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    Relative to the infantry, the cavalry wing of the Roman army has attracted little critical attention. In Training the Roman Cavalry (1993), Ann Hyland applied her own experience as a horse trainer to Arrian`s Ars Tactica which dates to Hadrian`s time. In Riding for Caesar (1994), Michael P. Speidel provided the first comprehensive work on the emperors` horse guards (equites singulares Augusti). More recently, Karen R. Dixon and Pat Southern collaborated on The Roman Cavalry (1997), a general study of the horses and the men who rode them in peacetime and war. The available literature has a notably imperial bias. Welcome indeed is Jeremiah B. McCall`s The Cavalry of the Roman Republic (2001) which provides what is probably the first single-volume study of cavalry combat and elite reputations in the middle and late Republican period...

     

    ...read the full review of The Cavalry of the Roman Republic by Jeremiah B. McCall

     

     

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    When I received the book I opened it with mixed feelings. While not bad, the two previous books from Pen & Sword that I reviewed for UNRV (Great Battles of the Hellenistic World by Joseph Pietrykowski and Hellenistic and Roman Naval Warfare 336BC - 31BC by J. D. Grainger) were not what I expected. Thus opening The Field Campaigns of Alexander the Great I was full of doubts but soon began to be re-assured:the book, third in a series which I have not previously read, is the publication of a thesis by Stephen English which was written under the direction of a reputed scholar, thus guaranteeing a certain degree of quality to the work...
     
    ...read the full review of The Field Campaigns of Alexander the Great by Stephen English
     
     
     
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    Antony Kamm, a former lecturer in publishing studies at the University of Stirling, and author of books such as Julius Caesar: A Life and The Israelites: An Introduction, tried with The Romans: An Introduction something almost impossible: condense 1,200 years of Roman history into just over 200 pages. This is the second edition (it was first published in 1995) and contains additional and revised material, new glossary of Latin terms and a timeline...
     
    ...read the full review of The Romans: An Introduction by Antony Kamm
     
     
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    It has been over six years since King Arthur first premiered in the theaters. Given its generally negative reviews I was in no hurry to see it. But I recently found a rather cheap copy of the "Director's Cut" DVD on Amazon and decided to give it a try. Yeah, it sucked just about as much as I thought it would. It is neither especially historical nor entertaining, and comes across as little more than a vehicle for the lead actor and actress to chew some scenery with their speech making...
     
    ...read the full review of King Arthur - The Director's Cut (2004) by Antoine Fuqua
     
     
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    In the modern world, time is not something we can easily escape. Most people carry wristwatches and clocks are everywhere, from the digital readout on a computer to the tower on the town hall. Yet as Robert Hannah reminds us, there was a time before men were slaves of the clock...
     
    ...read the full review of Time in Antiquity by Robert Hannah
     
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    The Silver Eagle, by Ben Kane, is the second novel in the Forgotten Legion trilogy. It picks up right where the previous novel left off and follows the fortunes of the main cast of characters introduced to us in the first instalment. The opening chapter takes us to Margiana, a desolate outpost on the eastern border of the Parthian Empire. The three friends Romulus, Tarquinius and Brennus are marched there with another ten thousand legionaries who survived a brutal defeat while fighting the Parthians under General Marcus Licinius Crassus at Carrhae...
     
    ...read the full review of The Silver Eagle by Ben Kane
     
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    On an unseasonably hot day during an English spring, Lindsay Powell visited the Roman fort and remodelled museum at Vindolanda and its astonishing collection of riches. The famous Wall Hadrian built to separate Romanitas from barbaricum in Britain boasts several of the best preserved military installations from the imperial period anywhere, set among some of England`s most beautiful landscapes. Standing near to one of the highest sections of the Wall at Walltown Crags is one of the region`s must-see destinations, Vindolanda...
     
    ...read the full review of Vindolanda - Living it up on the Northwestern Frontier
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    In this book Russell and Laycock set out to "expose the myths" about Roman Britain being a land full of togas, towns and baths with Britons happily going about their Roman lives and to a great extent this is what they have achieved. In doing this they bring together a wealth of recent works which have highlighted a much higher degree of continuity of pre-Roman practices than had previously been realised in Britain. In fact the discussions extend to other northern areas of the empire even after the Western empire collapsed...
     
    ...read the full review of UnRoman Britain by Miles Russell and Stuart Laycock
     
     
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    Agora is a good movie, but perhaps not for the reasons it wants to be. As a historical piece, it is mixed at best. As a political statement it works well, though with all the subtlety of a blow to the head. As a visual experience, it is glorious. Directed by a Spaniard but with a broader European production crew, it does contain an intelligence and emotional resonance all too often lacking in American made films...
     
    ...read the full review of Agora (2010) by Alejandro Amenabar
     
     
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    UNRV is a community of dedicated Roman and Ancient History enthusiasts. Our interests are as varied as the personalities we display in the forums. And while many of us consider ourselves to be amateur experts to one extent or another, only a handful can actually claim by profession or education to be ACTUAL experts. One who might consider himself both is author, and frequent UNRV contributor, Russell Whitfield whose "Roma Victrix" is a sequel to his wonderful debut novel, "Gladiatrix", published by Myrmidon books...
     
    ...read the full review of Roma Victrix by Russell Whitfield
     
     
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