09-09-2002, 01:38 PM
This is the first I have heard of this author. I picked up Stephen Dando-Collins, *Caesar's Legion* (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002), the other day at Borders... I have found the sections I have scanned "interesting." I am in process of thinking out a review to submit to the RMRS's next issue of the "Cornu."<br>
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I am not happy with this book. Not because of the assertions he makes that fly in the face of "received wisdom," but because of his appalling lack of a serious academic approach to the subject to explain his assertions. I just had the pleasure of sitting through an explanation by Peter Connelly this summer as to why he thinks the pilum heads were NOT malleable, and I find his arguemments convincing, so I am not adverse to taking on new ideas about the Roman army. Dando-Collins tells us he has worked hard to make his book "accessable" and hence he has "translated" (my word) the ranks of Tribune and above to Colonel and various shades of General Officer -- as if! I suspect that the unforgiveable lack of footnotes (or endnotes) to explain his assertions is also to make it more "accessable."<br>
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For example, Dando-Collins asserts that Augustus retained twenty-eight legions after the Civil Wars. OK, most agree with that. But he tells us they were numbered sequentially from "I" to "XXVIII" but gives no substantiation for this at all (pgs. 269-71). Likewise, he asserts it was the 19th, 25th and 26th that were lost in the "Clades Variana," when accepted scholarship shows it was almost surely the 17th, 18th and 19th. I would also add that, as already noted, Dando-Collins' suggestions for the source(s) and/or meaning(s) for many titles are fanciful at best and laughable at worst.<br>
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In sum, as the bulk of the book seems to be little more than a highly readable retelling of Caesar's Commentaries, the book may well be worth a bit more than the price of a remaindered item --- for the casual reader. For someone interested in serious scholarship (as I was) it is a waste of your resources. <p>==========================================<BR>
"If there's one thing we don't want to see, it's Americans fighting Americans. I won't stand for it, not here, not anywhere." Sergeant Frank Tree, 10th Armored Division, Saturday, 13 December 1941... a little after 0701 hrs... somewhere near Santa Monica, Calif.</p><i></i>
<br>
I am not happy with this book. Not because of the assertions he makes that fly in the face of "received wisdom," but because of his appalling lack of a serious academic approach to the subject to explain his assertions. I just had the pleasure of sitting through an explanation by Peter Connelly this summer as to why he thinks the pilum heads were NOT malleable, and I find his arguemments convincing, so I am not adverse to taking on new ideas about the Roman army. Dando-Collins tells us he has worked hard to make his book "accessable" and hence he has "translated" (my word) the ranks of Tribune and above to Colonel and various shades of General Officer -- as if! I suspect that the unforgiveable lack of footnotes (or endnotes) to explain his assertions is also to make it more "accessable."<br>
<br>
For example, Dando-Collins asserts that Augustus retained twenty-eight legions after the Civil Wars. OK, most agree with that. But he tells us they were numbered sequentially from "I" to "XXVIII" but gives no substantiation for this at all (pgs. 269-71). Likewise, he asserts it was the 19th, 25th and 26th that were lost in the "Clades Variana," when accepted scholarship shows it was almost surely the 17th, 18th and 19th. I would also add that, as already noted, Dando-Collins' suggestions for the source(s) and/or meaning(s) for many titles are fanciful at best and laughable at worst.<br>
<br>
In sum, as the bulk of the book seems to be little more than a highly readable retelling of Caesar's Commentaries, the book may well be worth a bit more than the price of a remaindered item --- for the casual reader. For someone interested in serious scholarship (as I was) it is a waste of your resources. <p>==========================================<BR>
"If there's one thing we don't want to see, it's Americans fighting Americans. I won't stand for it, not here, not anywhere." Sergeant Frank Tree, 10th Armored Division, Saturday, 13 December 1941... a little after 0701 hrs... somewhere near Santa Monica, Calif.</p><i></i>
Duane C. Young, M.A.
