For over five hundred years, the Roman Empire prospered, conquered and then controlled much of (what was to them) the known world. There are two main reasons why they were able to do this. One reason was the policy of "Romanization" which encouraged those who were conquered to become part of the empire, even offering them various ways to become Roman citizens. The second reason was the military force that actually conquered the territories to be “romanized” and then held them. These guys really knew what they were doing (at least most of the time), and they did it way better than anyone else at the time. The Roman army is, at the root of it all, the single force that created the greatest empire known to Western civilization and maintained that empire for half a millennium. Being quite a fan of the Roman Empire, and particularly the army, I chose this book in anticipation of acquiring a little more knowledge on the subject. The Roman Imperial Army completely exceeded my expectations. In his foreword (to the first edition), the author presents the following thesis: "The booklet on the Roman army produced in 1956 for the Grosvenor Museum in Chester was well received and this encouraged me to attempt a more extended version." Although I found this to be a rather weak thesis statement, there is no doubt that Mr. Webster achieved his goal. The booklet mentioned in the paragraph above was fifty-two pages long, a mere pamphlet compared to the two hundred and eighty-five pages of perfectly documented text. Each page of text has very detailed footnotes, often taking up as much space as the referenced text. Referring to this work as "little more than a compilation......in the middle of an article......and a keen interest in virtually every aspect of the Roman army during the two centuries CE, this book is guaranteed to provide what you are looking for, and much more. However, as I said above, I picked up this book in anticipation of gaining a little more knowledge about the Roman army. There is no doubt that my eyes were much bigger than my stomach. choice of reading material. This book is so excessively detailed that it is quite difficult to just sit down and read it. To begin to understand this work, all but the most informed reader will need to refer to one of the many footnotes. photograph, draw, graph, or index virtually every paragraph, and often more than once per paragraph. It is probably best to classify this work as a textbook or reference work rather than as something suitable for recreational reading by the normal consumer..