Sent to Wales to capture the gold mines, Paulinus faces the fury of Queen Boudicca's tribes, all united against Nero's corrupt officials. It's a tale packed with fascinating detail of life in Roman Britain and in the Legions in particular.

    Called to Captain Ironside’s cabin, they learn their fate. Three are made sublieutenant, the fourth is pushed out of the Navy, a failure.There was no tolerance in the Royal Navy for weaklings and incompetents who failed to master the basics. They were beaten for every infraction of the rules of seamanship, encouraging them to conform or to get out.Adams, born to the elite, is made sublieutenant and posted to Iron Duke, flagship of the Grand Fleet, and the latest and largest of superdreadnoughts.McDuff goes to Good Hope cruiser bound for the South Atlantic. An old ship, and he had hoped for better, but there were chances to specialise on an armoured cruiser.Sturton, able and slightly maverick, hoped to be sent to another battleship where he could become a gunnery specialist, but instead goes to Sheldrake, a destroyer joining the Mediterranean Fleet. Destroyers were wet, cold, and uncomfortable, but it could be the making of his career.Baker, the failure, had never fit in. He came from the wrong background and was ostracised aboard ship, left on his own to survive the best he could. Rejected by the Navy, he is forced to join the Territorial Army or be disowned by his rich, vulgar father. Nineteen years of age and dumped on the scrapheap.War comes in August and the four young men meet its challenges in surprising ways.

    After two years of college he couldn't afford to continue so he was forced to relinquish his student deferment and enter the draft. He tried various strategies to get a non-combat job; nevertheless he ended up in the infantry and was assigned to Vietnam. The stories in this book depict the year Doug spent in Alpha Company where he spent days on patrols finding and killing North Vietnamese soldiers along the hundreds of miles of trails heading for the Saigon. These stories range from funny to tragic, from uplifting to extremely frustrating and from touching to horrifying. This book gives the reader a sense of life in the infantry in 1968 and 1969.

    In 73 B.C., in the heart of Rome’s Mediterranean empire, a slave named Spartacus ignited one of the most violent episodes of slave resistance in the history of the Roman Empire — indeed in the world annals of slavery. Organizing 80 original Greek and Latin source translations into topical chapters on the daily life of slaves trained as gladiators and those who labored on farms in Italy and Sicily, Shaw includes accounts of revolts that preceded and anticipated that of Spartacus. In a carefully crafted introductory essay, Shaw places Spartacus in the broader context of first and second century B.C. Roman Italy and Sicily and explains why his story continues to be a popular symbol of rebellion today. The volume also includes a glossary, chronology, selected bibliography, 3 maps, an annotated list of ancient writers, and questions for consideration.

    It was a time of assassinations and civil war, of armies so out of control that they had no qualms about occupying the city of Rome, and of ambitious men who ruthlessly seized power only to have it wrenched from their grasps. In 69 AD, Gwyn Morgan offers a fresh look at this period, based on two considerations to which insufficient attention has been paid in the past. First, that we need to unravel rather than cherry-pick between the conflicting accounts of Tacitus, Plutarch and Suetonius, our three main sources of information. And second, that the role of the armies, as distinct from that of their commanders, has too often been exaggerated. The result is a remarkably accurate and insightful narrative history, filled with colorful portraits of the leading participants and new insights into the nature of the Roman military. A strikingly vivid account of ancient Rome, 69 AD is an original and compelling account of one of the best known but perhaps least understood periods in all Roman history. It will engage and enlighten all readers with a love for the tumultuous soap opera that was Roman political life.

    He has vowed to uphold a simple life of peace. Then the Roman Legions find him.A war that should not be sweeps Varro from his idyllic farm and carries him across the Aegean Sea to a land under siege. His vow of peace is stretched to its limits as he is plunged into blood and battle. The ceaseless march of the Republican Roman Army spares none.Yet a greater threat stalks Varro, more dangerous and more personal than any enemy soldier. Can he survive in an army where he faces swords to his front and daggers at his back?

    The story concludes with the stark contrast between high-minded Stoicism and the collapse of values witnessed by Tacitus and Juvenal.

    The transformation of state and society, the violent transference of power and property, and the establishment of Augustus' rule are presented in an unconventional narrative, which quotes from ancient evidence, refers seldomly to modern authorities, and states controversial opinions quite openly. The result is a book which is both fresh and compelling.

    Based on a true story, Lone Survivor recreates the tale of unforgiving terrain, of savage winter storms and dwindling food supplies, and of a desperate journey into the wilderness, where brave men died and few dared to tread.

    The Atomic Outhouse, Hot Extractions, Listening Out, and Best Vacation Ever, will have you enthralled. These stories and sixty more like them pull no punches to give you a genuine understanding of a war that was more bizarre than you ever imagined.

    In this accessible narrative of Caligula's life, Winterling uses his deep knowledge of Roman society and the imperial court to investigate why contemporaries chose to assassinate Caligula's reputation as well as his person. Caligula emerges here as rather less insane, if no less loathsome, than his posthumous reputation made him out to be."-Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, author of Rome's Cultural RevolutionBook originally published in German as Caligula : eine Biographie

    Though much debated, its position as the basic textbook on women's history in Greece and Rome has hardly been challenged."--Mary Beard, Times Literary Supplement. Illustrations.

    This Penguin Classics edition is translated with an introduction by Betty Radice.A prominent lawyer and administrator, Pliny was also a prolific letter-writer, who numbered among his correspondents such eminent figures as Tacitus, Suetonius and the Emperor Trajan, as well as a wide circle of friends and family. His lively and very personal letters address an astonishing range of topics, from a deeply moving account of his uncle's death in the eruption that engulfed Pompeii, to observations on the early Christians - 'a desperate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths' - from descriptions of everyday life in Rome, with its scandals and court cases, to Pliny's life in the country.Betty Radice's definitive edition was the forst complete modern translation of Pliny's letters. In her introduction she examines the shrewd, tolerant and occasionally pompous man who emerges from these letters.Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (c. 61-113), better known as Pliny the Younger, and nephew of Pliny the Elder, was born in Como, Italy. Beginning his career at the bar when he was eighteen, Pliny managed to emerge unscathed from Domitian's 'reign of terror', even being appointed an official at the treasury. In 103 he was awarded a priesthood in recognition of his distinguished public service, and was prominent in several major prosecutions. His nine books of personal letters were selected by Pliny himself and published during his lifetime, while his official correspondence with Trajan was published as a tenth book after his death and contains a celebrated exchange of letters on the early Christians.If you enjoyed The Letters of the Younger Pliny, you might like Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome, also available in Penguin Classics.

    This authoritative and compelling work tells the story of the rise of Rome from its origins as a cluster of villages to the foundation of the Roman Empire by Augustus, to its consolidation in the first two centuries CE. It also discusses aspects of the later Empire and its influence on Western civilization, not least of which was the adoption of Christianity. Packed with fascinating detail and written by acknowledged experts in Roman history, the book expertly interweaves chapters on social and political history, the Emperors, art and architecture, and the works of leading Roman poets, historians, and philosophers. Reinforcing the book's historical framework are maps, diagrams, a useful chronology, and a full bibliography. Taken as a whole, this rich work offers an indispensable resource on the history of one of the world's greatest empires.

    But when Valeria, a senator's daughter, is sent to the Wall for an arranged marriage to an aristocratic officer in 367 AD, her journey unleashes jealousy, passion and epic war. Valeria's new husband, Marcus, has supplanted the brutally efficient veteran soldier Galba as commander of the famed Petriana cavalry. Yet Galba insists on escorting the bride–to–be on her journey to the Wall. Is he submitting to duty? Or plotting revenge? And what is the mysterious past of the handsome barbarian chieftain Arden Caratacus, who springs from ambush and who seems to know so much of hated Rome?As sharp as the edge of a spatha sword and as piercing as a Celtic arrow, Hadrian's Wall evokes a lost world of Roman ideals and barbaric romanticism.