The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army

In 1914, a young scholar named Cheesman did something no one had done before: he wrote the first systematic history of the Roman auxiliary troops, the "barbarian" soldiers recruited from conquered peoples who fought alongside the legions. The result became the foundation upon which nearly a century of subsequent scholarship was built. Drawing on evidence most scholars had ignored, Cheesman read the gravestones, the discharge diplomas that granted citizenship, and the regimental records to reconstruct how these levies transformed from ad-hoc local contingents into the highly specialized ala and cohort units that defended Rome's far-flung frontiers. The book traces their evolution through the first two centuries of the empire, examining where they were recruited, how they were organized, what arms they carried, and how they were deployed in war and border defense. But Cheesman understood that the historia militaris was never just about war. These were men ripped from their homelands, granted Roman citizenship only after decades of service, and often left to garrison forts thousands of miles from everything they knew. This is the story of how Rome built its empire not through legionaries alone, but through the swords of former enemies turned indispensable soldiers.