Conquest [Paperback]

John Peddie (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 031217389X | ISBN-13: 978-0312173890 | Publication Date: May 1997

The story of the Claudian Conquest of Britain was only partly recorded by ancient historians. Tacitus' Annals breaks off at the death of Tiberius, while the narrative of Cassius Dio survives only as a collection of selected pieces. Much of this missing knowledge has been recaptured by archaeological research. As a result, we have a better understanding of the tribal society which then existed in Britain, and this can help us to appreciate the courses of military action open to Aulus Plautius, the commanding Roman general. There are other important military factors which would have affected Plautius' choice of options: logistical, geographical, political. In this innovative and much acclaimed study John Peddie argues that the organisation and supply problems of a task force of some 40,000 men and several thousand animals would broadly have dictated Roman tactics. He discusses what these may have been, examines the reason's for Vespasian's seemingly isolated foray into the West Country, and suggests that Caratacus' guerilla campaign (AD 43-52) denied the Romans their hope of a speedy conquest

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Peddie was a retired regular infantry officer, who also wrote 'Hannibal's War', 'The Roman War Machine' and 'Alfred: Warrior King. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031217389X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312173890
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,032,576 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting, Though Muddled Account of the Roman Invasion, December 18, 2001

By 

"captmondo" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conquest (Paperback)

I have always been interested in the subject of the Roman Invasion of Britain, and years ago I read both Caesar's account of his attempts along with Suetonius' account of Claudius' successful campaign in The Twelve Caesars.

On the whole I find this book detailed but poorly organized. The author manages to tease a surprising amount of info from the brief accounts of the invasion by contemporary Roman writer like Cassius Dio, Tacitus and Suetonius, and piece together a convincing thread of events and the places where the military campaigns most-likely occurred. But the book often jumps about from subject to subject and different timeframes, in once section initially talking about an impending battle, then discussing events which led much later to the Boudiccan revolt, then talking about how the courses of various rivers have changed since the 1st century AD. All very interesting, but the leaps make it hard to piece together a coherent narrative of events as they unfolded.

Other than the maps of battle, the illustrations in the book appear willy-nilly, with a lot of pictures of men in re-enactments of Roman military dress. For example, a section devoted to talking about the topography of Colchester is accompanied by a picture of "a detachment of XX Legion", where a survey map of Colchester would have been more relevant.

The book does contain a number of interesting bits of information. One is the logistics of the invasion almost certainly means that extensive preparations must have been made during the reign of Claudius predecessor, Gaius Caligula. The author also goes to great pains to talk about the extensive preparations necessary in order to feed and provision the invading Roman army, delving into pre-WWI military texts for such things as figures on how much feed was necessary per mule while on campaign. I also hadn't realized how different and specialized the various legions of the Roman army could be, including the apparently decisive Batavian legion who surprised their British tribal foes by unexpectedly swimming across the Thames with their battle gear. Peddie also makes what I think is a convincing case for the events that must have unfolded in the 6-week period when Emperor Claudius was called from Rome to officiate the final battle for Camulodunum (modern Colchester), including the likely capitulation of the Trinovantes and the few remaining options left open for the increasingly besieged Caratacus.

Still, I would have preferred a more orderly construction of all of this information. While drawing upon the very latest knowledge from archaeological digs and some very educated guesses as to military deployment (the author is an ex-soldier), the end result is muddled. A good editor could have greatly improved this book.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the definitive works on the Claudian Invasion, July 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Conquest (Paperback)

Detailed analyses presented in a very readable style. This is a must read for any student of Rome or Britain.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but Treat With Caution, June 12, 2001

By 

R. A Forczyk (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conquest (Paperback)

John Peddie, a retired British infantry officer, has attempted to re-construct the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD by extrapolating from the fragmentary accounts of Cassius Dio and Tacitus. The author uses "inherent military probability" to fill in the many gaps in the historical record and thereby produce a coherent campaign narrative.

The account starts with a chapter on Julius Caesar's expeditions to Britain in 54-55 BC, which gave the Romans their first direct experience of that island. However the bulk of the book concerns the invasion of 43 AD and Peddie addresses this in six chapters, from the initial landings in Kent to the capture of Caratacus, the British rebel chieftain in 51 AD. Although later rebellions in 61-70 AD are mentioned they are not detailed. I was dissappointed by the lack of an aftermath chapter that covered the following decades of Roman expansion in Britain.

Using the fragmentary information available, the author attempts to re-construct the Roman order of battle and he uses contemporary logistic information to support his claims. A chapter on the Roman army and its logistics and a further appendix on Roman logistical matters are quite interesting. There are a number of sketch maps used to depict the possible flow of the campaign, but few overall campaign maps. The author has written with British audiences in mind and American readers will find it difficult to identify many of the small terrain features in the Kentish and Essex countryside that the author uses as references. Better maps and diagrams to show alternative Roman courses of action would add greatly to this account.

The author also uses photos of modern-day Roman re-enactors and terrain views to support the text. While the terrain photographs are good, the use of re-enactors is questionable. For example, a photo of "Roman troops on the march" show re-enactors wearing full armor with shields; however, unless contact was expected, Roman infantry were unlikely to march any great distance wearing full battle gear. One of the few times that Caesar was almost defeated in Gaul occurred when his troops were ambushed during a river-crossing and the troops were not wearing all their equipment.

While the author's use of "inherent military probability" is a laudable effort, it is also fraught with potential pit-falls. What may seem logical to a 20th Century military mind, conditioned to the time-space conditions of industrialized warfare, may not have been apparent to a military mind in the 1st Century. At one point, the author notes that one Roman legion was "next to be found marching against the Deceangli of north-east Wales, an inexplicable and isolated operation which apparently bore no relationship to any obvious, established plan." The author seems baffled because a full legion went on a punitive expeditionary to punish a minor Welsh tribe, while rebellion was brewing in other more important areas. I would refer readers to Susan P. Mattern's excellent, Rome and the Enemy, which does an excellent job demonstrating that Roman strategic and operational planning were not directly analogous to modern-day practices. The Romans rarely used maps in planning and were unconcerned about forming indefensible salients, as they demonstrated in Dacia and Pannonia. Mattern uses many Roman sources to show that punishing rebels in a timely manner was more important to Roman minds than modern-concepts of time-phase operations. Furthermore, the Roman forces committed to conquer and garrison Britain were a severe drain on the empire's resources for very limited gain, but the Romans didn't seem to mind. The differences in Roman and contemporary military logic continually come up in this account, but the author skates along on the weak assumption that "military logic" is ageless.

Overall, this is an interesting account of a little-known campaign. However, I would be cautious about calling this "history," since the bulk of the narrative consists of extrapolations, hypotheses and some guesses. Other than the facts that the Romans landed in 43 AD and had carved out an occupied zone by 51 AD, few other details are known. Readers should therefore treat this account with caution.