With his book GLADIUS, Guy de la Bedoyere takes us straight to the heart of what it meant to be a part of the Roman army. Rather than a history of the army itself, or a guide to military organisation and fighting methods, this book is a ground-level re-creation of what it was like to be a soldier in the army that made the Empire. The Roman army was the greatest fighting machine in the ancient world. More than that, it was the single largest organisation in Western antiquity, taking in members from all classes, from senators to freed slaves. The Roman Empire depended on its army not just to win its wars, defend its frontiers, and control the seas, but to act as the very engine of the state.
Gladius is a Latin word properly referring to the type of sword that was used by ancient Roman foot-soldiers. The Romans refined and improved the Gladius in their quest for the optimum weapon suited to close-quarter combat. Thematically organised the book takes a deep look at the life of the Roman soldier, focusing on the long era of Republican conquests around the Carthaginian Wars and the Christianisation of the Empire under Constantine.
The book is drawn from historical documents, archaeological evidence and tomb inscriptions to depict a military world that was central to Roman society. Legionnaires were core parts of the empire’s administration, manning posts from lonely borders to dense hubs and doing everything that needed doing, not just in battle.
GLADIUS is a popular work, not by an academic but a successful TV presenter which makes good writing. Its a great concept, with a great delivery. The beauty of this book is that it doesn’t get bogged down in glorifying the Romans and their accomplishments, but rather gets into everything involved, such
as pay, wives, travel, stress, politics, unit troubles, equipment, all described with detail beautifully.
The author Guy de la Bedoyere draws not only on the works of famed Roman historians, but also those of the soldiers themselves, as recorded in their religious dedications, tombstones, and even private letters and graffiti. GLADIUS reveals the everyday life of these soldiers and their families, whether staying in bleak frontier garrisons in Britain or North Africa, tasked with guarding the Emperor in Rome, or fighting on foreign battlefields. He drills into the tiny details with forensic skill: mutinying over pay, marching in triumph, throwing their weight around on the streets, or enjoying esteem in honourable retirement.
This book gives us a portrait of Roman society that is unprecedented in both its broad sweep and gritty intimacy.
The author’s portrait,warts and all, is richly researched, detailed and delightful to read, painting a precise picture of life in the Roman army– how the men were armed, billeted, what they drank, wore, how they were promoted or punished… and how they built their great, straight roads. Also telling, is what they did for sexual relief. No aspect of life in the Roman Legions has been omitted.
Brutality was stock-in-trade in both Romans and their enemies. Fighting in ancient wars wasn’t for the faint- hearted. The Emperor Probus was said to have paid a gold aureus for the head of every decapitated barbarian brought in. It was part of Roman virtus, which meant honourable courage, manliness and heroism all dressed-up in a semi-religious veneration of violence. There is no question that extreme brutality was engraved on Roman society’s psyche and warfare. The world of the Romans was a place where life was cheap.
There are innumerable books about this subject but in GLADIUS, the author, specifically in regards to his research on the life and service of the Roman soldier, touches on matters that cover massive historical span in the empire’s history. Hugely impressive.
