At a time when the Parthenon Sculptures refuse to go away (in every sense of the phrase) and uncatalogued items were allegedly found to have been sold off by a member of staff, The British Museum needs some good news. There must have been sighs of relief all round when their new exhibition in the (itself often controversial: Puffett 2023) BP Gallery, Legion: life in the Roman Army, opened to almost universal press acclaim (e.g. Clark 2024; Jones 2024); it runs from 1 February to 23 June 2024. However, some (perfectly valid) observations in her blog by a scholar qualified in the field triggered a ‘woke alarm’ in some less-qualified quarters (McGrath 2024). It was always likely to be a crowd pleaser, with something for every “exercitologist” (Bishop 2014: 24), whether amateur or professional. For those visitors who had cut their Roman military teeth on Graham Webster's seminal Roman Imperial Army (Webster 1969, 1979, 1985), it was going to have its work cut out to satisfy.

当帕台农神庙雕塑拒绝消失（从各个意义上来说）并且据称发现未编目的物品已被一名工作人员出售时，大英博物馆需要一些好消息。当他们在 BP 画廊（本身经常引起争议：Puffett 2023）的新展览《军团：罗马军队的生活》开幕并获得几乎普遍的媒体好评时，大家一定都松了一口气（例如 Clark 2024；Jones 2024）；它的运行时间为2024年2月1日至6月23日。然而，一位具有该领域资格的学者在她的博客中发表的一些（完全有效的）观察结果在一些资质较差的领域引发了“警钟”（McGrath 2024）。它总是很可能会受到大众的欢迎，为每个“运动专家”（Bishop 2014：24），无论是业余爱好者还是专业人士，提供一些东西。对于那些已经在格雷厄姆·韦伯斯特（Graham Webster）的开创性的罗马帝国军队（Webster 1969、1979、1985）中接触过罗马军事知识的参观者来说，这本书将会有足够的工作来满足他们。