?This is a very good little book, and it seems better each time one reads it, so firmly has the author concentrated on what was essential in the roman art of war. (?) Professor Adcock recognises that to understand ancient campaigns one must understand the attitude to war of ancient peoples, their discipline and military training, their lack of trained staffs. He makes many references to more modern campaigns and quotes Clausewitz, Jomini, and more military writers. But he never makes the mistake of writing of Roman generals and governments as though they had studied these campaigns and writers. (?) The book is volume viii of the Martin Classical Lectures and consists of five lectures delivered at Oberlin College in May 1939. The lectures discuss in succession the men, the sea, the land, foreign policy and general strategy, generalship. Professor Adcock must have omitted much that he would have liked to include under these wide headings, and it is hardly fair to mention omissions. (?) The second lecture, on the sea, is wholly admirable. Professor Adcock shows how owing to the limited efficiency of ships in Roman times sea power could often be controlled from the land. (?) The lecture on the land is an able summary of the geographical conditions determining roman land warfare in Italy and in the other lands in which Roman armies fought.? (N. WHATLEY in The Classical Review, 1943, pp.91-92).