Rome's Greatest Defeat

Author: Adrian Murdoch
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752494554
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Book Description
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.

Rome's Greatest Defeat

Author: Adrian Murdoch
Publisher: History Press (SC)
ISBN: 9780750940160
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description
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.

Give Me Back My Legions!

Author: Harry Turtledove
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429967080
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Book Description
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.

Hannibal

Author: Richard A. Gabriel
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597976865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
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.

Four Days in September

Author: Jason R. Abdale
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473860873
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
The author of The Great Illyrian Revolt examines one of the Roman Empire's most pivotal defeats—a surprise attack by Germanic barbarians in 9 AD. For twenty years, the Roman Empire conquered its way through modern-day Germany, claiming all lands from the Rhine to the Elbe. However, when at last all appeared to be under control, a catastrophe erupted that claimed the lives of 10,000 legionnaires and laid Rome's imperial ambitions for Germania into the dust. In late September of 9 AD, three Roman legions, while marching to suppress a distant tribal rebellion, were attacked in a four-day battle with the Germanic barbarians. The Romans under the leadership of the province's governor, Publius Quinctilius Varus, were taken completely by surprise, betrayed by a member of their own ranks: the German officer and secret rebel leader, Arminius. The defeat was a heavy blow to both Rome's military and its pride. Though the disaster was ruthlessly avenged soon afterwards, later attempts at conquering the Germans were half-hearted at best. Four Days in September thoroughly examines the ancient sources and challenges the hypotheses of modern scholars to present a clear picture of the prelude to the battle, the fighting itself and its aftermath.

Gladius

Author: Guy De la Bédoyère
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 9780349143910
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
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.

Defeat of Rome in the East

Author: Gareth C. Sampson
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1844686345
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
“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

The Defeat of Rome

Author: Gareth C. Sampson
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
ISBN: 9781473828049
Category : Carrhae, Battle of, Turkey, 53 B.C.
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"First published in Great Britain in 2008 and reprinted ... in 2015"--Title page verso.

Triumph in Defeat

Author: Jessica Homan Clark
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199336547
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
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.

The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest

Author: Peter S. Wells
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039335203X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
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.