Gladius

This “encyclopedic [volume] collects pretty much every fact known about what it was like to be in the military arm of the Roman Empire" ( The New York Times Book Review ). The Roman army was the greatest fighting machine in the ancient world. It was also the single largest organization in Western antiquity, taking in members from all classes, from senators to freed slaves. The Roman Empire depended on its army not just to win wars, defend its frontiers, and control the seas, but to act as the ve