This is the second volume in an ambitious series giving the reader a comprehensive narrative of late Roman military history from AD 284-641. Each volume (7 are planned) gives a detailed account of the changes in organization, equipment, strategy and tactics among both the Roman forces and her enemies in the relevant period, while also giving a detailed but accessible account of the campaigns and battles. This volume covers the tumultuous period from the death of Constantius II in AD 361 to the death of Theodosius. Among the many campaigns covered, it therefore includes the Emperor Julian’s fatal campaign against the Sassanian Persians and the disastrous defeat and death of Valens at Adrianople in 378. Such calamities illustrate the level of external threat Rome’s armies faced on many fronts in this difficult period.

This is a narrative military history of the emperors Lucius Domitius Aurelianus (‘Aurelian’, reigned 270-275) and Marcus Aurelius Probus (276-282) which also includes the other reigns between the years 268 and 285. It shows how these two remarkable emperors were chiefly responsible for the Empire surviving and emerging largely intact from a period of intense crisis. It was Aurelian who first united the breakaway regions, including Zenobia’s Palmyra, and it was Probus who then secured his achievements. The reigns of Aurelian and Probus have been subjected to many studies, but none of these have approached the extant material purely from the point of view of military analysis. Most importantly, the previous historians have not exploited the analytical opportunities provided by the military treatises that describe the strategy and tactics of the period Roman army. It is thanks to this new methodology that Ilkka Syvänne has been able to reconstruct the military campaigns of these two soldier emperors and their other contemporaries in far greater detail than has been possible before.

This ambitious series gives the reader a comprehensive narrative of late Roman military history from 284-641. Each volume (5 are planned) gives a detailed account of the changes in organization, equipment, strategy and tactics among both the Roman forces and her enemies in the relevant period, while also giving a detailed but accessible account of the campaigns and battles. Volume I covers the period 284-361, starting with recovery from the 'third-century crisis' and the formation of the Tetrarchy. Constantine's civil wars and stabilization.are also major themes, with the pattern repeated under his sons. Constantius II's wars against the usurper Magnentius, the Danubian tribes and the Sassanid Persians illustrate the serious combination of internal and external threats the Empire faced at this time. The author discusses these and the many other dramatic military events in their full context and puts forward some interesting conclusions on strategic and tactical developments. He argues, for example, that the Roman shift from infantry to cavalry as the dominant arm occurred considerably earlier than usually accepted. Anyone with an interest in the military history of this period will find it both informative and thought-provoking.

This Guide to the Study and Use of Military History is designed to foster an appreciation of the value of military history and explain its uses and the resources available for its study. It is not a work to be read and lightly tossed aside, but one the career soldier should read again or use as a reference at those times during his career when necessity or leisure turns him to the contemplation of the military past.

Provides information on over 70,000 events from prehistory to the present.

The history of Rome is essentially the history of one nation imitating another, namely Greece. The Romans invented only one genre, the satire. Roman writers borrowed their subject matter from the Greeks in all but one respect, history. Several of these Roman authors were slaves or came from slave families. It was the Greek-speaking early-freed slaves that taught the Romans to give their literature subjectivity.