This book draws upon the latest research to explain and illustrate the
Roman and allied troops of the consular armies led by Julius Caesar in
his Gallic and civil wars.
Caius Julius Caesar remains the most famous Roman general of all time.
Although he never bore the title, historians since Suetonius have judged
him to be, in practice, the very first 'emperor' - after all, no other
name in history has been synonymous with a title of imperial rule.
Caesar was a towering personality who, for better or worse, changed the
history of Rome forever. His unscrupulous ambition was matched only by
his genius as a commander and his conquest of Gaul brought Rome its
first great territorial expansion outside the Mediterranean world. His
charismatic leadership bounded his soldiers to him not only for
expeditions 'beyond the edge of the world' - to Britain - but in the
subsequent civil war that raised him to ultimate power. What is seldom
appreciated, however is that the army he led was as varied and
cosmopolitan as those of later centuries, and it is only recently that a
wider study of a whole range of evidence has allowed a more precise
picture of it to emerge. Drawing on a wide-range of new research, the
authors examine the armies of Julius Caesar in detail, creating a
detailed picture of how they lived and fought.