The Roman Army at War: 100 Bc-Ad 200 (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Rating:
Summary: Very Informative Without a Great Deal Of Speculation
Review: This is a great read. The author's crisp style and loyalty to the subject are evident in the first paragraph. Where other researchers offer up their opinions, Goldsworthy reviews these different views with helpful hints where the reader can pursue the "truth" about the matter. Since we are talking about ancient Rome, not even Roman chronicalers agree all the time. I would put this right up there with Yann Le Bohec's work. If your are interested in the three centuries of Rome's military high-water mark, you gotta get this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great Academic analysis
Review: This is an outstanding book for many reasons. It is goes into great depth to explain the training, equipment, morale, leadership, strategy, and tactics of the Roman Army. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is because it is written from the academic veiwpoint, which of course is what Mr. Goldsworthy is, and therefore lacks some of the passion and excitment I would like to see. Nevertheless, Mr. Goldsworthy does an outstanding job of trying to paint as accurate a picture as he possibly can from the historical/archaeological record of what the soldiers, leaders, armies, and navies looked like and how they lived and fought for the Republic and the Empire. You can not complain about lack of information because Mr. Goldsworthy gives a great deal, although you may disagree with some of his conclusions. I guess that is one of the things that is so exciting about studing the Romans is that although we know large amounts of information about some things there is still mountains of information that has been lost to history and we will never really know the whole story. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to study the Roman Army much deeper than you can in one of the many books on this subject that just scrape the surface of the information available to scholars and military historians today.