Strategy and Ethnocentrism (Routledge Revivals), Booth

Pompey the Great, first published in 1978, traces the career of this enigmatic character from his first appearance in public life on the staff of his father Strabo during the Social War, through his early military campaigns as Sulla's lieutenant in the Civil War 83-82, as the Senate's general in Italy and Spain during the 70s, to his first consulship with Crassus in 70. The important commands against the pirates and Mithridates, the alliance with Caesar, its eventual collapse into civil war, and the significance of Pompey's constitutional position for an understanding of the later Augustan settlement war are all discussed with clarity and insight.

Aemilius Paullus: Conqueror of Greece, first published in 1988, aims to construct an accurate picture of the soldier and politician by scrutiny of the main sources - Livy, Plutarch and Polybius (the last of whom worked under the direct patronage of Paullus). The Polybian concepts of the statesman and the conqueror, Livy's portrayal of a man schooled in the mos maiorum and Plutarch's moralistic use of the image of Paullus for didactic purposes are each investigated. The author shows how each writer moulds a Paullus according to his own preconceptions, and suggests that he may have been little more than a competent general and politician.