Ancient

Justin Swanton examines the principal battle-winning formations of the Ancient world, determining their composition, function and efficacy. An introductory chapter looks at the fundamental components of the principal battle formations of heavy and light...

From classicist James Romm comes a thrilling deep dive into the last decades of ancient Greek freedom leading up to Alexander the Great's destruction of Thebes-and the saga of the greatest military corps of the age, the Theban Sacred Band, a unit...

The Roman Conquests series seeks to explain when and how the Romans were able to conquer a vast empire stretching from the foothills of the Scottish Highlands to the Sahara Desert, from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf. How did their armies adapt to and...

Drawing on 30 years of scholarship, this is a unique, richly illustrated history of the Ancient Assyrian Army and Empire. For the greater part of the period from the end of the 10th century to the 7th century BC, the Ancient Near East was dominated...

The battle of Zama, fought across North Africa around 202 BC, was the final large-scale clash of arms between the world's two greatest western powers of the time - Carthage and Rome. The engagement ended the Second Punic War, waged from 218 until 201 BC...

The 128-year dynasty of the Komneni (1057 to 1185) was the last great epoch of Byzantium, when the empire had to fend off Turkish and Norman foes simultaneously. Starting with the extremely able Alexios I, and unable now to count on help from the West,...

At around 4.00pm 11 June 323 BC in Babylon, Alexander the Great breathed his last. He left one of the largest empires the world had seen, stretching from Greece to the Punjab. Surrounding the king's deathbed were his highest subordinates: young,...

When the dying Alexander the Great was asked to whom he bequeathed his vast empire, he supposedly replied to the strongest. There ensued a long series of struggles between his generals and governors for control of these vast territories. Most of these...

Adopted from the Celts in the 1st century BC, the spatha, a lethal and formidable chopping blade, became the primary sword of the Roman soldier in the Later Empire. Over the following centuries, the blade, its scabbard, and its system of carriage...

Until the publication of this captivating biography, no such volume on Trajan's life has been tailored to the general reader. The unique book illuminates a neglected period of ancient Roman history, featuring comprehensive maps and photographs to help...

In this first volume of his trilogy on the Ptolemies, John Grainger explains how Ptolemy I established the dynasty's power in Egypt in the wake of Alexander the Great's death. Egypt had been independent for most of the fourth century BC, but was...

Publius Quinctilius Varus is famous as the incompetent commander duped into an ambush that wiped out three legions in one of the most humiliating defeats in Roman history. Yet this is the first full length biography of the man. Dr Joanne Ball revisits...

Dr Simon Elliott describes eight of the greatest, most decisive of the Roman Empire of the first to third centuries. The list includes battles fought from the highlands of Scotland and the forests of Germany to the deserts of the Middle East. They show...

A fascinating and detailed exploration of one of the most famous warships of the Ancient world - the trireme - and its tactical employment by the opposing sides in the 5th-century BC Graeco-Persian Wars. You may be familiar with the Athenian trireme -...

The third in the Roman Conquests series briefly covers Rome's first forays into the dark continent during the First and Second Punic Wars, then covers in detail her vindictive final conquest and destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War. The...

The ancient Sibylline prophecies had foretold that the Roman Empire would last for 1000 years. As the time for the expected dissolution approached in the middle of the third century AD, the empire was lapsing into chaos, with seemingly interminable civil...

The ancient Egyptians presented themselves as superior to all other people in the world; on temple walls, the pharaoh is shown smiting foreign enemies - people from Nubia, Libya and the Levant - or crushing them beneath his chariot. Officially,...

The period covered by the Old Testament - beginning in approximately 3000 BC - was one of great technological development and innovation in warfare, as competing cultures clashed in the ancient Middle East. The Sumerians were the first to introduce the...

In ancient times, the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) was home to warriors of great renown. Spanish and Celtiberian warriors, both infantry and cavalry, provided the backbone of the Carthaginian armies that terrorized Italy under Hannibal and...

In the aftermath of the murder of Gaius Julius Caesar, his self-declared successor Mark Antony struggled to hold together his legacy. Following an abortive coup attempt by Caesar's adopted son Octavian, two of Antony's legions declared for him, leading...

In the mid-3rd century AD Roman Britain's regional fleet, the Classis Britannica, disappeared. It was never to return. Soon the North Sea and English Channel were over-run by Germanic pirates preying upon the east and south coast of Britain, and the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781915070265Author Philip GartonFormat PaperbackPage Count 160Imprint Helion & CompanyPublisher Helion & Company

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781250030115Author John RomerFormat HardbackPage Count 512Imprint St Martin's PressPublisher St Martin's PressWeight(grams) 862gDimensions(mm) 231mm * 160mm...

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...

_The Military History of Late Rome 425-457_ analyses in great detail how the Romans coped with the challenge posed by masses of Huns in a situation in which the Germanic tribes had gained a permanent foothold in the territories of West Rome. This...

Sorry no description is available for this book at this time.

In ancient Egypt women enjoyed a legal, social and sexual independence unrivalled by their Greek or Roman sisters, or in fact by most women until the late nineteenth century. They could own and trade in property, work outside the home, marry foreigners...

This in-depth visual guide, Warriors of the Ancient Greek World, boasts over 140 lavishly detailed photographed and illustrated recreations of the warrior panoplies of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. It covers the heavy infantry and cavalry of...

Fully illustrated with colour maps and images, this is an accessible introduction to Julius Caesar's Civil War. Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great were two of the greatest generals Rome had ever produced. Together they had brought vast stretches of...

This is a narrative military history of the emperors Lucius Domitius Aurelianus ( Aurelian', reigned 270-275) and Marcus Aurelius Probus (276-282) which also includes the other reigns between the years 268 and 285. It shows how these two remarkable...

In the twilight of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th-6th centuries, the elite of the field armies was the heavy armoured cavalry - the cataphracts, clad in lamellar, scale, mail and padded fabric armour. After the fall of the West, the Greek-speaking...

Roman and Hunnic fighting men are assessed and compared in this fully illustrated study of Attila's bid to conquer Europe in the 5th century AD. The Huns burst on to the page of western European history in the 4th century AD. Fighting mostly on...

In 52 BC Caesar's continued strategy of annihilation had engendered a spirit of desperation, which detonated into a revolt of Gallic tribes under the leadership of the charismatic young Arvernian noble Vercingetorix. Major engagements were fought at...

Covering Sparta's full classical history, The Bronze Lie examines the myth of Spartan warrior supremacy. The last stand at Thermopylae made the Spartans legends in their own time, famous for their toughness, stoicism and martial prowess - but was this...

Julian Romane examines the campaigns of Julius Caesar throughout the civil wars that followed his famous crossing of the Rubicon, through to the defeat of the final Pompeian diehards at the battle of Munda. He analyses Caesar's generalship in the widest...

At the height of its power, the Roman Empire encompassed the entire Mediterranean basin, extending much beyond it from Britain to Mesopotamia, from the Rhine to the Black Sea. Rome prospered for centuries while successfully resisting attack, fending off...

The first work to lay out Roman strategic thinking from its start under Augustus until its final demise in 476 CE From Octavian's victory at Actium (31 B.C.) to its traditional endpoint in the West (476), the Roman Empire lasted a solid 500 years - an...

'An exciting, highly informative and also enjoyable read: Shepherd writes with clarity and verve... this book should find its way into the hands of all schools, universities and lovers of Herodotus.' - Peter Jones, Classics for All Weaving together...

Following the First Civil War the Roman Republic was able to rebuild itself and restore stability. Yet the problems which had plagued the previous seventy years of the Republic, of political reform being met with violence and bloodshed, had not been...

Conflict was rife among the Greeks of the Classical period, including some of the most famous wars and battles of the whole ancient period, such as the defeat of the Persians at Marathon, the Spartans' heroic last stand at Thermopylae, the gruelling...