the History of Rome: Legions, Emperors, and Making an Empire

How does a state lose an army in a single afternoon and put twenty-five legions back in the field four years later?This book follows the whole span, from huts on the Palatine to the fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453, including the thousand years of eastern Roman history that most single-volume histories skip. Written by an accountant rather than a historian, it argues that Rome won not by fighting better but by counting better. Where the sources disagree, it gives the range and names who said what.Inside, you'll find: - Cannae, 2 August 216 BC, with Polybius' 70,000 Roman dead set beside Livy's 48,200 - and the levy that had 25 legions under arms within four years.- Caesar's double siege lines at Alesia, where his own account claims a Gallic relief army of 240,000 against modern estimates of 50,000 to 100,000.- What a legionary was actually paid, down to a discharge bonus of 3,000 denarii - about thirteen years of his gross wages.- The denarius sliding from over 90 percent silver to about 5, and Diocletian answering with price ceilings on over a thousand goods.- Rome's eleven aqueducts, of which only about 47 kilometres of some 800 ran on the famous arches.- The last morning, when 700 Genoese under Giustiniani held the walls against 50,000 to 80,000 Ottomans.It is for anyone who wants to know how the thing actually worked: how it was paid for, how it was manned, and why the arithmetic stopped adding up. No background in ancient history is needed, and none is assumed; every Latin term is explained where it first appears.Twenty-two centuries, and someone was always keeping the count.