Recommendations from our site
“It’s an odyssey about a warrior from Gaul, which had been recently conquered by Rome. And every time I reread it – and I do that every few years – I get swept up in it, this perspective of a former enemy of Ancient Rome, who decides to join the army of Julius Caesar. He leaves his village in the Pyrenees, and goes on Roman campaigns across Germany, France, Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. Then they travel to the edges of the Steppes, to what is now southern Russia. Finally his Roman army is defeated in Parthia, now modern Iran, and our hero survives and decides to join the victorious Parthian army. He finds himself patrolling the borders of Afghanistan.” Read more...
The best books on Enemies of Ancient Rome
Adrienne Mayor, Classicist
Winter Quarters by Alfred Duggan, set at the time of Julius Caesar, follows the story of two Gauls who enlist in the Roman army, and comes extremely highly recommended by Stanford University ancient historian Adrienne Mayor. “This book is a wonderful way to get a sense of the vast sweep of this rising Roman power—the lives and incredible adventures and exotic fights—in one individual soldier’s lifetime,” she says. “It came out in 1956, and it’s my favourite.”
