John Grainger narrates the aftermath of Marc Antony's defeat, with
Octavian's forces swiftly moving in to take control of Egypt but
requiring several oft-forgotten campaigns before the country was fully
subjugated.
Egypt was the last of the Macedonian Successor states to be swallowed up
by Roman expansion. The Ptolemaic rulers had allied themselves to Rome
while their rivals went down fighting. However, Cleopatra's famous love
affair with Marc Antony ensured she was on the wrong side of the Roman
civil war between him and Octavian (later to become Caesar Augustus).
After the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the naval battle of Actium,
Octavian swiftly brought it under direct Roman control, though it took
several campaigns to fully subjugate the whole country. These campaigns
have previously been largely neglected. Judaea was a constant source of
trouble for the Romans, as it had been for the Seleucids, the previous
overlords of the region. The Romans at first were content to rule
through client kings like the infamous Herod but were increasingly
sucked in to direct military involvement to suppress
religiously-inspired revolts.
Like the other volumes in this series, this book gives a clear narrative
of the course of these campaigns, explaining how the Roman war machine
coped with formidable new foes and the challenges of unfamiliar terrain
and climate. Specially-commissioned color plates by the renowned Graham
Sumner bring the main troop types vividly to life in
meticulously-researched detail.
