What soldiers of the Empire?

I have been reading Roman Legionaries. Soldiers of Empire by Simon Elliott. Purely out of curiosity (and the reduced price tag for a 5-year-old book). Actually, my reading quickly became perusing (and then flicking through).

“Much has been written about the Roman legionary”, the author informs us at the start, before continuing: “this book builds on that canon of work but also brings my own new primary research about the Roman military to the fore”. Intriguing. The prospect of an original, fundamental book about the Roman army, not derivative but based on “new primary research” sounded exciting. Initially. Then reality dawned.

There are certainly some surprising novelties here. The word princeps, we are told, “ meaning chief or master” (it actually means “first”, and thereby comes to mean the most distinguished person, from which we derive our word “prince”), “was assumed by each emperor on their accession” (actually, since it wasn’t an official title, it couldn’t be assumed as one. And wasn’t).

Early on, the author employs the rather ugly term “Nervo-Trajanic dynasty” to describe Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian (a Google Books search reveals that the term is found most frequently in books by this author!) and perpetuates the myth that “the lengthy reign of Antoninus Pius was one of relative peace” (although he clearly isn’t sure, as he adds the get-out clause “though much campaigning still took place”).

Disappointingly, most of his examples are drawn from Roman Britain (there’s even a table of “Known governors of Roman Britain” and a chart of “Key events in the Roman occupation of Britain” — surely simply padding in a book ostensibly about Roman legionaries). Speaking of padding, the author even includes a table of assorted auxiliary units (so, not legionaries. In a book entitled Roman Legionaries). Vague platitudes abound, including the revelation that “legionaries bolstered the regular urban gendarmerie” and “played a key role in agricultural and industrial enterprises in the Roman Empire”. But in a book where no references are given for anything, the author has free rein to ramble about all sorts of things.

I was taken aback to find a non-wargaming book illustrated with photos of wargaming miniatures. Lots of them. But as for the author’s primary research, I confess that I could find no trace. The picture of the Roman army drawn here is pretty standard stuff. The same old theories-fossilized-into-facts appear on page after page.

And I was amused to see that, in the table of legions, legio IX Hispana is listed as “possibly destroyed in the reign of Hadrian during the Bar Kochba rebellion in Judea” — this from the writer who has claimed elsewhere that “regarding the fate of legio IX Hispana (...) the least likely hypothesis to my mind is that the legion was lost in the east (while) the most likely hypothesis regarding the loss of legio IX Hispana is with it being lost in some dramatic event in the north of Britain”.

In conclusion, the author (in self-congratulatory mode) claims that “in this extensive review of the Roman legionary we have seen this elite warrior up close and personal”. I respectfully beg to differ.