Ancient Military

Central Europe is not just a space on a map but also a region of shared experience - of mutual borrowings, impositions and misapprehensions. From the Roman Empire onwards, it has been the target of invasion from the east. In the Middle Ages, Central Europeans cast their eastern foes as 'the dogmen'. They would later become the Turks, Swedes, Russians and Soviets, all of whom pulled the region apart and remade it according to their own vision.

Egypt is under attack. Pharaoh Tamose lies mortally wounded. The ancient city of Luxor is surrounded. All seems lost. Taita prepares for the enemy's final fatal push. The ex-slave, now general of Tamose's armies, is never more ingenious than when all hope is dashed. And this is Egypt's most desperate hour. With the timely arrival of an old ally, the tide is turned, and the Egyptian army feasts upon its retreating foe. But upon his victorious return to Luxor, Taita is seized and branded a traitor. Tamose is dead, and a poisonous new era has begun. The new Pharaoh has risen.

Greek and Roman warfare was unlike that of any other culture before or since. The key difference is often held to be that the Greeks and Romans practiced a "Western Way of War", in which the aim is an open, decisive battle - won by courage instilled, in part, by discipline. Here, Harry Sidebottom looks at how this Western Way of War was constructed and maintained by the Greeks and Romans and why this concept is so prevalent today.

Two works by the Roman historian, Tacitus. Agricola is a portrait of Julius Agricola, a governor of Roman Britain, and the first surviving account of the geography, climate, and peoples of Britain. The German tribes of Northern Europe are discussed in Germania.

The fall of Rome 390 BC and Rome sends envoys to the city of Clusium as they are beseiged by 30,000 Gallic invaders. As the Gauls fall to the trickery of the Romans they declare war on the city and smash the Roman army at the battle of the river Allia, Rome's greatest ever defeat. The gates of Rome stand open as the Senate barricade themselves onto the Capitol Hill and the Gauls take the city. Marcus is called upon by the Senate to build an army to defeat the Barbarians and return Rome to its own people as the invaders burn and loot the once great city. Marcus must, first, retake the city, ...

In the city of Lahun, Hui lives an enchanted life. The favoured son of a doting father, and ruler-in-waiting of the great city, his fate is set. But behind the beautiful façades a sinister evil is plotting. Craving power and embittered by jealousy, Hui's stepmother, the great sorceress Isetnofret, and Hui's own brother Qen, orchestrate the downfall of Hui's father, condemning Hui and seizing power in the city.

At the bloody battle of Cannae, he trounced a Roman army twice the size of his own. With his brothers, he subdued nearly all of Italy, Spain and Northern Africa. A cunning tactician, he secured victory for Bithynia at sea by catapulting poisonous snakes onto the decks of his enemy’s ships. Biographer Ernle Bradford draws on the historical writings of Livy, Polybius, Plutarch and others in re-creating the fantastic story of the greatest general since Alexander the Great.

The epic saga: "The Punic Wars: Rome and Carthage in Conflict," is an enthralling historical account by Dan Wilson that captures the fierce struggle between two of the ancient world's most powerful civilizations. This meticulously researched book takes you on a journey through the tumultuous clashes between Rome and Carthage, shedding light on the events that shaped the course of history in the Mediterranean. Overview The Punic Wars were a series of three protracted and brutal conflicts between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian Empire, spanning from 264 BCE to 146 BCE. These wars were...

The action-filled movie 300 focused on Ancient Greece's epic battle of Thermopylae, in which King Leonidas led 300 Spartans into battle against Xerxes and his million-strong Persian forces. In the sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire, the action moves to the sea, covering 10 years starting with the Battle of Marathon and ending with naval engagement the Battle of Artemisium, which occurred the same day as Thermopylae. Rise of an Empire tells the story of the real men and events depicted in the movie.

Ferocious raids, heroic battles, larger-than-life leaders, and courageous explorers that changed the course of human history. From battle-ax-wielding tribes plundering the greatest cities of Europe to powerful kings and queens ruling their dominions with iron fists, the Vikings were some of the most feared and fearless figures in European history. Find the bravest heroes, the most menacing villains, and unbelievably awesome facts and myths inside this action-packed overview.

Any meeting of genius may create sparks, but when military geniuses meet, their confrontations play out upon a vast panorama of states or civilizations at war, wielding the full destructive power of a mighty nation’s armies. Gods of War is the first single-volume, in-depth examination of the most celebrated military rivalries of all time, and of the rare, world-changing battles in which these great commanders in history matched themselves against true equals.

“Cambyses was a madman. Darius was a huckster. But Cyrus was a father to us.”-Persian proverb. In the ancient world kings ruled as despots, their subjects at the mercy of their every whim. But a mule, a half-breed child of two kingdoms, was destined to rule with tolerance and the restraint of law, earning him the name of Cyrus the Great. Warned by a prophetic dream, his grandfather sought to kill him on the day of his birth. But his destiny could not be thwarted. Author J. P. Hall vividly depicts the exciting and thought-provoking life of this historic figure, drawing from such sources ...

Pericles returns home more than a hero: he's the leader of Athens, the empire's beacon of light in the dark. But even during times of peace, the threat of Sparta - Athens's legendary rival - looms large on the horizon. When a sudden catastrophe brings Sparta to its knees, Pericles sees a golden opportunity to forever shift the balance of power in his city's favour. For sometimes, the only way to win lasting peace is to wage war.

The Civil War is Julius Caesar’s personal account of his war with Pompey the Great - the war that destroyed the five-hundred-year-old Roman Republic. Caesar the victor became Caesar the dictator. In three short books, Caesar describes how, in order to defend his honor and the freedom of both himself and the Roman people, he marched on Rome and defeated the forces of Pompey and the Senate in Italy, Spain, and Greece.

Captain James Hanson of the Solar Alliance Vessel Dauntless knows he has to help. But soon he finds the conspiracy goes deeper than he ever imagined. Hunted down by his own government, he scrapes together a ragtag team and goes hunting for the truth. He's hounded on every side - from the authorities, from alien warriors, from mysterious, faceless soldiers. From the criminal backwaters of the galaxy to idyllic colonies hiding dark pasts, he uncovers a threat to the entire galaxy.

The author of the best-selling Empire sequence continues his new epic of the uprising of the Batavi in AD 88. The Rhine frontier has exploded into all-out war. Summoned back to their homeland by their new leader, Kivilaz, the Batavi cohorts, so recently proud soldiers of Rome, find their lands transformed. All Roman influences have vanished after a battle in which two legions were humbled by the rebels, then chased away to lick their wounds in their fortress, the Old Camp.

We speak English today because the Anglo-Saxons took over most of post-Roman Britain. How did that happen? There is little evidence: not much archaeology, and even less written history. There is, however, a huge amount of speculation. King Arthur's Wars brings an entirely new approach to the subject - the answers are out there, in the British countryside, waiting to be found. Months of field work and map study allow us to understand, for the first time, how the Anglo-Saxons conquered England, county by county and decade by decade.

Julius Caesar was nothing if not bold. When, in the wake of his defeat of Pompey at Pharsalus his victorious legions refused to march another step under his command, he pursued his fleeing rival into Egypt with an impossibly small force of Gallic and German cavalry, raw Italian recruits, and nine hundred Spanish prisoners of war - tough veterans of Pompey's Sixth Legion. Cleopatra's Kidnappers tells the epic saga of Caesar's adventures in Egypt through the eyes of these captured, but never defeated, legionaries.

Darkness falls. Evil returns. Belgada lies on the precipice of ruin. Even with the rebels under Zagros defeated and the Fifteenth Legion surviving their trials, further demons simmer from deep within the empire. A terrifying old danger arises from high in the Cyna Mountains, thrusting Air Captain Martius and Empress Talia into another struggle. War explodes as the gryphon riders flee north to the loyalist army. Martius and Avorian worry about their friends and allies and fret at what further schemes the rebel Paulus has waiting for them. The penultimate novel of the War Gryphon Saga is here...

The Crusades shook the world. But why did they happen? Their origins are revealed in a new light. As part of a medieval world war that stretched from Asia to Europe. At its center was an ancient empire Byzantium. Told for the first time as a single, linked narrative are three great events that changed history: The fall of Byzantium in the 11th century, the epic campaign of the First Crusade and the origins of modern Turkey. Nick Holmes not only presents the First Crusade in a wider global context but he also puts forwards new interpretations of the original sources.