Riding for Caesar: The Roman Emperors' Horse Guards - Couverture rigide

Speidel, M P

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0674768973 ISBN 13 : 9780674768970

Editeur : Harvard University Press, 1994

Synopsis

Caesar praised them in his Commentaries. Trajan had them carved on his Column. Hadrian wrote poems about them. Well might these rulers have immortalized the horse guard, whose fortunes so closely kept pace with their own. Riding for Caesar follows these horsemen from their rally to rescue Caesar at Noviodunum in 52 B.C. to their last stand alongside Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. Written by one of the world's leading authorities on the Roman army, this history reveals the remarkable part the horse guard played in the fate of the Roman empire. Whether called Batavi, Germani corporis custodes, or equites singulares Augusti, the horse guard figures in Roman history from Caesar to Constantine. Drawing on literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence, much of it only recently unearthed, Speidel traces the growth of the guard from a troop of 400 under Julius Caesar to a force of 2000 in the third century. He shows how one-man rule depended on the horse guard's presence, in peacetime and in war. The book offers a colorful picture of these horsemen in all their changing guises and duties - as the emperor's bodyguard or his parade troops, as a training school and officer's academy for the Roman army, or as a shock force in the endless wars of the second and third centuries. Speidel describes the riders' recruitment from German tribes and Danubian peoples and their honored position in Rome, where they retained their native spirit and fighting techniques and lived in their own forts. Chosen for courage, strength, good looks, and their ability to swim rivers in full battle gear, these horsemen reappear here in their full splendor, as recorded in written accounts and art monuments.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Caesar praised them in his Commentaries. Trajan had them carved on his Column. Hadrian wrote poems about them. Well might these rulers have immortalized the horse guard, whose fortunes so closely kept pace with their own. Riding for Caesar follows these horsemen from their rally to rescue Caesar at Noviodunum in 52 B.C. to their last stand alongside Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. It offers a colorful picture of these horsemen in all their changing guises and duties-as the emperor's bodyguard or his parade troops, as a training school and officer's academy for the Roman army, or as a shock force in the endless wars of the second and third centuries. Written by one of the world's leading authorities on the Roman army, this history reveals the remarkable part the horse guard played in the fate of the Roman empire.

Présentation de l'éditeur

Professor Speidel's book represents the first history of the Roman horse guard ever written and provides a readable account of the intricate part these men played in the fate of the Roman empire and its emperors.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Harvard University Press
• Date d'édition: 1994
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0674768973
• ISBN 13: 9780674768970
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 248
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible