Blood of the Provinces: The Roman Auxilia and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans - Hardcover

Haynes, Ian

4.14

7 ratings by Goodreads

9780199655342: Blood of the Provinces: The Roman Auxilia and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199655340 ISBN 13: 9780199655342

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2013

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Blood of the Provinces is the first fully comprehensive study of the largest part of the Roman army, the auxilia. This non-citizen force constituted more than half of Rome's celebrated armies and was often the military presence in some of its territories. Diverse in origins, character, and culture, they played an essential role in building the empire, sustaining the unequal peace celebrated as the pax Romana, and enacting the emperor's writ.

Drawing upon the latest historical and archaeological research to examine recruitment, belief, daily routine, language, tactics, and dress, this volume offers an examination of the Empire and its soldiers in a radical new way. Blood of the Provinces demonstrates how the Roman state addressed a crucial and enduring challenge both on and off the battlefield - retaining control of the miscellaneous auxiliaries upon whom its very existence depended. Crucially, this was not simply achieved by pay and punishment, but also by a very particular set of cultural attributes that characterized provincial society under the Roman Empire. Focusing on the soldiers themselves, and encompassing the disparate military communities of which they were a part, it offers a vital source of information on how individuals and communities were incorporated into provincial society under the Empire, and how the character of that society evolved as a result.

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Review:

fascinating and authoritative... Essential for students of the Roman world, this book also offers plenty of interest to more general readers. (Current Archaeology)

superb study (Times Literary Supplement)

For those with a serious interest in the Roman army and more widely in the impact of the Roman empire on provincial populations, I have no hesitation in recommending a book that came out late last year - Ian Haynes, The Blood of the Provinces. (Adrian Goldsworthy, Ancient Historian and Novelist)

This book is a crucial contribution not only to Roman military studies but to Roman archaeology and history more generally ... Blood of the Provinces has set the bar high for future work on the Roman military (Tyler Franconi, Bryn Mawr Classical Review)

excellent ... For any student of the Roman army or of Roman provincial life, this book is essential reading ... In this formidable volume, Haynes has given us a study of the auxilia that is unlikely to be superseded in a generation. (Colin E. P. Adams, American Historical Review)

I. Haynes's book is the first fully rounded attempt to evoke auxiliaries as people, family men and social actors, not just within the context of Rome's armies but also in the creation of provincial societies. A century on, it is a worthy twenty-first-century volume to place alongside Cheesmans classic. (Simon James, Britannia)

About the Author:

Ian Haynes is Professor of Archaeology at Newcastle University. He has worked on Roman sites in Britain, Italy, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic, and is currently project director of excavations at Maryport, Cumbria. Professor Haynes was formerly chair of the archaeology committee of the Roman Society and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a trustee of both the Clayton Trust and the Vindolanda Trust.

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