Mark Gillings, Piraye Hacıgüzeller and Gary Lock, eds. Archaeological Spatial Analysis: A Methodological Guide (London & New York: Routledge, 2020, 512pp., 64 colour & 188 b/w illustr., hbk, ISBN 978-0-815-37323-0)

Abstract

transmitted in the sources, as the above cited archaeological studies demonstrate. I cannot disagree with Rosenstein’s last sentences, a great call to all the scholars involved in the study of the Roman army: ‘War is too important a subject to be left to popularizers, whose knowledge too often is a generation or two out of date and whose ideas about how the Romans waged war do a disservice to the realities involved.’ And ‘to ignore the popular audience for Roman military history—or any other field of history for that matter—does a disservice both to the public and to our profession.’ A magnificent colophon to a book which will help any type of Roman historian and archaeologist to better understand the intertwined formation of the Republic and the Roman institutions. However, hopefully these statements will be taken seriously by young scholars, not only by those who, like Rosenstein, enjoy a privileged vision of the Roman army studies after many years of devoted research.