Download or read book Rome s Greatest Defeat written by Adrian Murdoch and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2008-07-14 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In AD 9 half of Rome's Western army was ambushed in a German forest and annihilated. Three legions, three cavalry units and six auxiliary regiments - some 25,000 men - were wiped out. It dealt a body blow to the empire's imperial pretensions and was Rome's greatest defeat. No other battle stopped the Roman empire dead in its tracks. Although one of the most significant and dramatic battles in European history, this is also one which has been largely overlooked. Drawing on primary sources and a vast wealth of new archaeological evidence, Adrian Murdoch brings to life the battle itself, the historical background and the effects of the Roman defeat as well as exploring the personalities of those who took part.
Download or read book Rome s Greatest Defeat written by Adrian Murdoch and published by History Press (SC). This book was released on 2008 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over four days at the beginning of September AD 9, half of Rome's Western army was ambushed in a German forest and annihilated. Three legions, three cavalry units and six auxiliary regiments--some 25,000 men--were wiped out. It dealt a body blow to the empire's imperial pretensions and was Rome's greatest defeat. No other battle stopped the Roman empire dead in its tracks. From the moment of the Teutoburg Forest disaster, the Rhine, rather than the Elbe as the Romans had hoped, became the limit of the civilized world. Rome's expansion in northern Europe was checked and Rome anxiously patrolled the Rhineland borders, awaiting further uprisings from Germania. Although one of the most significant and dramatic battles in European history, this is also one that has been largely overlooked. Drawing on primary sources and a vast wealth of new archeological evidence, Adrian Murdoch brings to life the battle itself, the historical background, and the effects of the Roman defeat as well as exploring the personalities of those who took part.
Download or read book Give Me Back My Legions written by Harry Turtledove and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2009-04-14 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author Harry Turtledove turns his attention to an epic battle that pits three Roman legions against Teutonic barbarians in a thrilling novel of Ancient Rome: Give Me Back My Legions! Publius Quinctilius Varus, a Roman politician, is summoned by the Emperor, Augustus Caesar. Given three legions and sent to the Roman frontier east of the Rhine, his mission is to subdue the barbarous German tribes where others have failed, and bring their land fully under Rome's control. Arminius, a prince of the Cherusci, is playing a deadly game. He serves in the Roman army, gaining Roman citizenship and officer's rank, and learning the arts of war and policy as practiced by the Romans. What he learns is essential for the survival of Germany, for he must unite his people against Rome before they become enslaved by the Empire and lose their way of life forever. An epic battle is brewing, and these two men stand on opposite sides of what will forever be known as The Battle of the Teutoberg Forest—a ferocious, bloody clash that will change the course of history.
Download or read book Hannibal written by Richard A. Gabriel and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-02-28 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Romans' destruction of Carthage after the Third Punic War erased any Carthaginian historical record of Hannibal's life. What we know of him comes exclusively from Roman historians who had every interest in minimizing his success, exaggerating his failures, and disparaging his character. The charges leveled against Hannibal include greed, cruelty and atrocity, sexual indulgence, and even cannibalism. But even these sources were forced to grudgingly admit to Hannibal's military genius, if only to make their eventual victory over him appear greater. Yet there is no doubt that Hannibal was the greatest Carthaginian general of the Second Punic War. When he did not defeat them outright, he fought to a standstill the best generals Rome produced, and he sustained his army in the field for sixteen long years without mutiny or desertion. Hannibal was a first-rate tactician, only a somewhat lesser strategist, and the greatest enemy Rome ever faced. When he at last met defeat at the hands of the Roman general Scipio, it was against an experienced officer who had to strengthen and reconfigure the Roman legion and invent mobile tactics in order to succeed. Even so, Scipio's victory at Zama was against an army that was a shadow of its former self. The battle could easily have gone the other way. If it had, the history of the West would have been changed in ways that can only be imagined. Richard A. Gabriel's brilliant new biography shows how Hannibal's genius nearly unseated the Roman Empire.
Download or read book The Quest for the Lost Roman Legions written by Tony Clunn and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2009-09-19 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of an ancient ambush that devastated Rome—and the modern-day hunt that finally revealed its location and its archaeological treasures. In 9 A.D., the seventeenth, eighteenth, & nineteenth Roman legions and their auxiliary troops under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus vanished in the boggy wilds of Germania. They died singly and by the hundreds over several days in a carefully planned ambush led by Arminius—a Roman-trained German warrior adopted and subsequently knighted by the Romans, but determined to stop Rome’s advance east beyond the Rhine River. By the time it was over, some 25,000 men, women, and children were dead and the course of European history had been forever altered. “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!” Emperor Augustus agonized aloud when he learned of the devastating loss. As decades passed, the location of the Varus defeat, one of the Western world’s most important battlefields, was lost to history. It remained so for two millennia. Fueled by an unshakable curiosity and burning interest in the story, a British Major named J. A. S. (Tony) Clunn delved into the nooks and crannies of times past. By sheer persistence and good luck, he turned the foundation of German national history on its ear. Convinced the running battle took place north of Osnabruck, Germany, Clunn set out to prove his point. His discovery of large numbers of Roman coins in the late 1980s, followed by a flood of thousands of other artifacts (including weapons and human remains), ended the mystery once and for all. Archaeologists and historians across the world agreed. Today, a state-of-the-art museum houses and interprets these priceless historical treasures on the very site Varus’s legions were lost. The Quest for the Lost Roman Legions is a masterful retelling of Clunn’s search to discover the Varus battlefield. His well-paced and vivid writing style makes for a compelling read as he alternates between his incredible modern quest and the ancient tale of the Roman occupation of Germany—based upon actual finds from the battlefield—that ultimately ended so tragically in the peat bogs of Kalkriese.
Download or read book Gladius written by Guy De la Bédoyère and published by Abacus. This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Roman army was the greatest fighting machine the ancient world produced. The Roman Empire depended on soldiers not just to win its wars, defend its frontiers and control the seas but also to act as the engine of the state. Roman legionaries and auxiliaries came from across the Roman world and beyond. They served as tax collectors, policemen, surveyors, civil engineers and, if they survived, in retirement as civic worthies, craftsmen and politicians. Some even rose to become emperors. Gladius takes the reader right into the heart of what it meant to be a part of the Roman army through the words of Roman historians, and those of the men themselves through their religious dedications, tombstones, and even private letters and graffiti. Guy de la Bedoyere throws open a window on how the men, their wives and their children lived, from bleak frontier garrisons to guarding the emperor in Rome, enjoying a ringside seat to history fighting the emperors' wars, mutinying over pay, marching in triumphs, throwing their weight around in city streets, and enjoying esteem in honorable retirement.
Download or read book Hannibal written by Philip Freeman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Telling the story of a man who stood against the overwhelming power of the mighty Roman empire, Hannibal is the biography of a man who, against all odds, dared to change the course of history. Over two thousand years ago one of the greatest military leaders in history almost destroyed Rome. Hannibal, a daring African general from the city of Carthage, led an army of warriors and battle elephants over the snowy Alps to invade the very heart of Rome's growing empire. But what kind of person would dare to face the most relentless imperial power of the ancient world? How could Hannibal, consistently outnumbered and always deep in enemy territory, win battle after battle until he held the very fate of Rome within his grasp? Hannibal appeals to many as the ultimate underdog—a Carthaginian David against the Goliath of Rome—but it wasn't just his genius on the battlefield that set him apart. As a boy and then a man, his self-discipline and determination were legendary. As a military leader, like Alexander the Great before him and Julius Caesar after, he understood the hearts of men and had an uncanny ability to read the unseen weaknesses of his enemy. As a commander in war, Hannibal has few equals in history and has long been held as a model of strategic and tactical genius. But Hannibal was much more than just a great general. He was a practiced statesman, a skilled diplomat, and a man deeply devoted to his family and country. Roman historians—on whom we rely for almost all our information on Hannibal—portray him as a cruel barbarian, but how does the story change if we look at Hannibal from the Carthaginian point of view? Can we search beneath the accounts of Roman writers who were eager to portray Hannibal as a monster and find a more human figure? Can we use the life of Hannibal to look at the Romans themselves in an unfamiliar way— not as the noble and benign defenders of civilization but as ruthless conquerors motivated by greed and conquest?
Download or read book Defeat of Rome in the East written by Gareth C. Sampson and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2008-07-16 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Not just worthwhile for its analysis of the battle, but also for its coverage on Marcus Licinius Crassus’ long career and the rise of the Parthian Empire.” —Medieval Warfare Magazine In 53BC the Proconsul Marcus Crassus and 36,000 of his legionaries were crushed by the Parthians at Carrhae in what is now eastern Turkey. Crassus’ defeat and death and the 20,000 casualties his army suffered were an extraordinary disaster for Rome. The event intensified the bitter, destructive struggle for power in the Roman republic, curtailed the empire’s eastward expansion and had a lasting impact on the history of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. It was also the first clash between two of the greatest civilizations of the ancient world. Yet this critical episode has often been neglected by writers on the period who have concentrated on the civil war between Pompey and Caesar. Gareth Sampson, in this challenging and original study, reconstructs the Carrhae campaign in fine detail, reconsiders the policy of imperial expansion and gives a fascinating insight into the opponents the Romans confronted in the East—the Parthians. “The book is very well written and tightly referenced . . . Recommended, especially for those who only remember Crassus as the guy who was played by Laurence Olivier in Spartacus.” —Slingshot
Download or read book Teutoburg Forest AD 9 written by Michael McNally and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Osprey's study of one of the most important battles of the long-elasting Germanic Wars (113 BC - 439 AD). Arminius, a young member of the Cheruscan tribe under the Roman Empire felt that Rome could be beaten in battle and that such a victory would guarantee the freedom of the Germans as a confederation of independent tribes, led by the Cheruscans, who would - in turn - be led by him. Throughout AD 8 and the early part of AD 9, Arminius used his position under the governor of Germania Inferior well, ostensibly promoting Rome whilst in reality welding the tribes together in an anti-Roman alliance, agreeing with his confederates that they would wait until the Roman garrison had moved to their summer quarters and then rise up against the invaders. With the arrival of September, the time soon came for the Roman troops to return to their stations along the Rhine and as they marched westwards through the almost impenetrable Teutoburg Forest, Arminius sprang his trap. In a series of running battles in the forest, Varus' army, consisting of three Roman Legions (XVII, XVIII and XIX) and several thousand auxiliaries - a total of roughly 20,000 men - was destroyed. The consequences for Rome were enormous - the province of Germania was now virtually undefended and Gaul was open to a German invasion which although it never materialized, led a traumatized Augustus to decree that, henceforth, the Rhine would remain the demarcation line between the Roman world and the German tribes, in addition to which the destroyed legions were never re-formed or their numbers reused in the Roman Army: after AD 9, the sequence of numbers would run from I to XVI and then from XX onwards, it was as if the three legions had never existed.
Download or read book The Battle That Stopped Rome Emperor Augustus Arminius and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest written by Peter S. Wells and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-09-17 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The previously untold story of the watershed battle that changed the course of Western history. In AD 9, a Roman traitor led an army of barbarians who trapped and then slaughtered three entire Roman legions: 20,000 men, half the Roman army in Europe. If not for this battle, the Roman Empire would surely have expanded to the Elbe River, and probably eastward into present-day Russia. But after this defeat, the shocked Romans ended all efforts to expand beyond the Rhine, which became the fixed border between Rome and Germania for the next 400 years, and which remains the cultural border between Latin western Europe and Germanic central and eastern Europe today. This fascinating narrative introduces us to the key protagonists: the emperor Augustus, the most powerful of the Caesars; his general Varus, who was the wrong man in the wrong place; and the barbarian leader Arminius, later celebrated as the first German hero. In graphic detail, based on recent archaeological finds, the author leads the reader through the mud, blood, and decimation that was the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.
Download or read book Triumph in Defeat written by Jessica Homan Clark and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why should we investigate the defeats of a society that almost never lost a war? In Triumph in Defeat, Jessica H. Clark answers this question by showing what responses to defeat can tell us about the Roman definition of victory. Triumph in Defeat traces Roman responses to the Second Punic War, showing the extent to which Rome's reputation as an inevitable military victor was constructed by political discourse.
Download or read book Cannae written by Gregory Daly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-08-18 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gregory Daly's enthralling study considers the reasons that led the two armies to the field of battle, and why each followed the course that they did when they got there. This striking and vivid account is the fullest yet of the bloodiest battle
Download or read book Scipio Africanus written by Richard A. Gabriel and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world often misunderstands its greatest men while neglecting others entirely. Scipio Africanus, surely the greatest general that Rome produced, suffered both these fates. Today scholars celebrate the importance of Hannibal, even though Scipio defeated the legendary general in the Second Punic War and was the central military figure of his time. In this scholarly and heretofore unmatched military biography of the distinguished Roman soldier, Richard A. Gabriel establishes Scipio's rightful place in military history as the greater of the two generals. Before Scipio, few Romans would have dreamed of empire, and Scipio himself would have regarded such an ambition as a danger to his beloved republic. And yet, paradoxically, Scipio's victories in Spain and Africa enabled Rome to consolidate its hold over Italy and become the dominant power in the western Mediterranean, virtually ensuring a later confrontation with the Greco-Macedonian kingdoms to the east as well as the empire's expansion into North Africa and the Levant. The Roman imperium was being born, and it was Scipio who had sired it. Gabriel draws upon ancient texts, including those from Livy, Polybius, Diodorus, Silius Italicus, and others, as primary sources and examines all additional material available to the modern scholar in French, German, English, and Italian. His book offers a complete bibliography of all extant sources regarding Scipio's life. The result is a rich, detailed, and contextual treatment of the life and career of Scipio Africanus, one of Rome's greatest generals, if not the greatest of them all.
Download or read book The Rise of Rome written by Anthony Everitt and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE KANSAS CITY STAR From Anthony Everitt, the bestselling author of acclaimed biographies of Cicero, Augustus, and Hadrian, comes a riveting, magisterial account of Rome and its remarkable ascent from an obscure agrarian backwater to the greatest empire the world has ever known. Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., Rome grew to become the ancient world’s preeminent power. Everitt fashions the story of Rome’s rise to glory into an erudite page-turner filled with lasting lessons for our time. He chronicles the clash between patricians and plebeians that defined the politics of the Republic. He shows how Rome’s shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding the reach of her burgeoning empire. And he outlines the corrosion of constitutional norms that accompanied Rome’s imperial expansion, as old habits of political compromise gave way, leading to violence and civil war. In the end, unimaginable wealth and power corrupted the traditional virtues of the Republic, and Rome was left triumphant everywhere except within its own borders. Everitt paints indelible portraits of the great Romans—and non-Romans—who left their mark on the world out of which the mighty empire grew: Cincinnatus, Rome’s George Washington, the very model of the patrician warrior/aristocrat; the brilliant general Scipio Africanus, who turned back a challenge from the Carthaginian legend Hannibal; and Alexander the Great, the invincible Macedonian conqueror who became a role model for generations of would-be Roman rulers. Here also are the intellectual and philosophical leaders whose observations on the art of government and “the good life” have inspired every Western power from antiquity to the present: Cato the Elder, the famously incorruptible statesman who spoke out against the decadence of his times, and Cicero, the consummate orator whose championing of republican institutions put him on a collision course with Julius Caesar and whose writings on justice and liberty continue to inform our political discourse today. Rome’s decline and fall have long fascinated historians, but the story of how the empire was won is every bit as compelling. With The Rise of Rome, one of our most revered chroniclers of the ancient world tells that tale in a way that will galvanize, inform, and enlighten modern readers. Praise for The Rise of Rome “Fascinating history and a great read.”—Chicago Sun-Times “An engrossing history of a relentlessly pugnacious city’s 500-year rise to empire.”—Kirkus Reviews “Rome’s history abounds with remarkable figures. . . . Everitt writes for the informed and the uninformed general reader alike, in a brisk, conversational style, with a modern attitude of skepticism and realism.”—The Dallas Morning News “[A] lively and readable account . . . Roman history has an uncanny ability to resonate with contemporary events.”—Maclean’s “Elegant, swift and faultless as an introduction to his subject.”—The Spectator “[An] engaging work that will captivate and inform from beginning to end.”—Booklist
Download or read book The Defeat of Rome written by Gareth C. Sampson and published by Pen & Sword Books. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "First published in Great Britain in 2008 and reprinted ... in 2015"--Title page verso.
Download or read book Cannae written by Adrian Goldsworthy and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an award-winning historian of ancient Rome, the definitive history of Rome's most devastating defeatAugust 2, 216 BC was one of history's bloodiest single days of fighting. On a narrow plain near the Southern Italian town of Cannae, despite outnumbering their opponents almost two to one, a massive Roman army was crushed by the heterogeneous forces of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who had spectacularly crossed the Alps into Italy two years earlier. The scale of the losses at Cannae -- 50,000 Roman men killed -- was unrivaled until the industrialized slaughter of the First World War. Although the Romans eventually recovered and Carthage lost the war, the Battle of Cannae became Romans' point of reference for all later military catastrophes. Ever since, military commanders confronting a superior force have attempted, and usually failed, to reproduce Hannibal's tactics and their overwhelming success.In Cannae, the celebrated historian Adrian Goldsworthy offers a concise and enthralling history of one of the most famous battles ever waged, setting Cannae within the larger contexts of the Second Punic War and the nature of warfare in the third century BC. It is a gripping read for historians, strategists, and anyone curious about warfare in antiquity and Rome's rise to power.
Download or read book Eagles in the Dust written by Adrian Coombs-Hoar and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-01-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In AD376 large groups of Goths, seeking refuge from the Huns, sought admittance to the Eastern Roman Empire. Emperor Valens took the strategic decision to grant them entry, hoping to utilize them as a source of manpower for his campaigns against Persia. The Goths had been providing good warriors to Roman armies for decades. However, mistreatment of the refugees by Roman officials led them to take up arms against their hosts. ?The resultant battle near Adrianopolis in AD378, in which Valens lost his life, is regarded as one of the most significant defeats ever suffered by Roman arms. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus called it the worst massacre since Cannae, nearly six hundred years previously. Modern historians have accorded it great significance both at a tactical level, due to the success of Gothic cavalry over the vaunted Roman infantry, and in strategic terms, often citing it as the beginning of the end for the Empire. Adrian Coombs-Hoar untangles the debate that still surrounds many aspects such claims with an insightful account that draws on the latest research.
