There was nothing that a Roman general relished more than the chance to raise an earthwork. ‘Dig for victory’ was an injunction that legionaries often followed with a literal cussedness. Advancing into enemy territory, they carried shovels as well as spears. The camp that a legion would build after every day’s march, always identical to the one that it had built the evening before, was the expression of something almost obsessive in the Romans’ military psychology.
The blend of caution and remorselessness that this addiction to entrenchment reflected was, in strategic terms, stupendously successful. Who better, then, than a specialist on the Roman army to absorb its implications? Whereas prominent historians of Greek warfare tend to think nothing of extrapolating, in best Platonic style, universalist theories of battle from the shape of a helmet or shield, historians of Roman warfare are generally less enthusiastic about venturing onto potentially treacherous ground. So it is, for intance, that the prolific works of Adrian Golds- worthy, indisputably our leading authority on the Roman way of war, bristle with facts, all of them expertly marshalled and deployed — and yet very rarely seem to take a risk.
Now, with his new book, a biography of Julius Caesar, Goldsworthy has at last emerged from behind his palisade. Not entirely, of course — for Caesar was, among many other things, the most successful commander in Roman history, and much of Goldsworthy’s book is perforce concerned with his campaigns. The analysis of Caesar’s generalship is predictably excellent, and the account of the Gallic wars, in particular, has rarely been bettered. Even in Gaul, however, Caesar was never simply a soldier: no matter how dank the forests, no matter how remote the frontier, he always had one eye fixed back on Rome.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in