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Warlords of Republican Rome
Book by Fields, Nic
238 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2008
7 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Nic Fields
87 books21 followersDr Nic Fields started his career as a biochemist before joining the Royal Marines. Having left the Navy, he went back to University and completed a BA and PhD in Ancient History at the University of Newcastle. He was Assistant Director at the British School of Archaeology, Athens, and is now a lecturer in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 9, 2018
This book starts out discussing changes to the Roman army that led to the civil war of Caesar vs. Pompey. This history is a tad academic and is recommended to those who already have a base in Roman history. There are a lot of political terms. The author does a good job of showing how politics influenced the military, and vice versa.
October 23, 2013
This was a book that should have been much better than it was. I always feel odd writing a somewhat negative review as I hope myself to be a published author (both fiction and history) and have a feeling that if I'm too negative karma will really come down hard on me in later years.
To be fair, however, this book does suffer from a slight case of false advertising. Rather than being a book about the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar, the 2nd Roman Civil War and possibly one of the most wars in Western history, it was an overview of an entire century and more of Roman history. This had a few negative impacts in and of itself.
First: Pompey is a rarely studied figure. As far as I know there is no detailed military study of the man still in print in English. I am highly surprised that Pen and Sword books (the publisher if my copy of this book) has not rectified this. Sadly his fascinating career is glossed over in this book.
Second: This glossing over is because of the fact that Mr. Fields gives bare bones overviews of the careers of Marius, Sulla, Mithridates, Pompey, Sertorius, and Spartacus as well as Caesar. Rather hard to find the room for detail when you cover so much even if you do it fairly well, which to be fair Mr. Fields does.
Thirdly: The back jacket advertised the book as a detailed military chronicle of the events of the 2nd Roman Civil War, but nowhere in the book was any event detailed in any fashion other than a cursory summary.
Finally: Not a single battle or campaign map. This is a common complaint and not, I assume, the fault of Mr. Fields but rather the publisher.
It was not a bad book, but certainly not a great one especially if you already have a fair amount of knowledge of the subject and was looking for a bit of meat on the topic. If you want a book that will truly delve into the topic, this one is not it. However, as a brief introduction to nearly a century of Roman political and military history, then this is in fact a good book. Better for beginners I think than someone who already loves the period.
To be fair, however, this book does suffer from a slight case of false advertising. Rather than being a book about the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar, the 2nd Roman Civil War and possibly one of the most wars in Western history, it was an overview of an entire century and more of Roman history. This had a few negative impacts in and of itself.
First: Pompey is a rarely studied figure. As far as I know there is no detailed military study of the man still in print in English. I am highly surprised that Pen and Sword books (the publisher if my copy of this book) has not rectified this. Sadly his fascinating career is glossed over in this book.
Second: This glossing over is because of the fact that Mr. Fields gives bare bones overviews of the careers of Marius, Sulla, Mithridates, Pompey, Sertorius, and Spartacus as well as Caesar. Rather hard to find the room for detail when you cover so much even if you do it fairly well, which to be fair Mr. Fields does.
Thirdly: The back jacket advertised the book as a detailed military chronicle of the events of the 2nd Roman Civil War, but nowhere in the book was any event detailed in any fashion other than a cursory summary.
Finally: Not a single battle or campaign map. This is a common complaint and not, I assume, the fault of Mr. Fields but rather the publisher.
It was not a bad book, but certainly not a great one especially if you already have a fair amount of knowledge of the subject and was looking for a bit of meat on the topic. If you want a book that will truly delve into the topic, this one is not it. However, as a brief introduction to nearly a century of Roman political and military history, then this is in fact a good book. Better for beginners I think than someone who already loves the period.
started-someday-finish
February 15, 2015I have read about the 2/5 of this book and really enjoyed it. For the first chapter I was completely lost (being not very knowledgeable about Roman history), but it improved from there as Fields added explanation boxes frequently. However, it is taking me so long to read that I decided to let the rest keep until some time in the future.
March 15, 2014
There's nothing really new here and there are better books on the subject. Adrian Goldsworthy's "Caesar: Life of a Colossus" is without a doubt the best book written about Caesar, and of course, his relationship with Pompey.
October 23, 2010
This picks up where I left off after Cicero. Looks interesting but a small book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews