Although I enjoyed reading it at the time, Hildinger's SWORDS AGAINST THE SENATE, which purports to be a study of how the Roman army in the late Republic became the increasing tool of the factions and warlords, ended up by being mildly disappointing.

I'm not quite sure why! He does go into detail about the changes in tactics, organization, and payment that we know of during the latter years of the second century - he does a good job explaining how the legions were set up, how maniples operated, the importance of the later change to cohorts, all in the midst of discussions of the wars with Jugurtha, the rise of Marius and Sulla, what went wrong with the Gracchi - there's lots of good stuff here. But somehow it seems rather unfocused, and Hildinger literally stops the book bam! with the unchallenged dictatorship of Sulla, and there is no summing up or overview of the relationship of Senate v. Army. So while there's lots of good stuff here, and I agree with Hildinger at how important the period between the Gracchi and Sulla's dictatorship is - yet I can't give it five stars. Four, maybe?