Roman Special Forces

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Romans were renowned for their military prowess and skill. Their legions successfully conquered vast swathes of the Mediterranean world, led by battle-weathered centurions trained in the art of war and strategy. But did the Romans owe any of their military success to the actions of special forces? In short, did the Romans have an SAS?

In this episode of the Ancients Tristan Hughes is joined by friend of the show Dr Simon Elliott to explore whether or not the Romans employed elite SAS style units on their far-flung conquests and discover how they used specially trained scouts to carry out covert operations on the frontiers of Empire.

This episode was produced by Joseph Knight, and edited by Aidan Lonergan

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Transcript

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0:00.0	If you're enjoying all the content in this episode and the rest of the ancient series,
0:03.8	then why not join me on a trip uncovering Pompeii and Herculaneum alongside the legendary
0:09.2	archaeologist Dr. Sophie Hay. You'll get exclusive access to the Vesuvian sites,
0:14.3	a Plontis and the Bay of Naples. To book now or find out more about this
0:18.8	and other historical trips, just go to History Hit.com
0:22.3	forward slash trips. It's the Enchamps on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's
0:42.1	episode where we are going to be looking at some extraordinary, albeit quite elusive
0:46.2	Roman military units.
0:48.0	Forget Legionaries, forget auxiliaries.
0:50.0	It's time to focus on names such as Speculatoris, exploratories, Ariani and so on.
0:57.0	We're going to be delving into what we know about these unique units and evaluating whether we can label them as Roman Special Forces.
1:05.0	Now our guest today is none other than Dr. Simon Elliot.
1:09.0	Simon he's a good friend of the podcast and he's recently written a book all about this all about Roman
1:14.2	Special Forces. I really do hope you enjoy and here's Simon.
1:21.1	Simon it is wonderful to have you back on the podcast.
1:23.4	It's a delight to be on the ancients Tristam.
1:25.8	You have embarked on this mission to figure out what were and what weren't the special forces
1:30.7	of the Roman Empire?
1:31.7	I have, so I've got a book coming out called Roman Special Forces
1:34.2	through Pen and Sword, and in it, I think actually,
1:36.6	I write in saying it's the only book ever written
1:38.6	which covers Special Forces and probably even
	...

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