The Battle That Stopped Rome - Wells, Peter S

[S SEVERUS]

The Battle That Stopped Rome
Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the
Edition New ed
Wells, Peter S.
Paperback

Someone who has read this book? I'm planning to buy this one.

[Jona Lendering]

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.
This is the best candidate for book burning in years.

The author knows something about archaeology, but is incapable of understanding sources. He discards them because they are written some time after the events, and therefore argues that the battle took place in one single day. That Dio and Tacitus state that it lasted three days, is ignored, althought they are independent sources. (Please note the odd inconsistency: the identification of the site is partly based on information from the same sources. This is poor method. You can not use a source for one part of your research and ignore it for another part.)

An acquiantance of mine knows the author and kindly gave me his mail-address; so I wrote the author, who did not consider me worthy to reply. A better book is Tony Clunn, In Quest of the Lost Legions (1999) [updated edition 2005]). I know that Adrian Murdoch is preparing Death in the forest. And perhaps my own little website is useful to you: [urltg806w1]http://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg01.htm[/url].

[S SEVERUS]

Thx for your reply.
I will erase this book of my wish list.

[Jona Lendering]

I now see that you live in Belgium; in all modesty, ahem, my own book is not bad on the subject - I have been told. It is called De randen van de aarde. De Romeinen tussen Schelde en Eems (2000). It is no longer for sale but if you send me a mail-address, I can send you the text file.

[S SEVERUS]

I have send you an pm with my mail adress.

[Jona Lendering]

I've not received it; try ADSL294196 apenstaart TISCALI punt NL. Dank!

[Gaivs Antonivs Satvrninvs]

I also had this in my wish list,but after reading the customer reviews
decided against it.
My decision was based not on the lack of sources, but most reviewers
said it was written as a series of small articles that often repeated with succeeding chapters.

[Thiudareiks Flavius]

I have to agree with the reviews above. Wells pads out some fairly thin evidence with some highly elementary background history of the Imperium and the Roman Army and with lots of repetition. Then he spices the story up with some graphic descriptions of the brutality which seemed to be trying to be something like Keegan's The Face of Battle but ended up seeming gratuitous and silly.

But the bit that made me want to throw the book at the wall was where he blithely dismisses all the actual accounts of the battle taking up to four days and creating a laughable scenario where (i) the whole three legions somehow cram into the battleground at Kalkrieseberg (not just the ragged remnants), (ii) the Germanics all throw lots of spears and (iii) the Romans all fall down dead, with the whole thing over in under an hour. Give me a break!

This book deserves something like the 'Clueless Armchair General Award' for the most ridiculous and unlikely reconstruction of a battle ever.

Five thumbs down - avoid like the plague.

[Primitivus]

It is called De randen van de aarde. De Romeinen tussen Schelde en Eems (2000). It is no longer for sale but if you send me a mail-address, I can send you the text file.

Have you considered using one of the "print-on-demand" publishers? I've been told that some of them have special imprints/programs for academic volumes which are no longer in print.

I don't suppose you have an English translation of the text, or that it remains available for sale in the states?

[Jona Lendering]

I've put large parts of it online: [url:2srtltf4]http://www.livius.org/germinf.html[/url]. The Teutoburg part is here: [url:2srtltf4]http://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg01.htm[/url].