The Complete Roman Army (book)

[Velico]

I just picked this book up over the weekend and it's a great find! The author (Dr. Adrian Goldsworthy) is very detailed yet keeps it understandable without 'dumbing' it down to the average reader. Some of the material in it is just mind-blowing. A lot of nice pictures, sketches and museum artifacts litter the book breaking up the heavy reading with some interesting captions. I would definitely suggest this book to any of you classical era freaks like me

Has anyone else on this forum read this book? I find myself playing RS and looking down at the book to find (and try out) tactics and battleplans quite often. Well anyway, I was just reading it and thought it would be interesting to start a discussion on it here.

[HunterKYA]

If you enjoyed that, you may wish to take a look at Roman Warfare, also by Adrian Goldsworthy, which gives the reader a better impression about how the Romans went about using tactics, the equipment they used, and the evolution of the army from the founding of the city until the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It's been a few years since I've been able to get a good look at it, but still something you might want to check out.

[apple]

I'm currently reading his "The Punic Wars". quite interesting.

[GIMJ]

His book Ceasar is also a great read. Its very informative and references a lot of the historical texts, but at the same time is easy and interesting to read.

[florin80]

I don`t think Goldsworthy could have got any more shallow than he did with the complete roman army. It is sincerely one of the most limited books I`ve seen on the subject. Fine for someone who starts with it on this, but if you`ve read anything on the roman army prior to this one you`ll find it heavier on the images(not that anything there is particularly new) than on the text. Or at least I did. There are references to popular culture iirc. Gladiator for example. It left me the impression that Goldsworthy or his publisher wanted to sell the book to anyone on the planet, save for the few with a taste for dry academic titles.
Personally I don`t remember reading anything in it(author`s personal conclusions included) that I had not already read someplace else before. Came as a shock to me frankly because I wasn`t expecting Goldsworthy will accept moving so much into Osprey`s wargaming books domain and at the end of the day do a commercial and much poorer job then them. But I`ll probably buy other books by Goldsworthy because thin as he may be in some texts I`ve actually enjoyed his The Fall of Carthage. And I don`t think he did a bad job with other titles either.

[rory o'kane]

I've actually been emailing Dr. Goldsworthy in reference to auxiliary archers - just to clear up one or two things that confused me.

[florin80]

Lol. If he answers do post back please. I`m curios if he does.

[Dafuge]

I've recently purchased Ceaser: Life of a Colossus. It seems pretty interesting. After that I wish to purchase the Fall of Rome and then I'll start at the beginning of his books. Is the Ceaser one any good?

[rory o'kane]

He has replied. Here's what i sent him first:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

> Dear Dr. Goldsworthy,
> I am a first year medical student who has an avid interest in Roman military history, in particular from the Second Punic War to the end of Marcus Aurelius (the end of the Principate?). Firstly, allow me to say that i am a huge fan of your books - I take my now very well-thumbed copy of "In the Name of Rome" almost everywhere I go - it's easily the most readable book on the Romans I've ever had the fortune of reading.
>
> I understand that you are a busy man, what with writing books, research, and the occasional TV appearance to worry about, but I thought that I would write to you with a query about Roman Auxiliary archers. My apologies for the massive paragraph below, but I thought it appropriate to explain why a medical student wants to know so much about the Roman military.
>
> I am part of a community of gamers who are modifying a PC game called Rome: Total War in order to make it more historical and in order to improve various other aspects of the game. This form of modification is a common phenomenon in the gaming community, and often more extensive modifications, or "mods" require a large team of people for the purposes of working on the coding, 3D modelling, graphics, etc.
>
> As the resident Romanophile on our mod team, I'm in charge of writing up the descriptions for the Auxiliary cohorts and cavalry alae of the Roman army, and during my research, I noticed that there was very little information available widely regarding archers in the Roman army of the Principate, whether mounted or on foot. Most websites and books that i've consulted merely state that the vast majority of Cohortes/Alae Sagittariorum were from the East (Asia Minor and the Levant), with a large portion of the rest hailing from Thrace. This struck me as odd - I wasn't aware there was a long tradition of archery in Thrace - i thought the Thracians were employed by Alexander the Great as Light Infantry, not archers, and certainly not horse-archers.
> The Thracian foot archers are apparently on Trajan's column, equipped in a similar way to "regular" auxiliaries, (and so, appear distinct from the cone-helmeted, scale-armour-wearing Syrians that feature more prominently on the column - and which clearly inspired the appearance of the archers in the opening battle of the film "Gladiator").
>
> I was wondering if you had any information about why so many archers were recruited from an area that does not immediately appear to have a strong tradition of archery (as opposed to the East, which had a long tradition of archery, as I understand it)?
> I'm also curious about horse-archers in the Roman army - i understand that they were very rare until the 2nd century AD, but is there any information available on how they would have been equipped, other than the fact that they carried bows?
>
> I appreciate that you would want to keep any new information that you may have recently unearthed concerning the above for your next book/thesis, but if you could shed some light on the topics listed above (apologies if it is laborious work), then I would greatly appreciate it.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> Rory O'Kane

and here's what he wrote back:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dear Rory O'Kane

Things seem to have been a lot more complicated than people think. There were quite a few units of archers raised in Syria and the other eastern provinces. Apart from Trajan's Column, there is no other evidence for the long robes. A tombstone from Hadrian's Wall shows a similar looking helmet to some of the archers on Trajan's Column, but the man has an ordinary length tunic. Some people reckon that the long robed figures on Trajan's Column are an invention to look deliberately exotic. No one knows definitely, so you can stick with the long robes - it does make them look distinctive.

In older books you will read that the Romans kept recruiting from the east even for an archer unit stationed in Britain or on the Rhine, because recruits from this area were better archers. However, when people looked closer at the origins of soldiers in these units, the whole theory fell apart. These men seem to have been recruited from the most local source, just like other auxiliaries. So, after the first generation, raised in the province of origin, most units were recruited locally. Remember that these were professional soldiers serving for twenty-five years. There was plenty of time to train men to be highly proficient archers, in the same way that cavalrymen would be trained to ride etc.

There are some units of archers from Thrace, but not all that many. Archer units seem to have been recruited wherever it was felt necessary - a couple are just called archers and have no ethnic title - and obviously after the first batch of recruits were demobilised, replacements were found wherever they were available.

The chaps on Trajan's Column with ordinary auxiliary uniforms and bows are not specifically Thracian or anything else - just auxiliary archers.

One thing that confuses the issue even more - there are hints that some units whose title proclaimed them to be archers also/entirely fought with ordinary weapons. In some eastern cultures 'archer' may have been synonymous with 'soldier' and so did not actually need them to be equipped with bows. There are also hints that some units used bows, but were not titled archers. Worth remembering that there are no recorded units described as slingers & yet these pop up on Trajan's Column and sling bullets are fairly common finds on military sites.

The emperor's guard cavalry certainly included archers, although the majority were armed with javelins & spear + shield. This makes it just possible that other units were mixed.

We used Rome Total War for the Time Commanders series (although we could not say so as it was shown on the BBC), and I spent some time with the team from Creative Assembly working on the scenarios for the series, so know the game. Have it on the PC, but have not had time to play it for a year or more. Good fun though.

Anyway, hope the above is of help. In many cases we just don't know, so there has to be guesswork in any reconstruction, whether game or anything else.

All the best - Adrian Goldsworthy

[florin80]

I've recently purchased Ceaser: Life of a Colossus. It seems pretty interesting. After that I wish to purchase the Fall of Rome and then I'll start at the beginning of his books. Is the Ceaser one any good?

What do you mean? You just said you`ve read it. By the fall of rome you mean How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower?

EDIT:

He has replied.

Heh, Goldsworthy is a fan? Nice guy, I have to say. And thanks rory for the post!

[Dafuge]

I said I've purchased it. Not read it. Yep, that's the one I mean.

And well played the Dr. Goldsworthy, that was a good reply and it did shed some light on the situation.

[florin80]

I said I've purchased it. Not read it. Yep, that's the one I mean.

Right... Sorry for the misunderstanding! That`s actually a book I`m considering to buy. Much as the complete roman army felt disappointing to me(by comparison with his other titles especially) I still like Goldsworthy`s style.

[Dafuge]

Hmm, I had a flick through just now. Basically, most of the book is writing, the only 'pictures' I encountered were maps, and there was only a few, 20 at the most in the whole book.

Edit: I checked again and found a map list. There is 15 all together.

[Velico]

Thanks for the suggestions on more of his books guys I think 'The Punic Wars' will probably be the next in line for me. It seems like there's quite a few forum-goers who like his style of writing. Any suggestions on other authors for Roman history? I'd love to get my hands on Vegetius' 'Epitoma Rei Militaris' but it's pretty expensive everywhere I've looked.

That's cool he responded to your email in such a fashion. Did it take a while for him to respond?

[rory o'kane]

A few days, yes, but still, that's to be expected. He's doing better than David Cameron (3 months and counting )!

[ray243]

Thanks for the suggestions on more of his books guys I think 'The Punic Wars' will probably be the next in line for me. It seems like there's quite a few forum-goers who like his style of writing. Any suggestions on other authors for Roman history??

The Imperial Roman Army by Yann Le Bohec. He's considered as one of the best historian regarding the Roman army.


http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Roman.../dp/0415222958

e-book excerpt.

http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=...esult&resnum=2

[florin80]

Hmm, I had a flick through just now. Basically, most of the book is writing, the only 'pictures' I encountered were maps, and there was only a few, 20 at the most in the whole book.

The thread is already a few months old, but considering I`ve criticized Goldsworthy`s complete roman army I feel obliged to say that in the meantime I`ve read his Caesar: Life of a Colossus and I`ve found it wonderful. Maybe someone who has read enough on the subject to already feel a bit bored by it would not share my entire enthusiasm, but I have to say it was among the most entertaining history books I have read, while at the same time not giving me any impression that it was academically shallow at all. Without really being a roman fan I have enjoyed this title a lot. I had a break with reading Goldsworthy after getting the complete roman army, but now I feel like buying one of his other titles too. I wish he will write one that would continue from where Caesar stops.

[Mostly_Harmless]

I've only read his "In the Name of Rome", and found it not only very informative but also an easy read.
I'm actually taking medieval history, but I happen to have a paticular fondess for the Romans.

[Brusilov]

I've read most of Goldsworthy's books and have enjoyed them all. I have yet to read 'The Fall Of The West' but I did just order a hardback second-hand copy from Amazon.co.uk......

[florin80]

I've only read his "In the Name of Rome", and found it not only very informative but also an easy read.

Exactly. He goes to some pains to make the books very easy to read for the general public. For example the notes are at the end of the book to not disrupt the main text and I`ve also noticed that whenever he mentions a name, not only does he put it into some context and generally explaining the reader who he is, but also makes sure that when the same name appears again he reminds the reader where he first heard it so you don`t need to constantly go back and check like you do with some other books that are full of names. And one other thing I`ve always appreciated is that Goldsworthy doesn`t go into saying what the "correct" numbers for the army should be. He may mention that the ones in the sources seem exaggerated but doesn`t go as far as many writers to guess the "real" one.

I've read most of Goldsworthy's books and have enjoyed them all. I have yet to read 'The Fall Of The West' but I did just order a hardback second-hand copy from Amazon.co.uk......

I`m under the impression that it`s the same thing with his other title: How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower. Which I was going to buy next. You may want to check on that so you don`t buy the same book twice.