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Legion versus Phalanx
- The Epic Struggle for Infantry Supremacy in the Ancient World
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
Taking a populist approach to a serious subject, Myke Cole combines a novelist's flair for drama with an ancient historian's eye for detail to create a unique book that delves into one of the most popular areas of the Ancient World.
From the time of Ancient Sumeria, the heavy infantry phalanx dominated the battlefield. Armed with spears or pikes, standing shoulder to shoulder with shields interlocking, the men of the phalanx presented an impenetrable wall of wood and metal to the enemy. Until, that is, the Roman legion emerged to challenge them as masters of infantry battle.
Covering the period in which the legion and phalanx clashed (280 - 168 BC), Myke Cole delves into their tactics, arms and equipment, organization and deployment. Drawing on original primary sources to examine six battles in which the legion fought the phalanx - Heraclea (280 BC), Asculum (279 BC), Beneventum (275 BC), Cynoscephalae (197 BC), Magnesia (190 BC), and Pydna (168 BC) - he shows how and why the Roman legion, with its flexible organization, versatile tactics and iron discipline, came to eclipse the hitherto untouchable Hellenistic phalanx and dominate the ancient battlefield.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Stephen Dando-Collins paints a vivid and definitive portrait of daily life in the Tenth Legion as he follows Caesar and his men along the blood-soaked fringes of the Empire. This unprecedented regimental history reveals countless previously unknown details about Roman military practices, Caesar's conduct as a commander and his relationships with officers and legionnaires, and the daily routine and discipline of the Legion.
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You should really be interested in the topic first
- By A reader on 05-05-06
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Hannibal
- By: Ernle Bradford
- Narrated by: Peter Jones
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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At the bloody battle of Cannae, he trounced a Roman army twice the size of his own. With his brothers, he subdued nearly all of Italy, Spain and Northern Africa. A cunning tactician, he secured victory for Bithynia at sea by catapulting poisonous snakes onto the decks of his enemy’s ships. Biographer Ernle Bradford draws on the historical writings of Livy, Polybius, Plutarch and others in re-creating the fantastic story of the greatest general since Alexander the Great.
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Perfect Balance of Narrative and Analysis
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By: Ernle Bradford
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In the Name of Rome
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Adrian Goldsworthy has received wide acclaim for his exceptional writing on the Roman Empire - including high praise from the acclaimed military historian and author John Keegan - and here he offers a new perspective on the empire by focusing on its greatest generals, including Scipio Africanus, Marius, Pompey, Caesar, and Titus.
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This pie was all crust, no filling
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The Enemy at the Gate
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The Great Siege of Vienna is the centerpiece for historian Andrew Wheatcroft's richly drawn portrait of the centuries-long rivalry between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires for control of the European continent. A gripping work by a master historian, The Enemy at the Gate offers a timely examination of an epic clash of civilizations.
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Look elsewhere
- By Ben H. on 09-20-21
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Alexander the Great: A Life from Beginning to End
- By: Hourly History
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Alexander the Great. A boy, groomed for greatness from the earliest age, who would put his stamp on the world for generations to come. A man who sought immortality and achieved it in just 10 years. A soldier whose genius for strategy and tactics is still studied in the modern world. A ruler who understood how to win the hearts and minds of his subjects. This is the story of a Titan of the ancient world, a man who rose but, though he died, never truly fell.
By: Hourly History
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Hannibal
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More than 2,000 years ago one of the greatest military leaders in history almost destroyed Rome. Hannibal, a daring African general from the city of Carthage, led an army of warriors and battle elephants over the snowy Alps to invade the very heart of Rome's growing empire. But what kind of person would dare to face the most relentless imperial power of the ancient world? How could Hannibal, consistently outnumbered and always deep in enemy territory, win battle after battle until he held the very fate of Rome within his grasp?
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very excellent book on Hannibal; highly recommend
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By the Spear
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For the first time, By the Spear offers an exhilarating military narrative of the reigns of these two larger-than-life figures in one volume. Ian Worthington gives full breadth to the careers of father and son, showing how Philip was the architect of the Macedonian empire, which reached its zenith under Alexander, only to disintegrate upon his death.
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Bueller..... Bueller...... Bueller...... Monotone
- By Jonathan Allen Beard on 02-15-15
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The Hundred Years’ War
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- By: Captivating History
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The Hundred Years' War changed language, national identity, weaponry, and even the way people think about war. It is part of the greater narrative of human history and gives a snapshot of how human nature can behave when pressed by the extremity of such a conflict - sometimes with unspeakable honor and courage and other times with cowardice, selfishness, and arrogance.
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Interesting
- By Hammer on 04-09-19
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A Brief History of the Samurai
- Brief Histories
- By: Jonathan Clements
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From a leading expert in Japanese history, this is one of the first full histories of the art and culture of the Samurai warrior. The Samurai emerged as a warrior caste in Medieval Japan and would have a powerful influence on the history and culture of the country from the next 500 years. Clements also looks at the Samurai wars that tore Japan apart in the 17th and 18th centuries and how the caste was finally demolished in the advent of the mechanized world.
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An Excellent History of the Samurai
- By Michael on 08-08-14
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Genghis Khan
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Mongol leader Genghis Khan was by far the greatest conqueror the world has ever known. His empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to Central Europe, including all of China, the Middle East, and Russia. So how did an illiterate nomad rise to such colossal power and subdue most of the known world, eclipsing Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon?
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Well Researched but Poorly Written
- By Sean V. Werner on 08-10-16
By: Frank McLynn
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What listeners say about Legion versus Phalanx
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Robert F. Obeji
- 07-22-20
Good read for those interested in ancient warfare
Good argument on why the legion prevailed over the phalanx. Myke Cole keeps it short and into the point highlighting battles between Rome and Macedon.
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- Matthew C Conlan
- 02-12-20
A solid primer with enjoyable insights
As a classical military enthusiast, I appreciate well written contemporary books which cover this well-worn topic with new insights and perspectives. As a military man who knows the ancient source material, Myke Cole does a good job comparing these ancient writers and applying his personal real world military experience. He’s also a pretty good writer.
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- James Riley
- 07-14-19
A Good Place to Start For Classic Warfare
The author does a great job, giving you the basics of Phalanx and Legion Warfare, especially if you have an interest in the subject, but don't know where to start. He also uses pop culture to help the reader contextualize what he is trying to describe, which was very helpful.
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- Joe Kraus
- 07-11-19
Intriguing Thesis but Too Much Digression
This book is born of a terrific idea. Myke Cole wants to translate from the often too-academic sources the latest thinking about a series of complicated classical world battles: the showdown between the successor Hellenistic states of Alexander’s empire and the rising power of the Romans. More specifically, he pits their two distinctive fighting theories against one another, the Alexandrian phalanx and the Roman legion.
The phalanx, as Cole describes it, is a formation that affords maximum protection to its soldiers while letting them remain a lethal fighting force. Soldiers carry large shields in tight formation and then use pikes to attack as they march slowly forward. You can see how it helped Alexander conquer so much of the world; given discipline and mutual trust, it was a military technology that overwhelmed the wilder, more individual fighting styles of the “barbarians” they went up against.
A phalanx that held together was, essentially, unbeatable. There were problems, though. Sometimes a phalanx might fall into disarray because it moved too quickly or because it was fighting on uneven ground. Because its soldiers had to stand close together, both side-by side to ensure shield coverage and front-to-back to allow for filling in for the fallen, they were compact and could move in only one direction. And, if an enemy could break it, its individual soldiers were less able to fight in the close combat that could follow; pikes are, after all, not very useful close-up.
Cole explains the way the Roman legions answered that technical challenge. For one, they tended to carry javelins. Thrown from a distance, those missile weapons could soften up a phalanx, sometimes opening holes in the line that charging soldiers could enter. For another, they armed their soldiers with short swords which meant that, in the crush that would follow breaching a phalanx, they were able to move more nimbly. And, for another, they stood further apart in formation which meant they could more easily reach an exposed flank. Over time, the Roman legions won, and their formations were a crucial part of how they came to conquer most of the world.
I’m simplifying much of that; Cole is careful to explain that changes in such tactics came slowly and that each side often employed some of the elements of the other. Still, that’s the fundamental claim, and Cole explores it through close-up descriptions of six battles between the Romans and Hellenes.
The good news is that I feel smarter for having read this. I can see some of these ancient conflicts playing out, and I can understand how each side would have embraced its particular tactics.
At the same time, Cole owns up at the start of this to being a nerd. (He is, I gather, a successful fantasy writer as well.) He’s interested in all sorts of esoteric points, and, while he promises otherwise, he can’t help going into tangents that complicate and distract from his central point. His goal, he tells us, is to translate from the academic historians to the general reader, but you can see him always working to answer the academics. He’ll complicate something clear as if he’s trying to show that he knows more than what he’s fully telling the rest of us.
I define a “nerd” as someone who cares more about something than the world says he or she should. In general, I like that sense and am guilty of being such a nerd myself. There’s a challenge about telling the world too much about what we nerds care about, though. However much we may want to indicate that we are simplifying, we’re always pulled back to some nugget we can’t quite share. Trust me, I know the challenge from writing about Jewish gangsters.
As a consequence, I think Cole falls a bit short of his full ambition. As a number of reviewers have pointed out, it takes him a long time to get started – three or four chapters of definitions and background. Then, even when he gets to the individual battles that make up the heart of this, he gives extensive dynastic detail to explain how each significant general rose to prominence. In other words, he does an awful lot of “info dump” here, interrupting his interesting narrative/thesis to give us what are ultimately a range of footnotes.
So, bottom line, there’s a lot of good stuff here, but it may be more for us nerds than Cole originally hoped.
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- Rob
- 08-03-19
A bit winded but perfect deep dive
More than I wanted at times but it's so well done. I love how he has actually visited these places and battlegrounds. Amazing.
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- Timothy & Anne Hanifen
- 02-14-20
Interesting, Educational, Enjoyable History
The title is not a grabber but to the point. Wonderful history of the military and cultural battles between the Greek Phalanx and Roman Legionary Systems.
If you are a student of history and war the book enjoyably answers the question as to why and how the Roman Legion eventually overcame the Greek phalanx.
A must read for anyone seeking to understand why one system overcame the other.
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- Brion Gluck
- 03-16-23
Outstanding RLTW
An excellent job of the differences between the Legion and the phalanx from the soldiers perspective. Well done.
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- Jerry
- 08-13-19
Military history with a plot
I've often wondered about the transition from Greek to Roman cultural dominance. Cole explains it through analysis of their institutionalized fighting styles, and along the way, tells some gripping tales of the personalities involved.
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- Sheila
- 09-21-19
You would have to really be interested...
I gave up six chapters in. Perhaps because I wasn't interested enough I couldn't visualize or track what the author was describing. Also I found the writing style and the narrator to be arrogant which also made it difficult to listen to.
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- Frank A Mastromauro
- 07-30-19
Enjoyable and informative
As a person who enjoys history but is not a scholar , I found this book informative regarding the combat of the time and the explanation of the politics. Or what was happening at that time in the region. It was not overly long explanations I feel just enough to make it interesting. The author seemed to go to great lengths in staying what was fact and what was conjecture . I believe if you are interested in this period of our history you will enjoy this book
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