Vote on themes for Ancient Warfare volume XI

Every year, I ask readers to send me their ideas for themes for the next volume of Ancient Warfare. The first issue, XI.1, has already been decided: archery in the ancient world. But the themes for the other fives issues are up for grabs. As always, this volume will feature, aside from the ‘general’ theme that has already been decided, two Greek issues, two Roman issues, and one non-Greco-Roman or ‘early’ issue. If you don’t want to wait any longer, you can visit the poll immediately (update: now closed).

For the pre-Alexander Greek issue, the options are:

• Brother against brother: war among the Greeks of Southern Italy

• Greek warfare of the Early Iron Age, ca. 1200 to 800 BC

• Greece’s master horsemen: the Thessalian League

For the post-Alexander Greek issue, you can pick from these themes:

• The ruthless warrior-king: Demetrius the Besieger (r. 294–283 BC)

• At the edge of the world: the Greco-Bactrian kingdom

• Greece vs Macedon: the Chremonidean War (267–261 BC)

For the Republican Roman issue, I’ve selected these options from suggestions I’ve received:

• Controlling the Adriatic: the Illyrian Wars (229–168 BC)

• Death to Carthage: the Third Punic War (149–146 BC)

• Rome against its allies: the Social War (91–88 BC)

• Crossing the Rubicon: Caesar’s Civil War (49–45 BC)

For the Imperial Roman issue, your options include the following:

• Render unto Caesar: the conquest of Britain

• Queen Zenobia of Palmyra (r. AD 267–ca. 275) versus Rome

• Turning point: the Gothic war of AD 376–382

And, finally, there’s a number of interesting possibilities regarding the theme for the non-Greco-Roman issue:

• The Neo-Babylonian Empire (626–539 BC)

• The Thracians

• African warfare (from Numidians and Libyans to machemoi and Nubians)

• Ancient Israel at war

I have a pretty shrewd idea as to what I’ll pick for the first issue of volume XII, unless the votes for themes from the list above have a very close runner-up that should obviously be picked instead. At this point, I can perhaps also reveal that next year will see the publication of a new paper special, similar to what we’ve done before on the Varian Disaster and the Battle of Marathon, but further details will be released later this year.

For now, please head over to this Surveymonkey page (update: now closed) to pick your favourite themes for the issues of volume XI. You can vote until 31 May 2016, after which the poll will be closed. I will publish the results on this very blog. The editorial plan will then also be updated, so you can check when the deadlines are for proposal submissions for every issue of volume XI as well as issue XII.1.