Terry Jones of Monty Python fame appears to have a new book coming out, and The Times Online has an interesting excerpt:

The unique feature of Rome was not its arts or its science or its philosophical culture, not its attachment to law. The unique feature of Rome was that it had the world’s first professional army. Normal societies consisted of farmers, hunters, craftsmen and traders. When they needed to fight they relied not on training or on standardised weapons, but on psyching themselves up to acts of individual heroism.

Seen through the eyes of people who possessed trained soldiers to fight for them, they were easily portrayed as simple savages. But that was far from the truth.

See Ellen! My ancestors weren't just a bunch of naked loons who painted themselves blue and danced around like maniacs! We had culture.