In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire

459 Pages·2004·4.64 MB·English

by  Adrian Goldsworthy

IN THE NAME OF ROME
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NON-FICTION
The Roman Army at War, 100 BC–AD 200
Roman Warfare
The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265–146 BC
Cannae: Hannibal’s Greatest Victory
The Complete Roman Army
Caesar: The Life of a Colossus
The Fall of the West: The Death of the Roman Superpower
Antony and Cleopatra
Augustus: First Emperor of Rome
FICTION
True Soldier Gentlemen
Beat the Drums Slowly
Send Me Safely Back Again
All in Scarlet Uniform
Run Them Ashore
IN THE NAME OF ROME
THE MEN WHO WON THE ROMAN EMPIRE
ADRIAN GOLDSWORTHY
With a New Preface
First Yale University Press edition 2016.
First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Paperback edition first published in 2004 by Phoenix, an imprint of Orion Books Ltd.
Preface to the Yale University Press Edition copyright © 2016 by Adrian Goldsworthy.
Copyright © Adrian Goldsworthy, 2003.
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any
form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by
reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
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Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015950570
ISBN 978-0-300-21852-7 (paperback: alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of
Captain William Walker RFA (retired)
‘Uncle Bill’
A good friend and a true leader
1933–2002
CONTENTS
List of maps and diagrams
Preface to the Yale University Press Edition
Preface
Introduction
1 ‘The Shield and Sword of Rome’: Fabius and Marcellus
2 A Roman Hannibal: Scipio Africanus
3 The Conqueror of Macedonia: Aemilius Paullus
4 ‘Small Wars’: Scipio Aemilianus and the fall of Numantia
5 ‘A person devoted to war’: Caius Marius
6 General in exile: Sertorius and the Civil War
7 A Roman Alexander: Pompey the Great
8 Caesar in Gaul
9 Caesar against Pompey
10 An Imperial ‘Prince’: Germanicus beyond the Rhine
11 Imperial Legate: Corbulo and Armenia
12 A Young Caesar: Titus and the Siege of Jerusalem, AD 70
13 The last great conqueror: Trajan and the Dacian Wars
14 A Caesar on campaign: Julian in Gaul, AD 356–60
15 One of the last: Belisarius and the Persians
16 Later years: The legacy of Roman generals
Chronology
Glossary
Notes
Index
LIST OF MAPS AND DIAGRAMS
1 Diagram of manipular army
2 The Mediterranean World
3 New Carthage
4 The Battle of Ilipa
5 The Battle of Pydna
6 Pompey’s campaigns in the east
7 Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul
8 The seige of Alesia
9 The tribes of Germany
10 Diagram of an imperial (cohort) legion
11 Corbulo’s campaigns in the east
12 The seige of Jerusalem
13 The Empire under Trajan
14 Julian’s area of command from AD 355
15 The Battle of Dara
PREFACE TO THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
EDITION
IT IS NOW MORE THAN A DOZEN YEARS SINCE I WROTE IN THE NAME OF ROME, although
at that stage it was provisionally entitled Imperator. It is more than twenty years
since I listened to lectures given by our Colonel in the OTC at Oxford
University. (I am pleased to say that he had no objection to being described as ‘a
properly fed Monty,’ but then I would never have written the words if I had
thought that they might cause offence.) Since then, apart from some shorter
works and articles, I have written four long works on aspects of Roman history
and will finish the fifth at the end of this year. The chapters on Julius Caesar and
Pompey in this book led to much fuller treatments in Caesar: Life of a Colossus
(2006), while Julian and Belisarius featured in How Rome Fell: Death of a
Superpower (2009). I have little doubt that I will return to several of the subjects
in this book, whether to look at the generals themselves, their eras or particular
parts of the empire.
Each time you look at a topic you tend to see things you have not noticed
before. Occasionally this is because new evidence has appeared, sometimes it
comes from a fresh thesis presented by a scholar, usually on a much broader
issue, and even more often something just jumps out from the sources in a way it
had not done before. I have never yet read any sizeable chunk of Caesar’s
Bellum Gallicum without seeing something new. Your focus at the time, recent
reading in other accounts and the gradual development and modification of ideas
all contribute to looking at the same text in a slightly different way. This is
rarely a question of the overall interpretation and far more about detail and
revealing more of the context to an action, so helping to explain it.
A common question I am asked is which of my books is my favourite. The
choice is getting wider, and Augustus: First Emperor of Rome (2014) was my
tenth work of nonfiction, but the answer is always ‘the next one.’ It is a great joy
to move on to a new aspect of ancient history and be able to immerse myself in
it for three years or so, researching and then writing. My hope is that each new
book is better than its predecessors, both as history and in its readability.