Customer Reviews

From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies (Contributions in Military Studies)

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This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in ancient armies. Many such books simply present the weapons and armor, some about army organization, and an overview of tactics; Gabriel and Metz have gone far beyond that.

Weapons and armor are covered in detail, with information from experiments the authors performed with replicas of the weapons in question. Organization and tactics are also covered, with special attention to the tactics employed with each weapon.

However, the authors also present information and speculation on casualty rates, types of wounds suffered in combat, mortality, disease control, and military medicine, greatly enhancing the value of the book for those who want to understand ancient armies and combat.

This short work (some 150 pages) contains more information on ancient armies than the next six combined! The first chapter discusses the evolution of armies during the Bronze Age of Sumer and Egypt. The second chapter in entitled, The Military Revolution, and follows the advent of iron and its effect on warfare. Chapter three examines the weapons of the ancient world, and examines their lethality, particularly with respect to the evolution of armor. (This is the real gem of this book!) The fourth chapter examines injuries and death on the ancient battlefield, and chapter five examines the medical knowledge of military doctors throughout the ancient world.

This book is quite amazing! In such a short space, it contains a wealth of information, bringing a thorough understanding of ancient warfare. The sections on medical aspect of ancient warfare contained information I have never seen before, and the sections on weapons are quite informative as well.

My one complaint against this book is that it is not laid out in a chronological order. That is to say, if you are interested in (for example) the Assyrian army, you will not find many particulars about it. However, I will admit that such was not the scope of this book. What this book aims to be, it achieves brilliantly. I recommend this book to everyone interested in ancient warfare.

[If I can recommend a companion to this book, it would be Armies and enemies of ancient Egypt and Assyria, by Alan Buttery.]

Excellent look at ancient warfare. As the author correctly discusses, chariots were used as shock units, rather than just as missile platforms. At the battle of Arbela in 331 BC, Alexander's phalanx troops sidestepped, allowing the chariots to pierce the phalanx, and then closed in to destroy the charioteers. Plainly they were not content to simply ride along, firing arrows at long range.

Vigorously asserts the old commonplace that chariots were used as shock forces, much like 20th century tanks. However, experts in the field conclude that their main role was as fast vehicles for the delivery of arrows and secondarily as pursuers of fleeing infantry. Neither use is an example of shock. This apparent uncritical reading of the sources perhaps reflects the danger inherent in neither author being a professional historian of the period.