Rome's Northern Frontier

[Pertinax]

Rome's Northern Frontier AD 70-235 Nic Fields illus by Donato Spedaliere (Osprey fortress series 2005)

 

Perhaps this is a slightly esoteric book dealing with such a seemingly remote , cold and misty place (within the Empire). This is a scholarly work put together with measured and balanced language, Nic Fields is discreet enough to value Tacitus but not to swallow his rhetoric whole. The actual text is acutely observant and gives some very good detail on local "opposition" and the make up of Auxiliary units. The anatomical features of The Antonine Wall and Gask Ridge are explored and reported with soild scholarship and excellent expository drawings, it also gives a useful introduction to how the Wall was used ie: not as a fighting structure/platform but rather as a delaying device to allow a build up of fluid Roman forces to counter a perceivd threat.Small scale raids and policing seem to be very much the reality of the time-indeed such raiding was the cultural norm for the Caledonii.

There are useful notes on whose units/vexillations were where. As members will know the Osprey series are more "technical pamphlet" than reading matter ,this is a very good piece of work indeed and I reccomend it to those wanting in depth notes on the "edge of civilisation"

 

Being among the Brigantes I will not now wear woad all the time -I might well wear a malachite green skin stain so I would be "Pretani" ( a painted one) survivng in the name "Pict" which Fields suggests might be a derogatory Roman adaptation of the indigenous word.