Search results for ""Author Gareth Sampson""

In the mid-first century BC, despite its military victories elsewhere, the Roman Empire faced a rival power in the east; the Parthian Empire. The first war between two superpowers of the ancient world had resulted in the total defeat of Rome and the death of Marcus Crassus. When Rome collapsed into Civil War in the 40s BC, the Parthians took the opportunity to invade and conquer the Middle East and drive Rome back into Europe. What followed was two decades of war which saw victories and defeats on both sides. The Romans were finally able to gain a victory over the Parthians thanks to the great, but now neglected, general Publius Ventidius. These victories acted as a springboard for Marc Antony's plans to conquer the Parthian Empire, which ended in ignominious defeat. Gareth Sampson analyses the military campaigns and the various battles between the two superpowers of the ancient world and the war which defined the shape and division of the Middle East for the next 650 years.

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By the early first century BC, the Roman Republic had already carved itself a massive empire and was easily the most powerful state in the Mediterranean. Roman armies had marched victoriously over enemies far and wide, but the Roman heartland was soon to feel the tramp of armies on campaign as the Republic was convulsed by civil war and rival warlords vied for supremacy, sounding the first death knell of the Republican system. At the centre of the conflict was the rivalry between Marius, victor of the Jugurthine and Northern wars, and his former subordinate, Sulla. But, as Gareth Sampson points out in this new analysis, the situation was much more complex than the traditional view portrays it and the scope of the First Civil War both wider and longer. This narrative and analysis of a critical and bloody period in Roman history will make an ideal sequel to the author's Crisis of Rome (and a prequel to his first book, The Defeat of Rome).

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