B005GG0JPO EBOK

by Strauss, Barry

  On the battle of Cannae, start with Robert O’Connell, The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic (New York: Random House, 2010), or Adrian Goldsworthy, Cannae: Hannibal’s Greatest Victory (London: Cassell Military, 2001); see also Mark Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War (London & New York: Routledge, 2002); Martin Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 47 (1990): 7–29. On the aftermath of the battle, see J. F. Shean, “Hannibal’s Mules: The Logistical Limitations of Hannibal’s Army and the Battle of Cannae, 216 B.C.,” Historia 45.2 (1996): 159–87.

  The two most important ancient sources are available in English translation in paperback: Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert, selected with an introduction by F. W. Walbank (Harmondsworth, New York: Penguin, 1979), and Livy, The war with Hannibal; books XXI–XXX of The History of Rome from its foundation, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, edited with an introduction by Betty Radice (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965). Plutarch’s Lives of Fabius Maximus and Marcellus, two important Roman commanders of the Second Punic War, can be found in Plutarch, Makers of Rome, translated with an Introduction by Ian Scott-Kilvert (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965). Appian’s uneven account is available in Horace White, translator, Appian’s Roman History, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930). For Cornelius Nepos’s short biographies of Hamilcar and Hannibal, see Epitome of Roman History / Lucius Annaeus Florus [with an English translation by Edward Seymour Forster]. Cornelius Nepos [with an English translation by John C. Rolfe], (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929). For a translation of the fragments (that is, surviving passages) of Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Books 26 and 29, on Hannibal, see http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/26*.html, and http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/29*.html, and Book 25, on Hamilcar Barca, see http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/25*.html.

  David Anthony Durham, Pride of Carthage: a Novel of Hannibal (New York: Anchor, 2006), is a stirring and readable account of the Second Punic War. Ross Leckie, Hannibal (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1996), vivid and powerful, is a novel written in the form of a memoir. Gustave Flaubert’s classic historical novel Salammbo is set in Carthage shortly after the First Punic War, during the mercenary revolt or Truceless War (ca.240 B.C.). For a historical account, see Dexter Hoyos, Truceless War: Carthage’s Fight for Survival (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2007).

  CAESAR

  There are many good books about Caesar. For the man in a nutshell, it would be hard to beat J.P.V.D. Balsdon’s excellent little volume Julius Caesar (New York: Atheneum, 1967). An outstanding recent biography is Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). Philip Freeman, Julius Caesar (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), is astute and concise. A classic of good judgment and good scholarship is Matthias Gelzer, Caesar: Politician and Statesman, transl. by Peter Needham (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969). Christian Meier, Caesar, transl. by David McLintock (New York: Basic Books/Harper Collins, 1995) is a great book, scholarly and gripping, but sometimes idiosyncratic. On Caesar as communicator, see Zvi Yavetz, Julius Caesar and His Public Image (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983). On Caesar’s appeal to the poor and noncitizens, see Luciano Canfora, Julius Caesar: The Life and Times of the People’s Dictator, transl. by Marian Hill and Kevin Windle (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007).

  For an introduction to the turbulent era of the late Roman republic, see Tom Holland, Rubicon (New York: Doubleday, 2003), or Mary Beard and Michael Crawford, Rome in the Late Republic (London: Duckworth, 2009). For a detailed account, see Erich Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, second edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

  On Caesar as military commander, see J.F.C. Fuller, Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier and Tyrant (New Brunswick, NJ: Da Capo, 1965); Kimberly Kagan, The Eye of Command (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006).

  On Caesar as a writer and historical source, see F. E. Adcock, Caesar as Man of Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956); the essays in Kathryn Welch and Anton Powell, eds., Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments (London, Duckworth, Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 1998); J. E. Lendon, “The Rhetoric of Combat: Greek Military Theory and Roman Culture in Julius Caesar’s Battle Descriptions,” Classical Antiquity 18 (1999): 273–329; L. F. Raditsa, “Julius Caesar and His Writings,” in H. Temporini, ed., Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt; Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung, Joseph Vogt zu seinem 75. Geburtstag gewidmet, I: Von den Anfängen Roms bis zum Ausgang der Republik, vol. I.3 (Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 1973): 417–56.

  On Pompey, see Peter Greenhalgh, Pompey, the Republican Prince (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1982), and Robin Seager, Pompey the Great, A Political Biography, second edition (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002); Patricia Southern, Pompey (Stroud: Tempus, 2002). See also Kurt von Fritz, “Pompey’s Policy Before and After the Outbreak of the Civil War of 49 B.C.,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 74 (1942): 145–80; John Leach, Pompey the Great (London: Croom Helm, 1978).

  On the battle of Pharsalus, see W. Gwatkin, “Some Reflections on the Battle of Pharsalus,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 87 (1956): 109–24; C. B. R. Pelling, “Pharsalus,” Historia 22 (1973): 249–59; Matthew Leigh, Lucan: Spectacle and Engagement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 77–157; J. D. Morgan, “Palaepharsalus—the Battle and the Town,” American Journal of Archaeology 87 (1983): 23–54; Graham Wylie, “The Road to Pharsalus,” Latomus 51 (1992): 557–65.

  On the Roman way of war, see the old but still good F. E. Adcock, The Roman Art of War under the Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940). For a more recent overview see either Adrian Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare (New York: Smithsonian Books/Collins, 2005), or Jonathan P. Roth, Roman Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). For a more detailed introduction, see Adrian Goldsworthy, The Complete Roman Army (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003); C. M. Gilliver, The Roman Art of War (Charleston, SC: Tempus, 1999), offers thoughtful analysis. See also Kate Gilliver, Adrian Goldsworthy, and Michael Whitby, Rome at War (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2005), and the relevant essays in Paul Erdkamp, ed., A Companion to the Roman Army (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007). L. J. F. Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic to Empire (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), offers a detailed analysis of the evolution of the Roman army in the Republic, and John Peddie, The Roman War Machine (Conshohocken, Penn.: Combined Publishing, 1996), is good on generalship. On logistics, see Paul Erdkamp, Hunger and the Sword: Warfare and Food Supply in Roman Republican Wars (264–30 B.C.), (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1998), and Jonathan P. Roth, The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 B.C.–A.D. 235), (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1999).

  A valuable selection of the sources, with commentary and bibliography, can be found in Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland, eds., Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar (London and New York: Routledge, 2005). Julius Caesar, The Civil War, with the anonymous Alexandrian, African, and Spanish Wars, translated with an Introduction and Notes by J. M. Carter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Appian, The Civil Wars, translated with an Introduction by J. M. Carter (London; New York: Penguin Books, 1996). For Dio Cassius’s history of Rome, Books 41–44, consult the Loeb Classical Library edition, Dio Cassius, Roman History, volume 4: Books 41–44 trans. Earnest [sic] Cary and Herbert Baldwin Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916); the English translation is available online at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html. Plutarch’s lives of Pompey and Caesar can be found in Plutarch, Fall of the Roman Republic, revised edition, translated with Introduction and Notes by Rex Warner, revised with translations of comparisons
and a Preface by Robin Seager, with series Preface by Christopher Pelling (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2005); Plutarch’s lives of Brutus and Mark Antony can be found in Plutarch, Makers of Rome, translated with an Introduction by Ian Scott-Kilvert (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965); Suetonius’s life of Caesar is available in Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, The Twelve Caesars, transl. by Robert Graves, revised with an introduction by Michael Grant (London, New York: Penguin, 2003).

  On Cleopatra, see Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life (New York: Little, Brown 2010); Duane Roller, Cleopatra: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Diana E. E. Kleiner, Cleopatra and Rome (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005).

  Studies of specific subjects include: J.V.P.D. Balsdon, “The Ides of March,” Historia 7 (1958): 80–94; Elmore, J., “Caesar on the Causes of Mutiny,” Classical Journal 20 (1925): 430–32; Peter Green, “Caesar and Alexander: Aemulatio, Imitatio, Comparatio,” American Journal of Ancient History (1979) 3: 1–26.

  Colleen McCullough, Caesar: A Novel (New York: William Morrow, 1997), is popular and faithful to the historical sources; Steven Saylor, The Judgment of Caesar: A Novel of Ancient Rome (New York: St. Martin’s Minotaur Books, 2004) and Steven Saylor, The Triumph of Caesar: A Novel of Ancient Rome (New York: St. Martin’s Minotaur Books, 2008) are engaging detective stories. Conn Iggulden’s Emperor: The Gods of War (New York: Delacorte Press, 2006) paints a picture of the civil war in broad strokes. Thornton Wilder’s The Ides of March (New York: Harper Perennial, 2003, originally published 1948) is a subtle delight.

  ANCIENT WARFARE

  There is no textbook, but for something close to it, see John Gibson Warry, Warfare in the Classical World: an illustrated encyclopedia of weapons, warriors and warfare in the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), and Simon Anglim et al., Fighting techniques of the ancient world 3,000 BC–500 AD: equipment, combat skills, and tactics (New York: Thomas Dunne Books: St. Martin’s Press, 2002). Harry Sidebottom offers a thematic approach in Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). Peter Connolly, Greece and Rome at War. (London: Greenhill Books, 2006), offers superb illustrations and sound history.

  On strategy in ancient warfare, see the essays in Victor Davis Hanson, ed., Makers of Ancient Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). On psychology in ancient battles, see J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).

  Giovanni Brizzi offers an overview of ancient warfare, with an especially good analysis of Hannibal’s tactics, in Il guerriero, l’oplita, il legionario. Gli eserciti nel mondo classico (Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2002), in Italian.

  Philip Sabin, Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2008), combines war-gaming and scholarship to reconstruct the ancient battlefield.

  On cavalry, see Philip Sidnell, Warhorse: Cavalry in Ancient Warfare. (London, Hambledon Continuum, 2006).

  GREAT COMMANDERS

  One begins with Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Great captains: a course of six lectures showing the influence on the art of war of the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, and Napoleon (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1892, copyright 1889). Dodge also published detailed, individual volumes on each of these six commanders.

  Richard A. Gabriel offers astute analysis and a series of case studies, including Hannibal and Scipio Africanus in Great Captains of Antiquity, forewords by Mordechai Gihon and David Jablonsky (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001).

  Insightful studies of later commanders who might be called “great captains,” from the medieval period to the twentieth century, include Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart, Great Captains Unveiled (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1967); Martin Blumemson and James L. Stokesbury, Masters of the Art of Command (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975); Martin van Creveld, Command in War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987); Eliot Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: Free Press, 2002); John Keegan, The Mask of Command (New York: Penguin Books, 1988).

  For an introduction to modern social science and its scholarship on leadership, see Bernard M. Bass with Ruth Bass, The Bass Handbook of Leadership, fourth edition (New York: Free Press, 2008), and various entries in George R. Goethals, Georgia J. Sorenson, James MacGregor Burns, ed., Encylopedia of Leadership (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2004).

  On elephants in ancient warfare, see H. H. Scullard, The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974).

  On strategic intuition, see William R. Duggan, Coup d’oeil: strategic intuition in Army planning (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U. S. Army War College, 2005) and Idem, Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement (New York: Columbia Business School Pub., 2007).

  I found a great deal of wisdom in two recent books on great leaders by political philosophers: Robert Faulkner, The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), and Walter Randy Newell, The Soul of a Leader: Character, Conviction, and Ten Lessons in Political Greatness (New York: Harper Collins, 2009). I also benefitted greatly from Winston S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973, originally published 1937).

  NOTES

  1: TEN QUALITIES OF SUCCESSFUL COMMANDERS

  wearing a mail breastplate: the details of Hannibal’s armor are based on a likely reconstruction.

  bright and fiery look: Livy, History of Rome 21.4

  Book of Daniel: 8:1–8, 15–22, 11:2–4.

  “tribe of the eagle”: Abraham Lincoln, “Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838” in Speeches and Writings 1832–1858. Library of America: New York, 1989, 34.

  “I didn’t follow the cause. I followed the man—and he was my friend”: paraphrase of Gaius Matius in his letter to Cicero of 44 B.C.: “neque enim Caesarem in dissensione civili sum secutus sed amicum,” Cicero, Letters to Friends 11.28.2.

  The sight of Hannibal in his army cloak: Livy, History of Rome 21.4.

  “Because he loved honor, he loved danger”: Plutarch, Caesar 17.2.

  Only the need for sleep and sex: Plutarch, Life of Alexander 22.6.

  “And young man,” he said: Plutarch, Life of Caesar 35.11.

  he killed a million people: Plutarch, Life of Caesar 15.5.

  Or so the Romans claimed: Livy, History of Rome 31.20.6.

  “spear-won” land: Diodorus Siculus 17.17.2.

  No man has ever outdone Alexander’s feat: Genghis Khan conquered a much larger empire but he took twenty years to do so and lived to be sixty-five.

  2: ATTACK

  “the splendor of the great prize”: Polybius, Histories 3.6.12, Loeb translation, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html.

  “He was by his very nature truly a marvelous man”: Polybius, Histories 9.22.6.

  “young, full of martial ardor”: Polybius, Histories 3.15.6, Loeb translation, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html.

  first man in Rome: Plutarch, Life of Caesar 11.3–4.

  “The Republic is not the question at issue”: Cicero, Letters to Atticus 10.7.1.

  “reputation and rank”: Caesar, Civil War 1.7.

  “the rank of the republic”: Caesar, Civil War 1.9.

  “a benefit granted to me [Caesar]”: Caesar, Civil War 1.9.

  “He [Caesar] says he is doing everything”: Cicero, Letters to Atticus 7.11.1.

  “The enemy would have won”: Plutarch, Life of Caesar 39.8.

  “had been trained in actual warfare constantly”: Polybius, Histories 3.89.5–6, Loeb translation, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html.

  “honor and empire”: Livy, History of Rome 22.58.3.

  �
��wholly under the influence”: Polybius, Histories 3.15.9.

  “It is not the big armies”: Martin Blumenson and James Stokesbury, Masters of the Art of Command (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1990), p. 146.

  “famous for his good judgment as a general”: Diodorus Siculus 17.18.2.

  “advocated a policy”: Diodorus Siculus 17.18.2.

  shoving: Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 1.15.2.

  “horses fighting entangled with horses”: Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 1.15.4.

  “For his men had not only suffered terribly”: Polybius, Histories 3.60.3, Loeb translation, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html.

  “more essential to a general than the knowledge of his opponent’s principles”: Polybius, Histories 3.81.1, Loeb translation, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html.

  the weak spots: Polybius, Histories 3.81.3.

  “he had come above all”: Polybius, Histories 3.77.3–7, trans. Penguin.

  “He thought surprise”: Plutarch, Life of Caesar 32.2.

  “used to depend on the surprise”: Appian, Civil Wars 2.34 [136], trans. Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Rome from the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar (New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 643.

  “This he did”: Caesar, Civil War 1.23.

  “Let this be”: (Caesar in [Cicero] Letters to Atticus 9.7c (ca. 5 March 49).

  “insidious clemency”: Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 8.16.