The Complete Roman Legions

Recently published: Nigel Pollard & Joanne Berry The Complete Roman Legions, Thames and Hudson (clearly Goldsworthy's Complete Roman Army was not as Complete as all that, after all).

Well worth a read. Handsomely produced, well illustrated and clearly laid out. There is nothing much to surprise anyone who has read Goldsworthy (or Webster or Keppie), and one or two maps and illustrations may be familiar from the former, but for those interested in the legions especially (that would be me, then) it makes for a satisfying read. The geographical approach - legions of the Rhine, legions of Spain etc - occasionally falls foul of the Empire's tendency to move legions around but on the whole works very well - better certainly than a simple numerical list. The Late Roman Army is treated only briefly (reflecting the weight of evidence), but the summary list of the disposition of the late 'legions' is very useful nonetheless.

I wonder (I have wondered elsewhere) about the placing of a legionary fortress at Thebes (but that's for a later post), but I find little else to raise issue with on a quick read through. Nothing contentious in the description of the Twentieth legion and some evidence (not just in the bibliography) of reference to my own work (so it was worth all that effort after all...). The sidebar on the Titles of XX Valeria Victrix picks up on a suggestion of mine which probably deserves fleshing out (but that needs another post too). The record of a vexillation of II Traiana undertaking construction at Farasan Kebir, an island in the Red Sea, is not something I'd come across before, but the volume isn't quite up to date enough to make note of the discoveries at Kalefeld.