Adrian Murdoch Libri Migliori da leggere e consigliati

In AD 9 half of Rome’s Western army was ambushed in a German forest and annihilated. Three legions, three cavalry units and six auxiliary regiments – some 25,000 men – were wiped out. It dealt a body blow to the empire’s imperial pretensions and was Rome’s greatest defeat. No other battle stopped the Roman empire dead in its tracks. Although one of the most significant and dramatic battles in European history, this is also one which has been largely overlooked. Drawing on primary sources and a vast wealth of new archaeological evidence, Adrian Murdoch brings to life the battle itself, the historical background and the effects of the Roman defeat as well as exploring the personalities of those who took part.

Since his death on a Persian battlefield in AD 363, the violent end of the Emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus, 332-363) has become synonymous with the death of paganism. Vilified throughout history as the ‘Apostate’, the young philosopher-warrior was the last and arguably the most potent threat to Christianity. “The Last Pagan” examines Julian’s emergence as the sole survivor of a political dynasty soaked in blood, and traces his journey from an aristocratic Christian childhood to his initiation into pagan cults and his mission to establish paganism as the dominant faith of the Roman world.