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The newspapers and airwaves are awash with exotic sounding military terms, as pundits and armchair generals try to explain complex military concepts, strategies and acronyms to a de-militarised general public in sound-bite terms. From the large manoeuvre units advancing on Baghdad during the high intensity phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation TELIC, to the on-going low intensity operations against terrorists and insurgents around the world, many of these ideas are presented as being “new” ways of operating, sometimes even “revolutionary”. But are they really as novel as their proponents would have us believe? In fact, many such ‘innovations’, in both the low and high intensity domains of conflict, were current by the time of, and during, the Roman Empire 2000 years ago. Roman commanders were fully aware of many of the same principals – and pitfalls – as modern day commanders. High-intensity Combat Long before Cromwell’s New Model Army, the Romans had a standing, professional Army, with individually numbered Legions, and a sophisticated recruitment, training and logistics organisation. They conducted extensive training: drill, marching and digging in, working up via the Classical equivalent of “paint-balling ” exercises to combined arms operations, and extensive – and innovative – comba