Lendon\'s book "Soldiers and Ghosts"

[Matthew Amt]

Is it any good/accurate? I heard Lendon proposes that the Legionaries would have been more like zulu swarms basically rather than the robotic solid troops they're commonly percieved as being. Can anyone help me?

The comparison to Zulus is actually an image that I tend to bring up, though I don't recall if Lendon actually says that or not. From the threads already posted, not everyone enjoyed the book as much as I did. Mind you, it's been a while since I read it! Yes, it does tend to hammer points home repeatedly, though I didn't find that wearing. The point was that the cited sources all pointed to his conclusions. I do remember that practically every Roman anecdote he mentions was something I already knew, but putting them all together like that completely changed the way I visualize a Roman army in action! That's when I came up with Zulus instead of robots. Again, I don't think Lendon actually says that, but I don't want to take credit by mistake!

It's definitely worth reading, and I do think it's accurate.

Vale,

Matthew