Mark Antony's Heroes: How the Third Gallica Legion Saved an Apostle and Created an Emperor

by Stephen Dando-Collins

Overview

This fourth book in Dando-Collins’s definitive history of Rome’s legions tells the story of Rome’s 3rd Gallica Legion, which put Vespasian on the throne and saved the life of the Christian apostle Paul. Named for their leader, Mark Antony, these common Roman soldiers, through their gallantry on the battlefield, reshaped the Roman Empire and aided the spread of Christianity throughout Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630261337
Publisher:	TURNER PUB CO
Publication date:	02/01/2008
Pages:	308
Sales rank:	838,496
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

STEPHEN DANDO-COLLINS is the author of Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome, Nero's Killing Machine: The True Story of Rome's Remarkable Fourteenth Legion, and Cleopatra's Kidnappers: How Caesar's Sixth Legion Gave Egypt to Rome and Rome to Caesar, all from Wiley. He is an Australian-born researcher, editor, and author who has spent the last three decades identifying and studying the individual legions of the Roman army of the late Republic and the empire of the Caesars.

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Table of Contents

Atlas     vii
Acknowledgments     xi
Author's Note     xiii
Get Up and Fight!     1
For Pompey, Caesar, and Antony     4
The Parthian Invasion     12
Routing the Parthians     25
Putting King Herod on His Throne     40
Mark Antony's Mistake     47
The Bloody Retreat     58
The Sun-Worshipping 3rd     71
Riot Duty in Jerusalem     76
Saving the Apostle Paul a Second Time     93
To Caesar You Shall Go     99
The Centurion's Decision     105
Cast Up on Malta     114
In Nero's Rome     119
Fanning the Flames of Revolt     125
Victims of the Jewish Uprising     133
The Heroes of Ascalon     136
The Execution of a Troublesome Jew     145
Blood for Blood     148
Slaughtering the Sarmatians     160
To Italy, to Make an Emperor     168
Prelude to a Disaster     187
The Bloodbath of Cremona     198
Storming Rome     220
Thanks to the 3rd Gallica     238
Imperial Roman Military Ranks and Their Modern-Day Equivalents     247
The German Guard     251
Sources     257
Glossary     267
Index     273

Editorial Reviews

The analysis of military tactics and players should be a carefully crafted exercise in historiography. It cannot be merely a laundry list of troop numbers (which should be in an appendix), but it cannot offer too much narrative elaboration, or one can end up with virtually fictional characters. Unfortunately, Dando-Collins (Caesar's Legion) displays both tendencies in his new book. The author is a good storyteller, but his habit of describing how ancient figures reacted emotionally in given situations is inappropriate for a historian. Claiming, e.g., that Roman statesman and general Mark Antony was smiling while making a decision is pointless and unreliable, even if an ancient commentator might have written it. The author's lack of discussion about his sources is particularly disturbing and throws many of his conclusions into doubt. Even though he goes into remarkable detail about the number of soldiers in each situation and the exact mileage of their marches, such unsourced statistics become wearying. The period he covers is fascinating for the historiography it has inspired (e.g., Victor Davis Hanson's The Western Way of War), yet this work seems not to recognize those discussions. Not recommended.
—Clay Williams

Library Journal