10-24-2006, 09:39 PM
Yesterday (23 October), I spent five hours talking with author Adrian Goldsworthy. He was visiting North America to give lectures at universities in Canada, Virginia and Florida. Ours was a private conversation arranged by Geoffrey Greatrex of the University of Ottawa.
We talked about a number of subjects related mainly to Roman military history and his many fine books on this topic. He mentioned that he has started work on his next title, which will be on the fall of the western empire starting with Marcus Aurelius. This will be finished by early 2008.
Some of the subjects covered included:
whether or not centurions were appointed from the middle classes,
new discoveries at Wallsend, which suggest that Hadrian's Wall had addditional defences (trench, stakes, etc.),
swords and fighting techniques,
pila, lancea and other missile weapons,
continuity in tactics and organisation, and
Caesar - commander and politician.
I was amazed at how quickly the time passed and still had more questions when we parted.
We talked about a number of subjects related mainly to Roman military history and his many fine books on this topic. He mentioned that he has started work on his next title, which will be on the fall of the western empire starting with Marcus Aurelius. This will be finished by early 2008.
Some of the subjects covered included:
whether or not centurions were appointed from the middle classes,
new discoveries at Wallsend, which suggest that Hadrian's Wall had addditional defences (trench, stakes, etc.),
swords and fighting techniques,
pila, lancea and other missile weapons,
continuity in tactics and organisation, and
Caesar - commander and politician.
I was amazed at how quickly the time passed and still had more questions when we parted.
