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Stratagems of War
#1
Has anyone read this book by Polyaenus..?
Johnny
Johnny Shumate
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#2
Yes, I did; actually, I found it a bit boring to read, but it is often useful for reference, and contains historical anecdotes not found in other sources. He is the only author who offers a detail about the war in which Seleucus defeated Antigonus.
Jona Lendering
Relevance is the enemy of history
My website
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#3
I would agree with Jona; really more functional as a reference than as a work worth reading in and of itself. It is very similar to Frontinus (which you can find at LacusCurtius) but without the same organization. Just short episodes grouped under various ancient generals, kings and military leaders.

Quote: He is the only author who offers a detail about the war in which Seleucus defeated Antigonus.

Do you mean Greek author? Because I swear I have read an article that discusses the Babylonian astronomical diaries/records as a source for some of the fighting between the two…
Paul Klos

\'One day when I fly with my hands -
up down the sky,
like a bird\'
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#4
Hi,
I'd just add, that a (greater) part of Polyaenus' text can now be found on Attalus:

http://www.attalus.org/translate/polyaenus.html

Greetings
Alexandr
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#5
Quote:
Quote: He is the only author who offers a detail about the war in which Seleucus defeated Antigonus.
Do you mean Greek author? Because I swear I have read an article that discusses the Babylonian astronomical diaries/records as a source for some of the fighting between the two…
Yes, that is what I meant. I have tried to make a synthesis of what is known about the Babylonian war over here, with links to all sources, including Polyaenus. I will treat the matter at some length in a chapter in my forthcoming book.

The very latest on the Hellenistic cuneiform stuff is Van der Spek's new edition of the Chronicle of the Diadochi, which I had the honor to prepublish over here. The manuscript of the "paper version" of the new edition, a book called Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period, will soon be finished, and publication will take place in 2007. An interesting text will be the Ptolemy III Chronicle, which describes how the Ptolemaic king captured Babylon during the Laodicean War (more...).
Jona Lendering
Relevance is the enemy of history
My website
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#6
Hi All,

Well grrrr :wink: My Masters thesis was on Polyaenus (The Genre of Military Tactical Literature and the Strategemata of Polyaenus of Macedon(Auckland, 1994)) and I have to say (and I am very biased) that he is an intruiging author (and not at all boring Tongue ) not only for the survival of otherwise lost sources but also for his place in the genre and second sophistic. His writing for the Parthian War of Lucius Verus also makes the work remarkable (especially since in the preface to book five he thanks the emperors for reading it - too bold a claim to make if there was no truth in it. This makes the Strategemata one of the few works that we know was actually read by its intended imperial audience).

Also if you look at translations of the work they have been made specifically for later wars (1793 especially where is was published as a handbook for British officers and dedicated to the marquis Cornwallis (of Yorktown fame) This was so popular it received a second edition in 1796.

For recent bibliography see:

ahem ... Murray K. Dahm 'Polyaenus of Macedon and Alexander the Great', Archaiognosia 11 (2001-2), 29-46. (this countered some arguments made by Hammond below and sought to place Polyaenus in his sophistic and literary context - I do have copies if anyone wants one send me a PM Confusedhock: )

Kostas Buraselis 'The Roman World of Polyainos. Aspects of a Macedonian Career between Classical Past and Provincial Present', Archaiognosia 8 (1993-4), 121-140.

N. G. L. Hammond 'Some Passages in Polyaenus Stratagems concerning Alexander' GRBS 37 (1996) 25-53.

Maria Schettino Introduzione a Polieno (Pisa, 1998)

There have also been recent translations into Italian, Russian and Spanish. Wheeler and Krentz' 1994 translation was the first in English since 1796 and although the introduction makes some intruiging claims (all unreferenced), Wheeler's promised monograph never appeared. Certainly the scholarship on Polyaenus recently has been better than that which came out of Harvard in the 1960s and 70s (Rolly Janet Phillips The Sources and Methods of Polyaenus (PhD Diss. 1970) and P Stadter Plutarch's Historical Methods: An analysis of the Mulierum Virtutes (Camb, Mass, 1965))

I think I have already said too much but my subsequent Master of Literature thesis was on Frontinus (The Career and Writings of Sextus Julius Frontinus (Auckland 1997)) and it is available on Bill Thayer's Lacus Curtius site.

Hope I wasn't too aggressive :oops:

Cheers

Murray
Murray K Dahm

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#7
No, not aggressive. One must defend the texts one studies and finds interesting. Probably, no one, excerpt for me, sees the splendor of the Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period, and I would also write something like: that's not boring at all!

This being said, a former colleague is very interested in the Second Sophistic and may find your article very useful. So if you can send me the MS Word file, that would be much appreciated.
Jona Lendering
Relevance is the enemy of history
My website
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