Overview

The year 146 BC marked the brutal end to the Roman Republic's 118-year struggle for the western Mediterranean. Breaching the walls of their great enemy, Carthage, Roman troops slaughtered countless citizens, enslaved those who survived, and leveled the 700-year-old city. That same year in the east, Rome destroyed Corinth and subdued Greece. Over little more than a century, Rome's triumphant armies of citizen-soldiers had shocked the world by conquering all of its neighbors. How did armies made up of citizen-soldiers manage to pull off such a major triumph? And what made the republic so powerful? In Killing for the Republic, Steele Brand explains how Rome transformed average farmers into ambitious killers capable of conquering the entire Mediterranean. Rome instilled something violent and vicious in its soldiers, making them more effective than other empire builders. Unlike the Assyrians, Persians, and Macedonians, it fought with part-timers. Examining the relationship between the republican spirit and the citizen-soldier, Brand argues that Roman republican values and institutions prepared common men for the rigors and horrors of war.

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Steele Brand is assistant professor of history at The King's College in New York City, where he teaches courses on the ancient Mediterranean world and medieval Europe. He received his PhD from Baylor University, his MA from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his BA from Texas A&M University. He previously served as the Director of Undergraduate Fellows for the Clements Center for National Security and as a tactical intelligence officer. Since recording his first book for the Kansas Audio Reader Network in 1985, Tom Parks has enjoyed giving voice to stories. He has been nominated for Audie Awards and has received several AudioFile Earphones Awards, and reviewers have described his performances as ""conversational,"" ""energetic,"" ""earnest,"" ""sincere,"" and as having a certain ""gravity."" Tom is also an active workshop leader and in-demand speaker for corporations and is a featured lecturer for Carnival Cruise Lines. On the side, Tom gigs as a drummer who performs regularly on the Midwest musical theater circuit.

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