Killing for the republic: citizen-soldiers and the Roman way of war
Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, (2019)Abstract
"This book describes how Rome conquered the world with citizen-soldiers. Like many expansionist states throughout history, Rome instilled something violent and vicious in its soldiers, making them more effective than their opponents. But unlike other civilizations, it did so with part-timers. The Romans perfected civic militarism in a way no other civilization has. It transformed average farmers into ambitious killers capable of conquering the Mediterranean"--