Tarentum in southern Italy may have been a Spartan colony, but when it was under pressure from first its Italic neighbours and then Rome itself, it preferred to call in some help from abroad.

Theme: Hellenistic mercenary armies in Southern Italy

• Tristan Hughes, 'Hellenistic kings meddling in Italy - Hired help from overseas'.
• Walter Goralski, 'A new reconstruction of Heraclea - Pyrrhus meets Rome'.
• Paul Michael Bardunias, 'A king in search of a kingdom - Cleonymus of Sparta'.
• Nicholas Sekunda, 'Deployment at Asculum - The army of Pyrrhus'.

Features:

• Murray Dahm, 'Completing the hoplite accoutrement - The well-greaved Greek'.
• Svenja Fabian, 'Gladiators and the Roman army - The disgraced as soldiers'.
• Graham Wrightson, 'Combined arms and integrated warfare, part I - All together now'.
• Tacticus, 'Taktikè Technè, part x - Swordsmanship in the Graeco-Roman world'.
• Murray Dahm, 'Panels from a missing Roman arch - Trajan's lost Praetorians'.
• Duncan B. Campbell, 'Hospital staff in the Roman army - Running the Valetudinarium'.