ROMAN INFANTRY HELMETS
Until the last quarter of the 20th century, the modern impression of Roman helmets was dominated, as with so much about the Roman Army, by the reliefs on the helical frieze on Trajan’s Column in the centre of Rome.
Osprey Blog
Displaying 1-10 of 12
Displaying 1-10 of 12
Campaign 416: Cynoscephalae 197 BC
I’ve been drawn to the battle of Cynoscephalae from an early age. I remember my mother buying me John Warry’s Warfare in the Classical World at a book fair. It kickstarted in me a life-long fascination for and interest in the battles of antiquity.
Extract from The Athenian Army 507–322 BC
Liability for military service, and ephebic service, seems to have been practically universal. Lysias informs us (On the Refusal of a Pension 24.13) that in Athens an invalid was entitled to draw a pension of one obol a day.
Campaign 400: The Second Punic War in Iberia 219–206 BC
I am one of those people who has always been fascinated by Hannibal. Back in the day, when I was very young, the shopping center across from our home in Hamburg, Germany had an old game in one of the retail stores. It wasn’t so much a game in the traditional sense but more a of question and answer one, a test your knowledge kind of a thing. The question that has remained with me to this day was: How many elephants did Hannibal have when he crossed the Alps?
A Timeline of Thermopylae
The Second Battle of Thermopylae, fought in 480 BC between the Achaemenid Persian army of Xerxes and the Greek coalition led by the Spartan king Leonidas, is legendary. Much less well known, however, are the 26 other combat actions fought in and around the pass, which date from before 480 BC all the way up to World War II.
Struck by lightning! Marcus Aurelius’ miracle of the rain, AD 174
One of the most remarkable scenes on Marcus Aurelius’ Column depicts a god of rain slaking the thirst of the Romans and granting them victory. Elsewhere on the column, we have scenes of enemies struck by lightning. In the very sparse surviving literary records of Marcus’ wars, however, the rain and lightning are combined into one moment.
Belisarius’ bucellarius
Our best (and sometimes only) source for Belisarius’ campaigns is the historian Procopius of Caesarea in his magisterial work The History of the Wars (the Vandal Wars are in books 3 and 4).
Belisarius’ ‘Biscuit-men’- the bucellarii
Of the many changes in Roman military organisation between the fourth and sixth centuries AD, one of the most impactful for the wars of Belisarius was increased use of the bucellarii (or boukellarioi in Greek) – privately raised forces (usually cavalry) who operated as bodyguards for commanders.
THE KALEIDOSCOPIC IMAGES OF ALEXANDER
Nic Field shows us how the story of Alexander the Great has been portrayed across different sources and cultures.
Putting the Great into 100 Greatest Battles
Fantastic artwork or not, we still had to justify every battle’s inclusion in the “100 greatest” list. This meant the battle had to tick the right boxes
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