Why were the Triarii differently equipped?

[Renatus]

There are many ways to discredit a book without actually bringing the reader’s attention to what the book is really about. I read one review that tore apart a book based on highlighting incorrect grammar, and missing commas etc. It finished the review by stating after finding these mistakes on the first ten pages, reviewing the rest of the book would be a waste of time. The academic writing the review was deflecting the reader from the real issue, the author had proven the reviewer’s theories were wrong. There’s nothing like academia regulating itself.

I will not attempt to defend the reviewer because I do not know the instance that you refer to (or, more correctly, "to which you refer"!) but the fact is that, if you get your reader's back up in the first few pages, you risk losing him or her before you are able to make your point. I read a thesis once that had a mistake on virtually every page: miscited references, misspelt names, the title of Arrian's Ectaxis rendered partly in transliterated Greek and partly in Latin and, most unforgivably of all, a reference that, when checked, did not support (or even mention) the point that it was supposed to evidence. As far as I could discern it through the red mist, the author's argument did not stand up anyway but, by then, I had completely lost faith in his scholarship. If an author wants to make his case to its full advantage, he owes it to his readership and to himself to present it in readable, grammatical English, French, German or whatever the language may be, so that the reader (particularly if he is likely to be critical) is not distracted and is compelled to concentrate on the force of the argument.