Total War Rome

Carthage, 146 BC. This is the story of Fabius Petronius Secundus – Roman legionary and centurion – and of his general Scipio Aemilianus, and his rise to power: from his first battle against the Macedonians, that seals the fate of Alexander the Great’s successors, to total war in North Africa and the Siege of Carthage. Scipio’s success brings him admiration and respect, but also attracts greed and jealousy – for the closest allies can become the bitterest of enemies. And then there is the dark horse, Julia, of the Caesar family – in love with Scipio but betrothed to his rival Paullus – who causes a vicious feud. Ultimately for Scipio it will come down to one question: how much is he prepared to sacrifice for his vision of Rome? Inspired by Total War: Rome II, from the bestselling Total War series, Destroy Carthage is the first in an epic series of novels. Not only the tale of one man’s fate, it is also a journey to the core of Roman times, through a world of extraordinary military tactics and political intrigue that Rome’s warriors and citizens used to cheat death.

AD 439: The Roman Empire is on the brink of collapse. With terrifying speed a Vandal army has swept through the Roman provinces of Spain and North Africa, conquering Carthage and threatening Roman control of the Mediterranean. But a far greater threat lies to the east, a barbarian force born in the harsh steppelands of central Asia, warriors of unparalleled savagery who will sweep all before them in their thirst for conquest - the army of Attila the Hun. For a small group of Roman soldiers and a mysterious British monk, the only defense is to rise above the corruption and weakness of the Roman emperors and hark back to the glory days of the army centuries before, to find strength in history. Led by Flavius, a young tribune, and his trusty centurion Macrobius, they fight a last-ditch battle against the Vandals in North Africa before falling back to Rome, where they regroup and prepare for the onslaught to come. Flavius learns that the British monk who had fled with them from Carthage is more than he seems, and he is drawn into a shady world of intelligence and intrigue under the aegis of Flavius' uncle Aetius, commander-in-chief of the Roman armies in the west, the man who alone has the power to rally Rome and her allies and save the western empire from annihilation. Aetius is desperate to buy time until his army is strong enough to confront the Huns on the field of battle, and meanwhile will do anything to undermine their strength. Together they devise a plan of astonishing audacity that will take Flavius and Macrobius across the frontier and far up the river Danube to the heart of darkness itself, to the stronghold of the most feared warrior-emperor the world has ever known – and into alliance with the emperor's daughter, a warrior-princess who has sworn vengeance against her father for the death of her mother. In the showdown to come, in the greatest battle the Romans have ever fought, victory will go to those who can hold high the most potent symbol of war ever wrought by man - the sacred sword of Attila.

" Great empires are not maintained by timidity" - Tacitus - Valuable unit and structure statistics for all factions - Battlefield tips and strategies - Imperial Campaign tips and strategies - Fully-labeled Campaign Map - Winning tips and strategies for Historical Battles

From the author's introduction: Ancient battles seize the modern imagination. Far from being forgotten, they have become a significant aspect of popular culture, prompting a continuing stream of books, feature films, television programs and board and computer games... there is a certain escapist satisfaction in looking back to an era when conflicts between entire states turned on clear-cut pitched battles between formed armies, lasting just a few hours and spanning just a few miles of ground. These battles were still unspeakably traumatic and grisly affairs for those involved - at Cannae, Hannibal's men butchered around two and a half times as many Romans (out of a much smaller overall population) as there were British soldiers killed on the notorious first day of the Somme. However, as with the great clashes of the Napoleonic era, time has dulled our preoccupation with such awful human consequences, and we tend to focus instead on the inspired generalship of commanders like Alexander and Caesar and on the intriguing tactical interactions of units such as massed pikemen and war elephants within the very different military context of pre-gunpowder warfare. Lost Battles takes a new and innovative approach to the battles of antiquity. Using his experience with conflict simulation, Philip Sabin draws together ancient evidence and modern scholarship to construct a generic, grand tactical model of the battles as a whole. This model unites a mathematical framework, to capture the movement and combat of the opposing armies, with human decisions to shape the tactics of the antagonists. Sabin then develops detailed scenarios for 36 individual battles such as Marathon and Cannae, and uses the comparative structure offered by the generic model to help cast light on which particular interpretations of the ancient sources on issues such as army size fit in best with the general patterns observed elsewhere. Readers can use the model to experiment for themselves by re-fighting engagements of their choice, tweaking the scenarios to accord with their own judgment of the evidence, trying out different tactics from those used historically, and seeing how the battle then plays out. Lost Battles thus offers a unique dynamic insight into ancient warfare, combining academic rigor with the interest and accessibility of simulation gaming. This book includes access to a downloadable computer simulation where the reader can view the author's simulations as well create their own.

What is total war? Definitions abound, but one thing is certain—the concept of total war has come to be seen as a defining concept of the modern age. In The Age of Total War, celebrated historian Jeremy Black explores the rise and demise of an era of total war, which he defines in terms of the intensity of the struggle, the range (geographical and/or chronological) of conflict, the nature of the goals, and the extent to which civil society was involved. He contends that this era (roughly 1860–1945) was markedly different from the warfare that characterized earlier periods, and that it is very different from the situation that has evolved since, with its emphasis on asymmetrical conflict and limited warfare. Acknowledging that various definitions are problematic and often contradictory, Black argues that 1860 to 1945 was an era in which the prospect of war and the consequences of it were crucially important for human history. He focuses primarily on conflict between Western powers, including Japanese participation in the Russo-Japanese War. Trends and developments subsequent to 1945 have combined, Black asserts, to make a return to total war unlikely.

Why didn't the ancient Greeks or Romans wear pants? How did they shave? How likely were they to drink fine wine, use birth control, or survive surgery? In a series of short and humorous essays, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants explores some of the questions about the Greeks and Romans that ancient historian Garrett Ryan has answered in the classroom and online. Unlike most books on the classical world, the focus is not on famous figures or events, but on the fascinating details of daily life. Learn the answers to: How tall were the ancient Greeks and Romans? How long did they live? What kind of pets did they have? How dangerous were their cities? Did they believe their myths? Did they believe in ghosts, monsters, and/or aliens? Did they jog or lift weights? How did they capture animals for the Colosseum? Were there secret police, spies, or assassins? What happened to the city of Rome after the Empire collapsed? Can any families trace their ancestry back to the Greeks or Romans?

The British had a song for it: "Oh, we are the D-Day Dodgers," based on a comment from a female member of Parliament that dismissed all those not on the beaches at Normandy as draft evaders. Indeed, after the invasion of France the Allied armies in Italy found themselves in a forgotten theater of war. Until now, their eleven-month saga of bitter combat and gallant sacrifice has been ignored.The problem for the Allies was that the fall of the Italian capital on June 4, 1944- although a spectacular public relations triumph- did not end the campaign. The Germans had simply conducted a short strategic withdrawal, conceding one objective while proceeding to fortify additional defense lines.From Salerno to Rome, and most famously at Cassino, the Germans took advantage of the mountains, ridges and rivers that crisscross Italy to exact every drop of blood from the Allied forces. Although the press was no longer paying attention, in the north of Rome the process of continued Allied offensives met by a German resistance that alternated between ferocity and flexibility.A notable feature of the combat in Italy was the large mixture of Allied nationalities involved. Although the American Fifth and the British Eighth Armies were the major forces, on different parts of the line fought South Africans, Canadians, Greeks, Nisei, Jews, Poles, French, Gurkhas, Indians and others. The first U.S. black division fought here, as well as the Brazilian contingent (a curiosity to the Germans, who constantly probed their front).The War North of Rome features a forward by Senator Bob Dole, who fought in this neglected theater of war. He was one of 364 wounded (98 killed) in his regiment's attack on a series of German-held hills. Though he barely survived the battle he states, "I always felt I was fortunate . . ."By the time Allied forces vanquished the enemy in Italy, Russian soldiers were already dancing on Hitler's grave. Nevertheless, our young men north of Rome fought as bravely, and suffered as much, as troops on any front in WWII. Their record of courage and sacrifice is described here in a long-overdue, comprehensive account.

Historians have long asserted that during and after the Hannibalic War, the Roman Republic's need to conscript men for long-term military service helped bring about the demise of Italy's small farms and that the misery of impoverished citizens then became fuel for the social and political conflagrations of the late republic. Nathan Rosenstein challenges this claim, showing how Rome reconciled the needs of war and agriculture throughout the middle republic. The key, Rosenstein argues, lies in recognizing the critical role of family formation. By analyzing models of families' needs for agricultural labor over their life cycles, he shows that families often had a surplus of manpower to meet the demands of military conscription. Did, then, Roman imperialism play any role in the social crisis of the later second century B.C.? Rosenstein argues that Roman warfare had critical demographic consequences that have gone unrecognized by previous historians: heavy military mortality paradoxically helped sustain a dramatic increase in the birthrate, ultimately leading to overpopulation and landlessness.

Historisk roman. The story of Fabius Petronius Secundus - Roman legionary and centurion - and his rise to power, from his first battle against the Macedonians, that seals the fate of Alexander the Great's Empire, to total war in North Africa and the Seige of Carthage. Fabius's success brings him admiration and respect, but also attracts greed and jealousy - the closest allies can become the bitterest of enemies. And then there is Julia, of the Caesar family - a dark horse in love with both Fabius and his rival Paullus - who causes a vicious feud

This book combines the rich, but problematic, literary tradition for early Rome with the ever-growing archaeological record to present a new interpretation of early Roman warfare and how it related to the city's various social, political, religious, and economic institutions. Largely casting aside the anachronistic assumptions of late republican writers like Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, it instead examines the general modes of behaviour evidenced in both the literature and the archaeology for the period and attempts to reconstruct, based on these characteristics, the basic form of Roman society and then to 're-map' that on to the extant tradition. It will be important for scholars and students studying many aspects of Roman history and warfare, but particularly the history of the regal and republican periods.