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Philippi 42 BC: The death of the Roman Republic (Campaign, 199) Paperback – August 19, 2008
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length96 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherOsprey Publishing
- Publication dateAugust 19, 2008
- Dimensions7.25 x 0.19 x 9.69 inches
- ISBN-101846032652
- ISBN-13978-1846032653
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From the Publisher
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Full colour battlescenesBeautifully illustrated battlescenes are included to bring the narrative of the conflict to life. |
Three-dimensional ‘bird’s-eye-views'Each three-dimensional 'bird's-eye view' is meticulously researched to recreate the actual battlefield at that point in history with accurate contour detail, scaling, landscaping and terrain features. |
MapsDetailed historical maps frame each battle or campaign, and provide the key historical context. |
Editorial Reviews
Review
About the Author
London-born Si Sheppard completed his Bachelors and Masters degrees in New Zealand before receiving his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in the United States. He is currently an associate professor of political science and international relations at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York, and has written several titles for Osprey focusing on the interrelationship between geography, technology, and strategy.
Si Sheppard, PhD, is professor of political science at Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY.
Steve Noon was born in Kent, UK, and attended art college in Cornwall. He's had a life-long passion for illustration, and since 1985 has worked as a professional artist. He has provided award-winning illustrations for the publishers Dorling Kindersley, where his interest in historical illustration began. Steve has illustrated over 70 books for Osprey.
Product details
- Publisher : Osprey Publishing; First Edition (August 19, 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 96 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1846032652
- ISBN-13 : 978-1846032653
- Item Weight : 11.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 7.25 x 0.19 x 9.69 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,149,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,861 in Ancient Roman History (Books)
- #28,283 in Military History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Top reviews from the United States
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The author is unbiased in this aspect, not taking sides. Although with different visions of Rome, Marcus Antonius, Octavianus, Cassius and Brutus, they where all warlords! Commanding powerfull personal armies loyal to them and not to the state. There was an huge revolution: the army realized its political power, even refusing to fight or demanding and mediating truces.
This book summarizes with excellence the chain of events leading to the battle, with Mutina, Forum Galorum (with maps for both the versions of Sulpicius Galba and Appian) and the alliance of the second triunvirate. Impressive how the senate was dependent of certain privatus.
Also interesting is the description of training and organization of the belligerent forces and the impressive number of mobilized personnel at the time! The recruiters (conquistores) must have had a hell of a job.
Both battles of Philippi are very well described, with detail and emotion, analyzing both ancient and modern sources. Although somewhat similar with the situation at Pharsalus, the author states very clearly the differences between them and the necessity of Brutus to attack at the second battle of Philippi.
The aftermath could lead to two great Osprey books: The Perusian War and the trashings that Ventidius gave the Parthians at Taurus Mountains, Amanus Gates and cyrrestica, pacifying the East and inverting the political leverage that the Parthians had won after Carrhae.
Good photos and maps. Absolutely gorgeous paintings by Steve Noon (a mixture of realism and expressionism that conveys a sense of movement and "you are there" feeling that is difficult to express).
This book has only one small mistake: The image on page 23 is not of a tribune; that stellae is of a centurion of legio martia named Minucius.
A great book with beautiful art - Mr. Si Sheppard, please, keep doing a good job.
Visually speaking I found this volume more impressive than the author's earlier work on the Battle of Pharsalus. Not only are the color plates of higher quality (quite frankly, beautiful) but the photographs and artworks throughout the book apply more to the classical era. Virtually every page of his previous work had one or several Rennaisance-era paintings on it, hardly a realistic source on the appearance of Roman soldiers and generals.
The big pluses of Philippi 42 BC are that the battle itself is very well described and all of the events leading up to the battle and everything after it are covered. The big downside is that the Introduction and (especially) the Aftermath sections are very challenging to read. Sheppard does his absolute best to cover everything that happened in the time around the battle of Philippi. Unfortunately, he only has 96 pages to do it in. With all the ins and outs of the complex strategic situation, the myriad of people involved, and the fact the major players frequently switched allegiances, this is very challenging. The end results is that many sections are very dense. You get sentence after sentence like, “In Africa, X, an ally of Y, handed most of his command over to A, a rival of B. Then X, on the authority of G, marched his remaining legions out to ambush H hoping to win greater recognition from Y.” If you want to know what happened in and around 42 BC, it’s there. All of it. Understanding it becomes a bit of a problem. Even after reading passages over and over again, I wasn’t always sure I knew what happened or why.
I do highly recommend Philippi 42 BC. The actual battle is well explained and easy to follow. And, if you can tackle it, there’s a very thorough description of everything that happened in the years following Caesar’s death.
Kudos.
Sincerely,
David Christopher
Top reviews from other countries
Just like the previous volume, this one provides the reader with a lot of background and quite a bit of information on the aftermath, with the battle taking centre stage. This is necessary to understand the political and military events that form the context of the battle itself. Even if it might seem superfluous to some and although it does take up a good third of the book, the months that followed Caesar's murder but also the first clash between Marc Antony and Octavius do need to be presented so as to explain Philippi.
I found that the "cast of characters", the two mentioned above plus Brutus and Cassius, was rather excellent. Marc Antony is depicted as "constantly at his best in a crisis" but prone to disaster when given executive office, not exactly a diplomat and not gifted for playing politics. He has also been described as a "soldier's soldier" and a charismatic, tough but sometimes rash leader whose ultimate station was that of "a loyal subordinate to a dominant personality." Octavius was much the opposite. He was no soldier. His health was poor, but he was intelligent, ambitious, cunning and ruthless and perhaps even better at politics than Marc Antony was at soldiering. On the other side, the respective characters of Cassius Longinus and Junius Brutus have often been opposed and almost caricatured. As the book shows very well, Brutus was no wimp, not necessarily the "romantic idealist" he has been made out to be and proved that he could be quite ruthless, despite his - largely posthumus - reputation of being virtuous and noble. His main flaw as a general was that he did not command the respect of his men. Cassius, however, was respected, feared and obeyed and he certainly had much more military experience than Brutus, with the author presenting him as "a resourceful commander in a succession of losing causes".
Another - related - strongpoint of this volume is, as another reviewer mentioned, to show that behind both sides' propaganda, what was really at stake was the domination of the Roman world by one pair of warlords or the other. In other terms, the claims to "avenge" the murder of Caesar and stay faithful to his "heritage" on one hand, and the claims to defend the "Republic and the Senate" (or rather the oligarchic regime of the leading families to which both Brutus and Cassius belonged) were also rather self-interested, to say the least.
A third interesting and less well known point was for the author to show that the time spent by Octavius to successfully assert himself against Marc Antony - meaning win politically and be recognized as "Caesar's heir" and then defeat Marc Antony militarily, allowed Cassius and Brutus to build up their forces. It should also be remembered how richer the East was at the time, compared to the West. In addition, the East had been Pompey's power base and both Brutus and Cassius used this to extract money and recruit troops while their adversaries were busy fighting each other.
Finally, there is the battle itself, or rather the two battles - a story that is generally not well known but which the author tells rather well. The first double battle was followed 20 days later by a second battle. In both cases, Antony rather excelled. In the first battle, his bold tactics allowed him to defeat Cassius who committed suicide whereas Octavius, incapacited by illness, was defeated by Brutus although many of his troops took refuge in their camp. In the second battle that Brutus was forced to seek, it is again Antony who played the decisive role and defeated his opponent. The diagrams illustrating the battles are rather helpful in understanding what happened.
I also very much liked the plates, and in particular the one illustrating the disaster at sea when the Triumvirs' reinforcement were annihilated, including the Martian legion which was never reformed afterwards. I do have one mild reservation, however, and this is about the rather huge armies - allegedly over 100 000 on each side, according to the sources. These numbers seem extravagantly high and hardly plausible but the author has chosen to accept them. In addition to the logistical nightmares that such huge forces would have created, they would have been hardly possible to command. Also, it should be remembered that each of these armies is more than double the size of the forces that Pompey lined up at Pharsala. He also had ample time to prepare and the whole of the East to draw upon.
A solid four stars.
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