The Roman army is recognised as one of the most effective fighting machines that the world has ever seen. However, the senior officer corps of the Roman army was essentially amateur, made up of aristocratic men pursuing political careers. What then was the secret of the Romans' success?Kate Gilliver provides the first comprehensive study of military theory - as well as practice - in the late Republic and early Empire. She draws not just on the ancient textbooks, but makes use of the other contemporary literary evidence and on the wealth of archaeological evidence for military activity.In five central chapters Dr Gilliver looks in detail at all aspects of the Roman army; at its organisation, the order of march, temporary encampments, pitched battles and siege warfare. These chapters reveal the army's very flexible organisation and skills, as well as it discipline.The book also contains a fine range of illustrations, an Appendix of all the key Roman military treatises and a full Glossary of key technical terms. The complete work will command a wide international readership, particularly among military historians, archaeologists and wargamers.

The Roman army enjoys an enviable reputation as an instrument of waging war, but as the modern world reminds us, an enduring victory requires far more than simply winning battles. When it came to suppressing counterinsurgencies, or deterring the depredations of bandits, the army frequently deployed small groups of infantry and cavalry based in fortlets. This remarkable installation type has never previously been studied in detail, and shows a new side to the Roman army. Rather than displaying the aggressive uniformity for which the Roman military is famous, individual fortlets were usually bespoke installations tailored to local needs. Examining fortlet use in north-west Europe helps explain the differing designs of the Empire's most famous artificial frontier systems: Hadrian's Wall, the Antonine Wall, and the Upper German and Raetian limites. The archaeological evidence is fully integrated with documentary sources, which disclose the gritty reality of life in a Roman fortlet.

Drawing on both published and archived archaeological evidence, this copiously illustrated book revolutionises our understanding of early Roman London.

Nineteen papers from the Fifth Roman Military Equipment Conference which was held at the IPP in Amsterdam. The papers include: 4 on iconographic evidence (Trajan's column, swords, soldier's dress, harnessing horses); 4 on equipment from burials; 3 on helmets; experiments on slings and plumbatae; 2 on horse chamfrons; and others.

Excavations at Mucking, Essex, between 1965 and 1978, revealed extensive evidence for a multiphase rural Romano-British settlement, perhaps an estate center, and five associated cemetery areas (170 burials) with different burial areas reserved for different groups within the settlement. The settlement demonstrated clear continuity from the preceding Iron Age occupation with unbroken sequences of artefacts and enclosures through the first century AD, followed by rapid and extensive remodeling, which included the laying out a Central Enclosure and an organized water supply with wells, accompanied by the start of large-scale pottery production. After the mid-second century AD the Central Enclosure was largely abandoned and settlement shifted its focus more to the Southern Enclosure system with a gradual decline though the 3rd and 4th centuries although continued burial, pottery and artefactual deposition indicate that a form of settlement continued, possibly with some low-level pottery production. Some of the latest Roman pottery was strongly associated with the earliest Anglo-Saxon style pottery suggesting the existence of a terminal Roman settlement phase that essentially involved an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ community. Given recent revisions of the chronology for the early Anglo-Saxon period, this casts an intriguing light on the transition, with radical implications for understandings of this period. Each of the cemetery areas was in use for a considerable length of time. Taken as a whole, Mucking was very much a componented place/complex; it was its respective parts that fostered its many cemeteries, whose diverse rites reflect the variability and roles of the settlement’s evidently varied inhabitants.

Uses artefact analyses to investigate complex spatial and community relationships inside the walls of early Roman imperial military bases.