Roman Empire at War: A Compendium of Roman Battles from 31 B.C. to A.D. 565
by Don Taylor
In a single volume, Empire at War catalogues and offers a brief description of every significant battle fought by the Roman Empire from Augustus to Justinian I (and most of the minor ones too). The information in each entry is drawn exclusively from Ancient, Late Antique, and Early Medieval texts, in order to offer a brief description of each battle based solely on the information provided by the earliest surviving sources which chronicle the event. This approach provides the reader a concise...
Imperial Roman Legionary AD 161–284 (Warrior S., #72)
by Ross Cowan
Between AD 161 and 244 the Roman legions were involved in wars and battles on a scale not seen since the late Republic. Legions were destroyed in battle, disbanded for mutiny and rebellion and formed to wage wars of conquest and defence. This volume explores the experience of the imperial legionary, concentrating on Legio II Parthica. Raised by the emperor Septimus Severus in AD 193/4, it was based at Albanum near Rome and as the emperor's personal legion, became one of the most important units...
In August 334 BC, Alexander the Great invaded the Persian Empire and systematically set about its conquest. At the core of Alexander's army were 10,000 members of the phalanx, the phalangites. Armed with a long pike and fighting in formations up to 16 ranks deep, these grizzled veterans were the mainstay of the Macedonian army. Facing them were the myriad armies of the peoples that made up the Persian Empire. At the centre of these forces was the formation known as the Immortals: 10,000 elite...
A TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY ‘The Red Prince announces Helen Carr as one of the most exciting new voices in narrative history.’ Dan Jones Son of Edward III, brother to the Black Prince, father to Henry IV and the sire of all the Tudors. Always close to the English throne, John of Gaunt left a complex legacy. Too rich, too powerful, too haughty… did he have his eye on his nephew’s throne? Why was he such a focu...
Greek and Persian Wars 499-386 BC (Guide to...) (Essential Histories)
by Philip de Souza
This title covers one ot the defining periods of European history. The series of wars between the Classical Greeks and the Persian Empire produced the famous battles of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis, as well as the ill-fated attempt to overthrow the Persian king in 400 BC, which helped to inspire the conquests of Alexander the Great. To tell the story of these momentous events, of the lives of great men and women, of the societies and cultures that produced them and to explain how and why th...
A wall in the distant north cuts the world in two. Ruthless seaborne warriors raid the coasts from their war galleys, yearning to regain lost glories. A young nobleman and his kin are slaughtered under a banner of truce within a mighty castle. A warrior king becomes a legend when he smites his foe with one swing of his axe during a nation-forging battle. Yet this isn't Westeros - it's Scotland. Game of Thrones is history re-imagined as fantasy; _Beyond the Wall_ turns the tables, using George R...
'Medieval Mercenaries puts the events of the 14th century into a vivid historical context. He provides an astonishingly clear overview of the subject of mercenaries with tremendous authority and wit. It makes a thrilling read.' - TERRY JONES Groundbreaking work on the Middle Ages' soldiers of fortune Explores the period's surprising variety of mercenaries Meticulously researched and engagingly written The Middle Ages were a turbulent and violent time, when the fate of nations was most often d...
The concluding part of John D Grainger's history of the Seleukids traces the tumultuous last century of their empire. In this period it was riven by dynastic disputes, secessions and rebellions, the religiously-inspired insurrection of the Jewish Maccabees, civil war and external invasion from Egypt in the West and the Parthians in the East. By the 80s BC, the empire was disintegrating, internally fractured and squeezed by the converging expansionist powers of Rome and Parthia. This is a fittin...
Paul Coby here proposes a new system for the recording and mapping of Roman forts and fortifications that integrates all the data, including size, dating and identification of occupying units. Application of these methods allows analysis that brings new insights into the placement of these forts, the units garrisoning them and the strategy of conquest and defence they underpinned. This is a new and original contribution to the long-running debate over whether the Roman Empire had a coherent g...
In the midsummer of 415 BC Athens launched a pre-emptive attack on Syracuse, urged on by the brilliant but reckless Athenian general Alcibiades, who claimed the Syracusans were providing the hostile Peloponnesian League with supplies. Moreover, if Athens could establish itself in Sicily then it would be in a commanding position for future aggression against Carthage. Possession of Syracuse would also allow the Athenians to dominate the Mediterranean. Nic Fields examines the foolhardy campaign in...
The Ancient Greeks (Elite, #7) (Histories)
by Nick Sekunda and Angus McBride
The cradle of western civilisation, the ancient Greek world, consisted of a series of independent city states some of which, such as Athens and Sparta, became major world powers. This authoritative volume by Nicholas Sekunda covers Greek warfare in the Classical Period, which stretches from the Greek victories over the Persian Empire to the death of Alexander the Great at the end of the 4th century. The book includes such famous battles such as Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis and offers a deta...
Military Reconnaissance (Casemate Short History)
by Alexander Stilwell
Since the earliest recorded military history, scouting and reconnaissance have been key tools employed by military commanders to obtain a picture of the tactical situation and make informed decisions. Scouts known as sciritae were deployed by the Spartans and had a privileged position in their order of battle. The Spartans were so aware of the advantage their scouting operations gave them that they went to great lengths to keep them secret. As military tactics, weapons and equipment developed ov...
On 9 August, 378 AD the Roman Empire began to fall. Two years earlier, a flood of refugees from the tribe of the Goths had arrived at the Empire's eastern border, seeking admittance. As the group swelled into an army, the Roman authorities struggled to hold them back until, finally, the horde charged and the battle of Adranopolis took place. The Roman army suffered its most disastrous defeat since Hannibal's victory over them almost 600 years earlier. Although the Empire would not fall for anoth...
The Histories (Royal Collector's Edition) (Annotated) (Case Laminate Hardcover with Jacket)
by Herodotus
Republican Roman Army 200–104 BC (Men-at-Arms, #291)
by Nicholas Sekunda
The principal source of information on the Roman Republican Army is the sixth book of the Histories of the Greek historian Polybius, written a little before 150BC. This engaging text by Nicholas Sekunda draws heavily on this vital source to outline the equipment and organisation of the Roman Republican Army from 200–104 BC – a time when Rome was growing from a regional to a world power. With plenty of photographs and illustrations, including eight vivid full page colour plates by Angus McBride,...
Plutarch's Lives - Vol. II
by Plutarch, Aubrey Stewart, and George Long
History of the Peloponnesian War (Loeb Classical Library *CONTINS TO [email protected]) (Loeb Classical Library)
by William Smith and Thucydides
Thucydides of Athens, one of the greatest of historians, was born about 471 BCE. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague which he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells about this, not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war--that it befell...
In its long history, the Roman Republic suffered many defeats, but none as humiliating as the Caudine Forks in the summer of 321 BC. Rome had been at war with the Samnites - one of early Rome's most formidable foes - since 326 BC in what would turn out to be a long and bitter conflict now known as the Second Samnite War. The rising, rival Italic powers vied for supremacy in central and southern Italy, and their leaders were contemplating the conquest of the entire Italian peninsula. Driven by th...