Classics: Why It Matters by Neville Morley

432 PHOENIX Native American genocide. Here, the comparisons are potentially interesting, but are ignored. Brand does not explore the role of the Roman army in facilitating ethnic cleansing (especially the Cisalpine Celts, a project closely linked to agrarian distributions) or quashing slave revolts. The rest of the book is organized chronologically, with Part II detailing the regal period and early republic, Part III the middle republic down to 167 b.c., and Part IV the civil wars after the death of Caesar (with a brief exposition discussing events from 167-44 b.c.). Much of the analysis is centered around a series of specific battles, with individual chapters devoted to Sentinum (Chapter Five), New Carthage (Chapter Six), Pydna (Chapter Seven), and finally, after things have gone downhill, Mutina and Philippi (Chapters Eight and Nine). These are competently executed military narratives, but the downside of focusing on specific engagements is that the analytic sweep of the book can become interrupted by the operational details. Of course, sometimes the tactical minutiae are indeed relevant to the project. Brand suggests that manipular tactics reflected the tension of individual and collective action in the republic, and this is surely correct. But often he gets carried away in this analysis by the random details of various combats. Furthermore, many incidents that would seem to be central to a book on Roman citizensoldiers are missing altogether, as for example the “special election” in 212 b.c. when the army in Spain chose one of their own to lead them following the death of the Scipio brothers, the mutiny at Sucro in 206 (in which the mutineers elected their own generals, tribunes, and centurions), or the electoral effort to sabotage Aemilius Paullus’ triumphal petition in 167, spearheaded by his own disgruntled soldiers. The book has the tendency to briefly acknowledge but then quickly pass over interesting questions: the impact of elected generals and military tribunes on command climate, the curious position of current soldiers as future voters, the tension between aristocratic discipline and popular license, and the role of religion as both a mode of top-down social control and a potential cross-class adhesive. The grisly title of the book points to a missed opportunity. The cultural and psychological impact of military violence upon Roman citizens, both as victims and perpetrators, is a worthy topic, especially given the recently unearthed forensic evidence from the Pompeian sack of Valentia, which reveals the sort of gruesome mutilations described by Polybius.4 Given the high rate of mobilization in the third and second centuries b.c., as well as the heavy casualties the Romans inflicted on their opponents, it is quite likely that a substantial portion of the male citizen body had killed another human being in the context of military service. For a book with Killing in the title, the violence is surprisingly muted, largely obscured by the sterile focus on grand tactics. University at Albany, SUNY Michael J. Taylor Classics : Why It Matters. Par Neville Morley. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2018. Pp. 143. Le professeur Neville Morley enseigne les études classiques et l’histoire ancienne à l’Université d’Exeter au Royaume-Uni et ses recherches se concentrent autour de trois 4 L. Alapont, La destrucción de Valentia por Pompeyo (75 a.C.) (Quaderns de difusió arqueològica 6; Valencia 2010). BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 433 thématiques principales : l’histoire socio-économique des sociétés antiques ; l’influence de l’Antiquité et des études classiques sur notre monde contemporain (avec un intérêt particulier pour l’influence de Thucydide) ; et les approches théoriques et méthodologiques de l’Antiquité. L’ouvrage Classics : Why It Matters témoigne bien de ces préoccupations à la fois à travers son argumentaire et par les exemples mis en évidence. Ce court ouvrage, facile d’accès, dont le propos est formulé dès le titre sous forme de question, comporte quatre chapitres : le premier s’intéresse à faire un état des questionnements actuels au sujet des études classiques, alors que les autres déclinent la problématique en fonction du passé, du présent et du futur des e...

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.