ABSTRACT
The point at which we start is a standard, training-manual, definition of what forms the basis of military intelligence: ‘that which is accepted as fact, based on all available information about an actual or potential enemy or area of oper ations’. It is a definition which we find useful and it forms the basis of much of this book. Behind it lies the perhaps obvious truism that without intelligence, an arm ed force, regardless of its size, operates with a much reduced hope of success. At all periods military strength and the maintenance of power in defens ive and offensive situations have depended to varying degrees on a regular flow of intelligence provided by a wide variety of agencies and sources. The Romans, one would think, were no different in their intelligence needs.
