public at Rome, coinciding with the
composition of the most comprehensive work on political geography that survives from
antiquity, the Geography of the Pontic Greek writer Strabo.[41] When Augustus died, the
commemorative account of his achievements (Res Gestae) prominently featured the
geographical cataloguing of peoples and places within the Empire.[42] Geography,
the census, and the meticulous keeping of written records were central concerns
of Roman Imperial administration.[43]

The cities of the Roman world in the Imperial Period. Data source: Hanson, J. W. (2016), Cities
database, (OXREP databases). Version 1.0. (link).

A segment of the ruins of Hadrian's Wall in northern England

The Empire reached its largest expanse under Trajan (reigned 98–117),

[39] encompassing an area of 5 million square kilometres. [4][5] The traditional population
estimate of 55–60 million inhabitants[44] accounted for between one-sixth and one-fourth
of the world's total population[45] and made it the largest population of any unified political
entity in the West until the mid-19th century.[46] Recent demographic studies have argued
for a population peak ranging from 70 million to more than 100 million.[47][48] Each of the
three largest cities in the Empire—Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch—was almost twice the
size of any European city at the beginning of the 17th century. [49]
As the historian Christopher Kelly has described it:
Then the empire stretched from Hadrian's Wall in drizzle-soaked northern
England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates in Syria; from the
great Rhine–Danube river system, which snaked across the fertile, flat
lands of Europe from the Low Countries to the Black Sea, to the rich
plains of the North African coast and the luxuriant gash of the Nile
Valley in Egypt. The empire completely circled the Mediterranean ...
referred to by its conquerors as mare nostrum—'our sea'.[44]
Trajan's successor Hadrian adopted a policy of maintaining rather than expanding the
empire. Borders (fines) were marked, and the frontiers (limites) patrolled.[39] The most
heavily fortified borders were the most unstable.[12] Hadrian's Wall, which separated the
Roman world from what was perceived as an ever-present barbarian threat, is the
primary surviving monument of this effort.[50][51][52]