Warfare in the Roman World

Situates warfare in its broader political, social and economic context in the Roman world, and is distinctive in integrating consideration of developments during Late Antiquity alongside those during earlier periods of Roman history. Important for all students, instructors and scholars of ancient and military history.

Warfare was a recurrent phenomenon of fundamental importance throughout Roman history. Its scale and form varied across time and place, but it had wide-ranging impacts on politics, society and economy. This book focuses on important themes in the interplay between warfare and these broader contexts, including attitudes to war and peace, the values associated with military service, the role of material resources, military mutiny and civil war, and social and cultural aspects of the military. It also examines experiences of warfare, focusing on approaches to Roman battle and the impact of war on civilians. Importantly and distinctively, these different themes are traced across a millennium of Roman history from the Republic through to the end of Late Antiquity in the early seventh century, with a view to highlighting important continuities and changes across Roman history, and alerting readers to valuable but often less familiar material from the empire''s final centuries.