Author: Yazdan Safaee

Heckel, Waldemar, Sabine Müller & Graham Wrightson (eds.). 2015. The Many Faces of War in the Ancient World. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

This volume on different aspects of warfare and its political implications in the ancient world brings together the works of both established and younger scholars working on a historical period that stretches from the archaic period of Greece to the late Roman Empire. With its focus on cultural and social history, it presents an overview of several current issues concerning the “new” military history.

The book contains papers that can be conveniently divided into three parts. Part I is composed of three papers primarily concerned with archaic and classical Greece, though the third covers a wide range and relates the experience of the ancient Greeks to that of soldiers in the modern world – one might even argue that the comparison works in reverse. Part II comprises five papers on warfare in the age of Alexander the Great and on its reception early in the Hellenistic period. These demonstrate that the study of Alexander as a military figure is hardly a well-worn theme, but rather in its relative infancy, whether the approach is the tried and true (and wrongly disparaged) method of Quellenforschung or that of “experiencing war,” something that has recently come into fashion. Part III offers three papers on war in the time of Imperial Rome, particularly on the fringes of the Empire.

Covering a wide chronological span, Greek, Macedonian and Roman cultures and various topics, this volume shows the importance and actuality of research on the history of war and the diversity of the approaches to this task, as well as the different angles from which it can be analysed.

Table of Contents

Introduction 

Military Integration in Late Archaic Arkadia:
New Evidence from a Bronze Pinax (ca. 500 BC) of the Lykaion Johannes Heinrichs

Early Greek Citizen-Soldiers: Connections between the Citizens’ Social, Economic, Military, and Political Status in Archaic Polis States
Kurt A. Raaflaub

Laughter in Battle
Lawrence Tritle

Poseidippos of Pella and the Memory of Alexander’s Campaigns at the Ptolemaic Court
Sabine Müller

Introducing Ptolemy: Alexander and the Persian Gates
Timothy Howe

The Epigonoi – the Iranian phalanx of Alexander the Great
Marek Jan Olbrycht

“Shock and Awe” à la Alexander the Great
Edward M. Anson

Alexander the Great and the Fate of the Enemy: Quantifying, Qualifying, and Categorizing Atrocities
Waldemar Heckel and J. L. McLeod

Jovian and the Exodus from Nisibis: criticism and gratitude
John Vanderspoel

Soldiers and Their Families on the Late Roman Frontier in Central Jordan Alexander’s Campaign against the Autonomous Thracians
Conor Whately

A New Military Inscription from Numidia, Moesiaci Milites at Lambaesis , and Some Observations on the Phrase Desideratus in Acie
Riccardo Bertolazzi

About the Editors:

Waldemar Heckel is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.

Sabine Müller is Professor of Ancient History at Marburg University.

Graham Wrightson is Assistant Professor of History at South Dakota State University. His research focuses primarily on Macedonian military history.