Did a much earlier Manual like thStrategikon exist

[Palmerius2002]

24 July 2013

The Strategikon came latter 6th century? but what did 1st Century through the 5th Century Roman Military Leaders
have for a military Manual? Where can I get a copy to read?

Was it all wrote memorization for Roman leaders or did they go by a manual for training and strategy?


Thanks....

Geoffrey Ives

[Flavivs Aetivs]

They didn't have one. The only thing somewhat comparable are Vegetius and the Notitia, which were both written in the late 4th century. The Notitia was a Unit Listing, and Vegetius was basically like a panegyric about the Roman Army to be presented to the Emperor, and it doesn't mention much about tactics and what not and is 'mournful for the old days' so to speak.

[jkaler48]

Reconstructing just a basic Drill manual has been challenging involving a lot research and informed guess. A copy can be found here: http://www.ludusmilitis.org/articles/LM_...y_2010.pdf We hope to be able to do some work on an advanced tactics
manual sometime in the future.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

For the 5th century it would be somewhat appropriate to use the strategikon, because much of the strategikon is the same tactics and warfare in the late roman era, but you know, in greek.

[Sean Manning]

They didn't have one. The only thing somewhat comparable are Vegetius and the Notitia, which were both written in the late 4th century. The Notitia was a Unit Listing, and Vegetius was basically like a panegyric about the Roman Army to be presented to the Emperor, and it doesn't mention much about tactics and what not and is 'mournful for the old days' so to speak.

That said, for the next thousand years soldiers felt that Vegetius was all the book learning they needed!

In general, in the ancient world as today new books on practical topics drove the old ones out of common use. So Eusebius replaced older chronicles, and Vegetius older Latin military works, just like in 2013 hardly anyone reads textbooks from 1993. Vegetius in turn probably used, but didn't cite, authors between his named sources and his own day.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Ugh... Citations. I'm with Vegetius on that one.

[Palmerius2002]

Thanks for the information.

Its useful.

Does anyone out there sell a copy of the Strategikon?
Who publishes it.

I am thinking of taking notes from this to use in
Roman roll playing games it will help me to understand
strategy, and tactics better.

[Macedon]

Also read Arrian, his Techne Tactice (some tidbits there) and especially his Ektaxis are the closest thing there is to a manual offering information relative to the Roman army. He and Vegetius are the only relevant "manuals" until Mauricius and the two other contemporary -probably- treatises (De Re Militari and De Re Strategica - both in Greek).

[Graham Sumner]

Hello Geoffrey

Probably the nearest to what you are after for an earlier period would be Frontinus
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stratagems-Loeb-...=frontinus

Best wishes.

Graham.

[Macedon]

Frontinus' work is a book to "teach by example", very interesting in itself but not in the style of a manual and touching on multiple eras. However, I agree with Graham that it is very interesting too and if it helps you, then you should also read Polyaenus whose work is practically similar, that is chapters that aim at teaching about a certain tactical situation filled with examples from all eras.

[ValentinianVictrix]

I'm sure that Vegetius references other works that he used in the construction of his Epitome.

I'm afraid you will get nowhere reading the Notitia as its not a military manual of any description, just a list of Roman units, military leaders and where they were based.

Vegetius appears to have selected what he considered the best bits from the military manuals he had access to and then constructed his work from them. Its not a panegyric as suggested by one of the other posters on this thread, more it was a case of Vegetius wanting to bring back what he thought was the glory days of the Roman Army before the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.

It does contain most of what an officer in the Roman army would require to build and army from scratch, there is advice on how to select recruits, what methods there were to train them, how to form up an army for battle, what stratagems a commander could use etc.

it also has a valuable section on seige warfare if you get the full version in say Milner's translation.

As someone else pointed out, it was in use right the way from when it was written probably sometime in the 5th Century AD to the American Civil War (At least one ACW general had a copy in his possession). I believe it was still referred to up to fairly modern times in the Officer Training school here in the UK.

If I remember correctly, the Strategikon and other Byzantine military manuals appear to have been influenced by Vegetius to some extent or another.

[Robert Vermaat]

There is a difference between a manuscript such as the Strategikon, a treatise like Vegetius' book or De rebus bellicis, and what the Roman army used to train troops. Maurice wrote a manual for junior officers, Arrian wrote to the emperor to save his job, Vegetius wrote a work in which he recommended reforms but based on an ideal, the anonymous wrote with probably no military experience at all. Of these writers, probably only Arrian and Maurice had military experience. I see no evidence of Vegetius in later Greek treatises, he was perhaps only rediscovered after the MIddle Ages.

The Strategikon is unique in the sense that it includes many original commands.

[M. Demetrius]

When you say, "original commands", do you mean commands not found in other sources, or are you saying that Mauritius authored them?

[Mark Hygate]

The lost work by Frontinus would be a great find - but it too might be a bit 'detached' for the detail we're after.

I'm minded to believe that there simply may never have been one.....

Old soldiers taught young ones and the system continued almost without change for many centuries. The system became established, many of the teachers couldn't read and thus no one ever wrote it down. It's not even necessary.

For many of the things we have been discussing recently, I do not think it needs to be even that complicated - so it is certainly possible that it was never codified.

[M. Caecilius]

I disagree that there were no similar manuals before. We do know of a few books that are lost to us: as I've recently looked into Roman medicine, Celsus springs to mind. Quintillian says of him (Inst. Orat. 12.11.24): "Cornelius Celsus, a man of mediocre talent, wrote not even on these arts, but much more he has left teachings on military affairs, on agriculture, and on medicine." If his treatise on military matters at all resembled his extant de Medicina, it would have come close to a Strategikon, despite Quintillian's opinion of his talent. Vegetius himself mentions his sources at I.8: Cato Censor, Cornelius Celsus (cf. Quintillian), Frontinus (does he mean the Strategemata, or something else?), as well as Paternus (military law) and constitutions of Augustus, Trajan and Hadrian.