Nero's Killing Machine: The True Story of Rome's Remarkable 14th Legion

The Glorious Saga of the Most Celebrated Legion of the Early Roman Empire

The 14th Gemina Martia Victrix Legion was the most celebrated military unit of the early Roman Empire. After participating in the A.D. 43 invasion of Britain, the legion achieved its greatest glory when it put down the famous rebellion led by Britain’s Queen Boudicca. Numbering less than 10,000 men, the disciplined Roman soldiers defeated 230,000 rampaging British rebels, slaughtering 80,000 while incurring only 400 losses—an accomplishment that led the emperor Nero to honor the legion with the title “Conqueror of Britain.”

In this gripping book, second in the author’s definitive histories of the legions of ancient Rome, Stephen Dando-Collins brings the 14th Legion to life, offering a unique soldier’s-eye view of their tactics, campaigns, and battles and exploring the gruesome realities of war in the Classical Age. Based on his thirty-two years of painstaking research into the Roman military, Nero’s Killing Machine paints a striking portrait of daily life in the legion as it traces its storied history—beginning with the disastrous day in 54 B.C. when, led into a trap while serving under Julius Caesar, the legion was wiped from the face of the earth.

Filled with previously unknown details about Roman military practices, Nero’s Killing Machine is a riveting, eye-opening history of the mean who made Rome great.

Stephen Dando-Collins is the author of Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome (Wiley). He is an Australian-born researcher, editor, and author who has spent the last three decades identifying and studying the individual legions of the Roman army of the late Republic and the empire of Caesar.