¹ The Epitoma rei militaris will hereafter be abbreviated DRM. Standard edition by Carl Lang (Leipzig 1885, reprinted); very important emendations by Andersson, A., Studia Vegetiana (Uppsala 1938), who, among other things, established that the chapter divisions and headings are intrinsic to the book. A new ninth-century manuscript in the π-class was discovered in 1938 (Vat.Pal.lat.1572): Felix Grat, CR Acad. Inscr. (1938) 513. See also Finch, Chauncey, ‘Codices Pal. lat. 1571–1572 as Sources for Vegetius,’ American Philological Association, Transactions and Proceedings 93 (1962) 22–9. I have not seen the new edition of Bks. 1–2 by Stelten, L. F. (Diss., St. Louis University 1970). An edition for the Budé collection is currently in preparation.Google Scholar

Translations: Into French, Meyer, Paul, Romania 25 (1896) 401–23; Knowles, C., ibid. 75 (1954) 353–8; Thorpe, L., Scriptorium 6 (1952) 39–50; Legge, M. D., ibid. 7 (1953) 262–5. Into English, H. N. MacCracken in Anniversary Papers by Colleagues and Pupils of G. L. Kittredge (Boston-London 1913) 389–403. A thirteenth-century Italian version (by Bonus Giambonius) and a fifteenth-century one into German are listed in Lang ed., xlvi–vii. Copious extracts from Jean de Vignai's translation entered Christine de Pisan's popular Livre des fais d'armes et de chevalrie (1408–9), translated into English and printed by Caxton (1490), ed. Byles, A. T. P., EETS 189 (London 1932 [1937]). As MacCracken aptly noted (390), ‘The authority exercised by [Vegetius] … is among the wonders of literary history.’ For a version in Castilian, below n. 4.Google Scholar

Incunabula: Hain nos. 15910–15918 (including translations into German, French, and English).Google Scholar

² The treatise of Urbicius — an epitome of Arrian's Tactica omitting the sections on cavalry — is edited in Hermes 12 (1877) 467–71. See also Dain, A. and J. A. de Foucault, ‘Les stratégistes byzantins,’ Travaux et mémoires 2 (1967) 336–74.Google Scholar

³ DRM 3.26: ‘De equitatu sunt multa praecepta; sed cum haec pars militiae usu exercitii, armorum genere, equorum nobilitate profecerit, ex libris nihil arbitror colligendum, cum praesens doctrina sufficiat.’ This does not mean that cavalry is altogether overlooked (notably in Bk. 3), but it deliberately appears as a subsidiary element.Google Scholar

Vegetius is explicitly called philosophus and so portrayed in the early fourteenth-century Anglo-Norman translation described by Lewis Thorpe, Scriptorium 6 (1952) 41 and pl. 13.Google Scholar

For the practical influence of Vegetius on high medieval warfare, Delpech, H., La tactique au 13^e siècle (Paris 1886) II 125–46 (not available to me), summarized by Hoffman Nickerson in Spalding, O. L. et al., Warfare: A Study of Military Methods from the Earliest Times (N. Y. 1925) 294–7, with the comment (297), ‘It is astonishing to note how these short-service troops … imitated in everyway they could the permanent professional army of the later Empire.’Google Scholar

⁴ Hrabanus Maurus De procinctu Romanae militiae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, Zeitschrift für das deutsche Altertum 15 (1872) 443–51. Further details on Vegetius in the early Middle Ages in Prinz, F., Klerus und Krieg im frühen Mittelalter (Stuttgart 1971) 111–12. Adaptations in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Webb, C. C. J., ed., Ioannis Sarisberiensis Policratici libri VIII (Oxford 1909) xxxvii, ‘Vegetii Renati Epitomen Rei Militaris saepissime citat Ioannes. Huius exemplar testamento ecclesiae Carnotensi legavit.’ Dickinson, J., tr. (N. Y. 1927), Policraticus 6.19, ‘… I have borrowed much [from Vegetius] because he has treated the art of war with great elegance and thoroughness, although stinting examples.’ The Segunda Partida of Alfonso X of Castille's mid-thirteenth-century compilation Siete Partidas deals with education: ‘… it does not take deep study to perceive that [tit. 17–30 owe] much, both in form and content, to the De re militari, as is only to be expected’ (Legge, M. D., Scriptorium 7 [1953] 264). Aegidius Colonna (Giles of Rome), while tutor to the future Philip IV of France, adapted Vegetius to the language of scholasticism in his De regimine principum 3.3. The De regimine was later translated into French. On Machiavelli, Gilbert, Felix, ‘Machiavelli: the Renaissance Art of War,’ in Makers of Modern Strategy ed. Earl, E. M. (Princeton 1941), 16–17, 21; for his chief departure from Vegetius, below n. 127.Google Scholar

⁵ Jähns, Max, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften I (Munich-Leipzig 1889) 109–25, where Marshall de Ligne is quoted (124).Google Scholar

⁶ Jones, C. W., ‘Bede and Vegetius,’ Classical Review 46 (1932) 248–9: Bede uses Vegetius extensively but never acknowledges him by name.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Jähns, , Kriegswissenschaften I 124–5. Although Jähns stated that 1824 marked the last time when a military author dealt with Vegetius, there was a German translation in 1827, and information suggesting continuous interest in military circles is supplied by Phillips, T. R., Roots of Strategy: A Collection of Military Classics (Harrisburg, Pa. 1940) 72.Google Scholar

⁸ Justus Lipsius De militia Romana (Antwerp 1596) I dialog. II, cited in Nicolas Schwebel's edition of Vegetius (Nuremberg 1767) 63.Google Scholar

⁹ William Förster, Johannes, De fide Flavii Vegetii Renati (Bonn 1879). This short book, wholly confined to a critique of DRM 2, was occasioned by a Bonn University essay competition. It marks the high point in negative criticism, the blow from which Vegetius has yet to recover (cf. Jähns, Kriegswissenschaften I 125: ‘… there is no prospect that its credit will rise again’). Hans Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst ³ II (Berlin 1921; reprinted) 211–12, documents the damage done to Vegetius by the presupposition that he was an historian.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Schanz, M., ‘Zu den Quellen des Vegetius,’ Hermes 16 (1881) 137–46; Schenk, Denkfrid, Fl. Vegetius Renatus. Die Quellen der Epitoma rei militaris (Leipzig 1930), with the unfavorable review by Lammert, F., Gnomon 10 (1934) 271–4; Parker, H. M. D., ‘The antiqua legio of Vegetius,’ Classical Quarterly 26 (1932) 137–49; Sander, Erich, ‘Die antiqua ordinatio legionis des Vegetius,’ Klio 32 (1939) 382–91; Neumann, A., ‘Vegetius,’ RE Suppl. 10 (1965) 990–1018 (dominated by the Quellenfrage). The indecisiveness of the results attained is best illustrated by the sustained controversy between Sander (who appears committed to the idea that Vegetius simply recorded earlier writings) and Lammert (who stressed the complexity of materials and influences gathered together by Vegetius); see, in addition to the items just cited, Sander in Philologische Wochenschrift 48 (1928) 908–10; 49 (1929) 1230–1; 50 (1930) 955–8; 51 (1931) 395ff.; Historische Zeitschrift 149 (1934) 457–76; Rheinisches Museum 95 (1952) 79–96; 99 (1956) 153–72. Lammert, , Klio 31 (1938) 389–411; 33 (1940) 271–88; Wiener Studien 58 (1940) 89–95.Google Scholar

¹¹ E.g., Watson, G. R., The Roman Soldier (London 1969) 26–7, and Oxford Classical Dictionary ² (1970) 1110–11, the thrust of whose exposition seems to be that, because Vegetius is untrustworthy for the early imperial army, only his Nachwirkung is interesting. On the other hand, some current reference works still portray the Roman legion along essentially Vegetian lines — a tribute to the seductive quality of the DRM; e.g., Neumann, A., ‘Legio,’ Die kleine Pauly 3 (1969) 538–46.Google Scholar

¹² The Speyer manuscript, written ca. 900 in the middle Rhine region, has been lost since the sixteenth century; it can be reconstructed on the basis of several late copies. The most famous of its contents was the Notitia dignitatum. For a full list, see E. A. Thompson's edition of the Anonymous: A Roman Reformer and Inventor (Oxford 1952) 6–17, with the interesting observation that five items of the collection are illustrated. Thompson's edition, with extensive discussion and translation, has greatly contributed to the recent fame of the Anonymous; Thompson's praise was anticipated by A. Piganiol, L'Empire chrétien (Paris 1947) 200: ‘plus lourd de réflexions audacieuses et sages, de promesses de progrès, de confiance dans la pensée, plus plein d'avenir que toute la législation d'un Valentinien’; 390: ‘un esprit merveilleusement inventif.’ On the probable date 366–375, Thompson (1–2) endorsed Seeck's argument (RE 1 [1894] 2325). S. Reinach (‘Un homme à projets du Bas-Empire,’ Revue archéologique 5th ser. 16 [1922] 205–65) had the merit of drawing renewed attention to the treatise. For further modern enthusiasm in its regard, see S. Mazzarino, Aspetti sociali del IV secolo (Rome 1951) 72–109 and passim, and Paschoud (next note).Google Scholar

¹³ Paschoud, F., ‘Roma aeterna’: Études sur le patriotisme romain dans l'Occident latin à l'époque des Grandes Invasions (Rome 1967) 118.Google Scholar

¹⁴ The distant past is evoked in a capsule history of money, later echoed by Isidore of Seville, suggesting a common source. Thompson, Reformer 79: ‘Except in the case of the scythed chariots the Anonymous has freed himself from the past: his concern is with the present. He accepts the position as he finds it, and tries to improve upon it.’ This assessment is open to question. Many of the conditions that the Anonymous criticizes stem from comparatively recent measures or developments, which he contrasts to an implicitly simpler past. He does not seem to be able, or perhaps to wish, to establish why these by no means ancient measures were originally taken, but he is convinced that they — not just their effects (cf. Aurelius Victor De Caesaribus 39.32, on Diocletian's tax measures) — were pernicious. His criticism, therefore, presupposes not perhaps a Golden Age but at least a past when conditions were preferable to those currently prevailing.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Vegetius Digestorum artis mulomedicinae libri IV, ed. Lommatzsch, E. (Leipzig 1903) (for the authorship, below n. 124). On the style of the Anonymous, Thompson, Reformer 4–5, regarding it as somehow out of keeping with the contents. Further on Vegetius, the comment of Marshall de Ligne (as above n. 5): ‘I don't know why his Latin is not liked; I myself like it very much, because I understand it” (i.e., its simplicity is within the reach of a soldier's Latin). See also the comment of Christoph Schöner, Studien zu Vegetius (Erlangen 1888) 16, on the repetitive deliberateness with which Vegetius lays out his teaching, especially in DRM 1; cf. Andersson, Studia 27.Google Scholar

¹⁶ The Anonymous offers no remedies except imperial abstention for some of the problems he pinpoints, but when he does (i.e., regarding coinage and enlistment), the measures suggested are as heavy-handed and radical as those normally instituted during the fourth century; e.g., the confinement of minters to an island. Legislating a new radical program to remedy the defects of a not-very-old and equally radical program does have something ‘modern’ about it, but not necessarily in a favorable sense of the word.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Paschoud, , Roma aeterna 118; Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire (Oxford 1964) 1036; Mazzarino, S., The End of the Ancient World, tr. Holmes, G. (N. Y. 1966) 55.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Lang ed., ix n. 1.Google Scholar

¹⁹ E.g., the commentary of Stewechius, reprinted in Scriverius, P., Veteres de re militari scriptores (Webel 1670); Schwebel's edition of Vegetius (1767) xiii; Jähns, Kriegswissenschaften I 110.Google Scholar

²⁰ History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. Bury, J. B., III 187 n. 128. More precisely, Gibbon stated his reason by allusion: ‘The series of calamities which [Vegetius] marks compel us to believe that the Hero to whom he dedicates the book is …’ etc. This idea, which Gibbon may have thought unnecessary to develop, turns out to be the most important step towards a solution; see below 80–82. An earlier partisan of dating to the reign of Valentinian III was the humanist Pomponius Laetus, cited by Stewechius, as above n. 19.Google Scholar

²¹ Lang ed. vi.Google Scholar

²² Ibid, vii–viii.Google Scholar

²³ ‘Die Zeit des Vegetius,’ Hermes 11 (1876) 61–83.Google Scholar

²⁴ Lang ed. ix, citing important works other than Gibbon on Seeck's side. It is doubtful that Lang would have set forth his previous views at length if he had been wholly persuaded by Seeck. With Seeck, notably, Grosse, R., ‘Die römisch-byzantinischen Marschlager,’ Byzantinische Zeitschrift 22 (1913) 96. Thompson, , Reformer 32, 79, and Jones, , Later Roman Empire 642, chose Valentinian III without explanation.Google Scholar

²⁵ Siegmund Teuffel, Wilhelm, Geschichte der römischen Literatur ⁶ III (Leipzig 1913) 314, stressed that Seeck's findings were not decisive and reaffirmed the Theodosian alternative; Jähns, , Kriegswissenschaften, I 110, was at a loss to decide; Schanz-Hosius, Geschichte der römischen Literatur ² 4.1 (Munich 1914) 195–6, leaned more categorically than Teuffel toward Theodosius; Schenck, Quellen 3 n. 2, without discussion; Neumann, RE Suppl. 10 (1965) 993, on the basis of Schöner's argument, as below 76; so also de Jonge, P., ‘Ammianus and Vegetius,’ Ut pictura poesis (P. J. Enk Festschrift) edd. P. de Jonge et al. (Leyden 1955) 101.Google Scholar

²⁶ Giannelli, Giulio and Mazzarino, Santo, Trattato di storia romana II (Rome 1956) 487–9, 542–3; Oxford Classical Dictionary, as above n. 11.Google Scholar

²⁷ Antonio Sirago, Vito, Galla Placidia e la transformazione politica dell’ Occidente (Louvain 1961) 467–75, expanding on Mazzarino. Paschoud, Roma aeterna 110–18, without explicitly setting a date, discussed Vegetius (necessarily post-383) as though he had written before the Anonymous De rebus bellicis (whose probable terminus ante quem is 375). Grant, Michael, The Army of the Caesars (London 1974) 338, endorsed the date 388–91.Google Scholar

²⁸ Lang ed. vii. Per contra, Teuffel and Schanz-Hosius (as above n. 25), as well as Mazzarino (n. 26), regarded this as important, but without adequate explanation.Google Scholar

²⁹ On this, below 82–83.Google Scholar

³⁰ Lang ed. vii, xvii.Google Scholar

³¹ As above n. 1.Google Scholar

³² Trattato II 542.Google Scholar

³³ DRM 2.21.Google Scholar

³⁴ Cf. Jones, Later Roman Empire 566: ‘The clerks of the pretorian prefecture of the East were still in Justinian's day enrolled in Legio I Adiutrix …,” on the basis of Codex Justinianus 12.36.6 and 52.3.2 (444), and John Lydus De magistratibus populi Romani 3.3. Since there is no Western and no earlier evidence to this effect, and since Cod. Just. 12.36.6 (on the peculium castrense of praetoriani) states ‘as though (ac si) they served in our Legio I Adiutrix,’ I cannot help wondering whether the ‘traditional’ attachment to this legion might not have been much more true to John Lydus than it had ever been in, say, 400. The attachment of the prefect's adiutores to a legio adiutrix is so poetically fitting as to make one suspect that it originated in a literary imagination rather than in archival fact. Can any authentic link be shown between the historical Legio I Adiutrix and the prefect's staff, which presumably stemmed originally from the (non-legionary) Praetorian Guard? Nothing in the history of the legion, except the fifth-century laws, suggests such a transformation: Ritterling, RE 12 (1925) 1376–1404 (the Notitia shows it broken up like the other old legions).Google Scholar

³⁵ DRM 2.21: ‘Nam quasi in orbem quendam per diversas cohortes et diversas scholas milites promoventur, ita ut ex prima cohorte ad gradum quempiam promotus vadat ad decimam cohortem et rursus ab ea crescentibus stipendiis cum maiore gradu per alias recurrat ad primam.’ Whether or not this is historically true has no bearing on the present argument.Google Scholar

³⁶ Identity of adiutor and primiscrinius: Stein, Ernst, Untersuchungen zum Officium der praetorianer Prefektur (Vienna 1922) 57. Law of 444: Cod. Just. 12.52.3. Notitia Dignitatum, ed. Seeck, O. (Berlin 1876, reprinted), Or.2.51–2; Occ.2.42–6. Stein, E. (‘Untersuchungen zum Staatsrecht des Bas-Empire,’ Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, rom. Abt. 41 [1920] 195–239) established that the prefectoral princeps was the princeps scholae agentium in rebus, i.e., seconded from a corps subordinate to the magister officiorum. Google Scholar

³⁷ For Vegetius as a ‘bureaucrat,’ see below 89, the argument that he held office as comes sacrarum largitionum. It might be useful, in general, to distinguish ministerial dignities from the bureaucracy of the officia. Google Scholar

³⁸ Untersuchungen 60.Google Scholar

³⁹ Cassiodorus Variae 11.17–32, 9.20; also Cod. Just. 12.52.3, 49.12.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The contrary is implied: Untersuchungen 61.Google Scholar

⁴¹ E.g., Jones, , Later Roman Empire 565–6.Google Scholar

⁴² For the general outlines, ibid. and Jones, Studies in Roman Government and Law (Oxford 1960) 167. Conspectus in Seeck's edition of the Notitia Dignitatum 335–6; the officia where he is in fourth position, ND Occ. 26.23–26 to 31.34–7, where the last entries show the foreign source for the officials set ahead of the cornicularius. Regardless of whether cornicularii are always second to principes, no adiutor is ever set ahead of a cornicularius in the Notitia. John Lydus De magist. 3.3–4, and 22–5, argues at length that the corniculary was always the top man in the ladder of promotion. This is fanciful as regards the princeps but not in relation to the primiscrinius. Google Scholar

⁴³ Cod. Just. 12.52.3; Cassiod. Variae 11.17–18.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ John Lydus’ circumstantial account of the Augustales (De magist. 3.6 and 9), while open to question owing to its late date, offers a highly satisfactory explanation for the joint retirement of these two officials (attested since 444). Cf. Stein, Untersuchungen 31–2.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ For the Numidian ordo salutationis, Mommsen, Th., Gesammelte Schriften 8 (Berlin 1913) 481–2, lines 13–25; cf. Stein, , Untersuchungen 59. This is a governor's officium, not the prefect's, but the evidence retains value since officia tended to have a standard organization (cf. Jones, Later Roman Empire 565).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ De magistratibus 3.23.1–25.6.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Stein, , Untersuchungen 60; the primiscrinius became a distinct dignitary prior to 386.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Codex Theodosianus 1.16.7(331); John Lydus De magist. 3.11.3; cf. the Numidian ordo (n. 45); Novella Valentiniani III 28.1 (449). See also Cassiodorus Variae 9.6, a royal letter permitting an unnamed primiscrinius to enjoy all his perquisites while nursing his infirmities at Baia; in Cassiodorus’ charming phrase, he was relieved of emolumenticius terror, i.e., of the fear of having his long-awaited gains intercepted as a result of his absence.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ The positive instruction of Nov. Valent. 1, that the princeps is to be paid a fee for every change in the nominal roll (matricula) of the officium, is more likely to have been implemented than the broad directive that the primores officii are no longer to deny the princeps his due perquisites.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Passage quoted below n. 76.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Schöner, , Studien (n. 15 supra) 37. The exclusion of Valentinian II is generally accepted, for this or other reasons: his rather curious reign offers little scope for him to be considered as a serious contender for Vegetius’ dedication.Google Scholar

⁵² Neumann, cited above n. 10.Google Scholar

⁵³ L.c. (n. 51). I assume that Schöner was misled by modern usage of the phrase ‘the late.’ Since his argument is set out side by side with explicit quotations (notably the statement of de Rossi repeated here) indicating the correct sense of divus in late Antiquity, it is puzzling that he could reconcile the authorities he cited with his own odd conclusion.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ DRM 1.27 (Augustus and Hadrian); 2.7 (Vespasian); 2.3 (Trajan). The law codes are full of additional illustrations; so is the Historia Augusta. Google Scholar

⁵⁵ DRM 1.28, ‘Haec …, imperator invicte, … in hunc libellum enucleata congessi, ut … ad antiquae virtutis imitationem facile conroborare possit exercitum. Neque enim degeneravit in hominibus Martius calor nec effetae sunt terrae, quae Lacedaemonios, quae Athenienses, quae Marsos, quae Samnites, quae Pelignos, quae ipsos progenuere Romanos. Nonne Epiri armis plurimum aliquando valuerunt? Nonne Macedones ac Thessali superatis Persis usque ad Indiam bellando penetrarunt? Dacos autem et Moesos et Thracas in tantum bellicosos semper fuisse manifestum est, ut ipsum Martem fabulae apud eos natum esse confirment. Longum est, si universarum provinciarum vires enumerare contendam, cum omnes in Romani imperii dicione consistant.’Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Mazzarino, , Trattato II 542.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Sidonius Carmina 5.40–50. Regardless of the juridical (and practical) limits upon one emperor's acting in the sphere of the other, either one could be poetically regarded as lord of the whole Empire (and more).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Mazzarino, , Trattato 542–3; Sirago, , Galla Placidia 468. The Marsi and Peligni were Italic peoples prominent as enemies of Rome in the Social War: Oxford Classical Dictionary ² 651–2, 766. On the disputed Thracian origins of Mars (actually Ares), Farnell, L. R., The Cults of the Greek States V (Oxford 1909) 399–400.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ The list might have been lengthened by adding the peoples mentioned in DRM 1.1. For the topos involved in this passage, Ernst Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. Trask, W. R. (N. Y. 1953) 165–6 — notably the younger Pliny's deprecation of the idea that ‘exhausted Nature no longer produces anything worthy of praise’ (Epist. 6.21.1).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ DRM 4.pr., ‘Ideo potentissimae nationes ac principes consecrati nullam maiorem gloriam putaverunt quam aut fundare novas civitates aut ab aliis conditas in nomen suum sub quadam amplificatione transferre. In quo opere clementia serenitatis tuae obtinet palmam. Ab illis enim vel paucae vel singulae, a pietate tua innumerabiles urbes ita iugi labore perfectae sunt, ut non tam humana manu conditae quam divino nutu videantur natae.’Google Scholar

⁶¹ The argument is common to all supporters of the Theodosian date since Lang (above nn. 25–27); now, Mazzarino, Trattato 488; Sirago 468, 472.Google Scholar

⁶² For outdoing comparisons, Curtius, Eur. Lit. 162–5.Google Scholar

⁶³ Generically, urbs means a ‘walled town’ (Lewis and Short). Eutropius Breviarium 8.2 and 6, applies it to localities in Dacia and in barbaricum; likewise, Ammianus Rer. gest. 30.9.1.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ DRM 4.pr., ‘Sed dispositionibus vestrae clementiae quantum profecerit murorum elaborata constructio, Roma documentum est, quae salutem civium Capitolinae arcis defensione servavit, ut gloriosius postea totius orbis possideret imperium.’Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Below 85–86.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ DRM 2.pr., ‘Quid enim audacius, quam domino ac principi generis humani, domitori omnium gentium barbararum, aliquid de usu ac disciplina insinuare bellorum …’ (see also below 98–99); the passage on archery, etc., will be quoted in full shortly.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ The moderate form in Lang ed. vii; the other, Mazzarino, Trattato 522; Sirago 468, 470.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ The emperor is directly addressed six times as invictus; the other compliments are in DRM 4.pr., and 2.pr. Cf. ILS 804 (Valentinian III, ca. 440), ‘providentissimus omnium retro principum.’Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Loc. cit. n. 67, but he went on to argue from them nevertheless.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Seeck, ‘Zeit’ 65.Google Scholar

⁷¹ DRM 3.26, ‘… ut ad peritiam sagittandi, quam in serenitate tua Persa miratur, ad equitandi scientiam vel decorem, quae Hunnorum Alanorumque natio velit imitari, si possit, ad currendi velocitatem, quam Saracenus Indusque non aequat, ad armaturae exercitationem, cuius campidoctores vel pro parte exempla intellexisse gaudent, regula proeliandi, immo vincendi artificium iungeretur, quatenus virtute pariter ac dispositione mirabilis reipublicae tuae et imperatoris officium exhiberes et militis.’Google Scholar

⁷² Sirago 468.Google Scholar

⁷³ Cf. the account of Pulcheria's upbringing of Theodosius II in Sozomen Hist. eccl. 9.1. Valentinian III was practicing archery when he was murdered: John of Antioch, frag. 201.5, ed. Karl Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum IV 615.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Loc. cit. n. 70.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Constantius III is generally (and perhaps rightly) excluded as a result of his disputed legitimacy and a reign of only six months; hence, the possible addressees of the DRM are usually said to be six rather than seven emperors (e.g., Lang ed. vii).Google Scholar

⁷⁶ DRM 1.20, ‘Locus exigit, ut, quo armorum genere vel instruendi vel muniendi sint tirones, referre temptemus. Sed in hac parte antiqua penitus consuetudo deleta est; nam licet exemplo Gothorum et Alanorum Hunnorumque equitum arma profecerint, pedites constat esse nudatos. Ab urbe enim condita usque ad tempus divi Gratiani et catafractis et galeis muniebatur pedestris exercitus. Sed cum campestris exercitatio interveniente negligentia desidiaque cessaret, gravia videri arma coeperunt, quae raro milites induebant; itaque ab imperatore postulant primo catafractas, deinde cassides … refundere. Sic detectis pectoribus et capitibus congressi contra Gothos milites nostri multitudine saggitariorum saepe deleti sunt; nec post tot clades, quae usque ad tantarum urbium excidia pervenerunt, cuiquam curae fuit vel catafractas vel galeas pedestribus reddere.’Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Piganiol, Emp. chrét. 334; Mazzarino, Trattato 488; and others take Vegetius to mean that Gratian disarmed the infantry (identifying imperator with the previously mentioned Gratian); but the passage need not mean that the measure was taken during Gratian's reign rather than after it.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ DRM 1.28, ‘Sed longae securitas pacis homines partim ad delectationem otii partim ad civilia transduxit officia. Ita cura exercitii militaris primo neglegentius agi, postea dissimulari, ad postremum olim in oblivionem perducta cognoscitur, nec aliquis hoc superiore aetate accidisse miretur, cum post primum Punicum bellum viginti et quod excurrit annorum pax ita Romanos illos ubique victores otio et armorum desuetudine enervaverit, ut secundo Punico bello Hannibali pares esse non possent. Tot itaque consulibus, tot ducibus, tot exercitibus amissis, tunc demum ad victoriam pervenerunt, cum usum exercitiumque militare condiscere potuerunt.’Google Scholar

⁷⁹ The chronology did not need to be very precise: twenty years from Gratian's death coincides with Alaric in Italy, while twenty years after his accession coincides with Alaric's ravaging Greece; the approximation implied by ‘over twenty’ allows the needed latitude in a book such as this.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Contrary to Lang's (v) and Seeck's (‘Zeit’ 63–4) somewhat summary argument that the DRM must be western, Teuffel, Gesch. 314, contended that a Roman of the 420s would have addressed Theodosius II, on the grounds that he was senior emperor and exerted Oberaufsicht in the West during Valentinian's minority. This is a debating point against Seeck rather than a serious argument.Google Scholar

⁸¹ On Latin at Constantinople, Dagron, G., Revue historique 241 (1969) 23–56. Constantinople as the source for the ancestor of the text tradition, Lang ed. xvii.Google Scholar

⁸² On the relation of the Mulomedicina to its sources, Lommatzsch ed. xxxi–xl.Google Scholar

⁸³ DRM 1.8, ‘Lacedaemonii quidem et Athenienses aliique Graecorum in libros rettulere conplura quae tactica vocant; sed nos disciplinam militarem populi Romani debemus inquirere, qui ex parvissimis finibus imperium suum paene solis regionibus et mundi ipsius fine distendit.’ This requirement, Vegetius says, forced him to rely on purely Latin authors.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Dain established that, while no military treatise in Greek was written after a.d. 235, the fourth or fifth century witnessed the formation of the Aelianic corpus: Dain–de Foucault, ‘Stratégistes byzantins’ (n. 2) 336, 339–40. As for Arrian, the treatise of Urbicius is, in effect, an abridgment of the portions of his Tactica dealing with infantry: Förster, Richard, ‘Studien zu den griechischen Taktiker: Kaiser Hadrian und die Taktik des Urbicius,’ Hermes 12 (1877) 464. Might Urbicius have had his Latin predecessor in mind? Like Vegetius he is infantry-centered but affirms the authority of Arrian.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Ammianus’ account of Adrianople stresses the exhaustion of the troops (31.12.10–13, 13.7); cf. DRM 3.11, ‘Observatur autem, ne longo spatio fatigatum militem neve lassos post cursum equos ad publicum proelium cogas; multum virium labore itineris pugnaturus amittit. Quid faciet, qui ad aciem marcidus adventat? Hoc et veteres declinarunt et superiore vel nostra aetate, cum Romani duces per inperitiam non cavissent, ne quid amplius dicam, exercitus didicerunt.’ This may allude to Adrianople, but at a safe distance from the significant chapters of DRM 1.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ The idea that Vegetius might have addressed one of the many western usurpers between 383 and 425 has never been seriously entertained.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ DRM 4.pr., quoted above n. 64: if the passage is cut off at documentum, one might think it refers to recent construction in Rome; in this sense, Teuffel, Gesch. III 314, rightly refuted by Mazzarino, Trattato II 542.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ On the optimism of Orosius, Mommsen, T. E., ‘St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (1951) 346–74, and ‘Orosius and Augustine,’ in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. Eugene Rice (Ithaca, N. Y. 1959) 325–48. While correct and valuable, Mommsen's observations may unduly emphasize the contrast between Orosius and Augustine; contemporaries may have been able to endure this contrast without necessarily siding with one against the other. Rutilius Namatianus, De reditu suo 1.139–40, ‘Illud te reparat quod cetera regna resoluit: / Ordo renascendi est crescere posse malis.’ One cannot help remembering these lines when reading Vegetius — an author who drew positive lessons from the evils of the previous and present age. Cf. Cameron, A., ‘Rutilius Namatianus, St. Augustine, and the Date of the De reditu,’ Journal of Roman Studies 57 (1967) 31–9.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ On the emperor's activity, below 85, 87 and 98.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ See, e.g., Ensslin, W., RE 7 a (1948) 2237–58.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Seeck, ‘Zeit’ 66.Google Scholar

⁹² Ibid. 67–82.Google Scholar

⁹³ Otto Maenchen-Helfen, J., The World of the Huns , ed. Max Knight (Berkeley 1973) 79.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Another serious point against Seeck's argument is that the prior loss of Valeria, on which his deductions rested, is inferred from a transcription error in the Notitia. Jones (Later Roman Empire 1421) dismissed the learned constructs that have been built upon this passage.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Variae 1.17; 3.48; 5.9 (which may contain Vegetian echoes); cf. Ennodius Panegyricus dictus regi Theodorico (ed. Wm. Hartel; CSEL 6.277.10–12), ‘excubat pro armis opinio principalis: otia nostra regis sollicitudo custodit, nec tamen desistis castella propagare curas tuas in longum producens.’Google Scholar

⁹⁶ In addition to DRM 4.pr.–7, see also 3.8: supplies for the army must be safeguarded, ‘quod aliter non potest evenire, nisi per loca idonea … praesidia disponantur, sive illae civitates sint sive castella murata.’ (See also 3.3.)Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Dardanus: Stroheker, K. F., Der senatorische Adel im spätantiken Gallien (Tübingen 1948), Prosopographie 99; Matthews, J. F., Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court (Oxford 1975) 323–4. Aëtius: Merobaudes Paneg. I frg. 1b lines 2–9; Clover, F. M., Flavius Merobaudes, a Translation and Historical Commentary (Philadelphia 1971) 63, does not comment on these lines. Cf. below n. 167.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Anon. De rebus bellicis 20, ‘… [limitum] tutelae assidua melius castella prospicient, ita ut millenis interiecta passibus stabili muro et firmissimis turribus erigantur, quas quidem munitiones possessorum distributa sollicitudo sine publico sumptu constituat, vigiliis sane in his et agrariis exercendis.’ Owing to its early date, the passage is remarkable for referring to the imposition upon possessores of military duties as ordinary munera, without assistance from the treasury. Thompson's commentary (Reformer 73) takes issue with the author's suggestions without noticing the interest of his making them.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Schmiedt, Giulio, ‘Le fortificazioni altomedievali in Italia viste dall’ aereo,’ Centro Italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, Settimane di studio 15 (1968) 859–927.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Marcellinus Comes Chrcnicon ad ann. 400 (MGH AA 11 [1894] 66); but this bellum navale took place near Constantinople. On Vandal raiding, Maenchen-Helfen, , World of the Huns 98, 100, 103, 108–9; cf. the overgeneralized statement of Sirago 471.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ DRM 4.31, ‘navalis belli residua, ut opinor, est portio; de cuius artibus ideo pauciora dicenda sunt, quia iam dudum pacato mari cum barbaris nationibus agitur terrestre certamen.’Google Scholar

¹⁰² DRM 4.31–2, establishes that the squadrons of Ravenna and Misenum were disbanded; their prefects appear in ND Occ. 42.7, 11, but this need not mean that the squadions were still in being. For an extended account of fifth-century sea power, see Moss, J. R., ‘The Effects of the Policies of Aëtius on the History of Western Europe,’ Historia 22 (1973) 722–28.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Merobaudes Paneg. II: a diva nocens (line 69) laments, ‘depellimus undis nec terris regnare licet’ (lines 52–3); the war goddess, line 61. Clover, Merobaudes 54–5, relates this to the peace of 442, and is right in setting the text after this date (cf. Maenchen-Helfen 100); but the poet's language appears to refer rather to enduring peace than to a recent treaty.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Nov. Valent. III 10 (Ravenna, Feb. 20, 441): ‘Haec [scil. immunities from munera sordida] enim superioris aetatis principes et divorum parentum nostrorum liberalitas inlustribus titulis redundantis opulentia saeculi minore aliorum possessorum pernicie conferebant: quod quamvis et tunc iniustum, tamen inter initia lenius videbatur, sub difficultate autem praesentis temporis …’. Note also the phrase locupletior respublica in an inscription of 431 (CIL 6.1782), referring to Nicomachus Flavianus († 394).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Date of Palladius: Svennung, Josef, Untersuchungen zu Palladius und zur lateinischen Fach- und Volkssprache (Uppsala 1935) 1–14. On Faventinus, ‘Cetius,’ RE 3 (1899) 2013; Oxford Classical Dictionary ² 432; Plommer, Hugh, Vitruvius and Later Roman Building Manuals (Cambridge 1973): he definitely antedates Palladius, but otherwise his date is none too securely established (33). As shown by Elizabeth Alföldi-Rosenbaum (‘Apicius, De re coquinaria and the Vita Heliogabali,’ Historia Augusta Colloquium 1970 [Antiquitas Reihe 4, X; Bonn 1972] 5–10), the version of Apicius that has been transmitted to us, whose terminus post quem is the late-fourth century, was used in the Historia Augusta. That the Saturnalia of Macrobius belongs to this epoch is equally significant: Alan Cameron, ‘The Date and Identity of Macrobius,’ JRS 56 (1966) 25–38. These authors, among whom Martianus Capella might also be reckoned, make one wonder whether the literary revival of the late-fourth century might not have extended continuously through the fifth century to the age of Boethius and Cassiodorus.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Brown, Peter, ‘Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy,’ JRS 51 (1962) 1–11. Papal elections: Prosper Chronicon 1309, 1341 (MGH AA 9 [1892] 473, 478). The popularity of Aëtius: Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus quoted by Gregory of Tours, Hist. 2.8, and the inscription published by Alfonzo Baroli, ‘Il Senato Romano in onore di Ezio,’ Pontif. Accad. Roman. di archeologia, Atti ser. 3, Rendiconti 22 (1946–7) 268–9; cf. Olajos, Thérèse, ‘L'inscription de la statue d'Aetius et Merobaudes,’ 5^e Congrès international d’épigraphie grecque et latine, Cambridge 1967 (Oxford 1971) 470–71; also below 99. Artistic creativity: Krautheimer, Richard, ‘The Architecture of Sixtus III: a Fifth-century Renascence?’ De artibus opuscula XL (E. Panofsky Festschrift), ed. Meiss, M. (N. Y. 1961) I 291–302. Prevention of schism over Augustine's doctrine of predestination: Duchesne, L., Histoire ancienne de l'Église III (Paris 1911) 274–86.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Otto Seeck, Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste, 311–476 (Stuttgart 1919) 466–79; Sundwall, J., Weströmische Studien (Berlin 1915) 27, listed Vegetius as an ‘uncertain’ comes sacrarum largitionum, only on the basis of Schöner's hypothesis (n. 108).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Schöner, , Studien 6–9; his detailed reasoning in support of this conclusion is not persuasive.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ DRM 2.18; 1.28; 2.3. There are other statements of this kind, such as the one cited below n. 128, but none can serve to prove attachment to the sacrae largitiones. Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ A lofty position, held by Valens prior to being appointed emperor (Ammianus 26.4.2) and not in the ND. Google Scholar

¹¹¹ In addition to the authors cited above n. 17, Delbrück, H., Geschichte der Kriegskunst ³ II 211; R. Grosse, Römische Militärgeschichte (Berlin 1920) 24, ‘weltfremder Stubentaktiker’; Thompson, , Reformer 79, ‘quixotic’; Turpin de Crissé, Commentaire sur … Végèce (Montargis 1779) I 123, ‘Végèce n’était pas militaire.’Google Scholar

¹¹² Mulomedicina 1.pr.6; 3.6.1 (13, 249 Lommatzsch).Google Scholar

¹¹³ Ibid. 3.6. The next reference to Toringi occurs in Sidonius Carm. 7.323. On Hunnisci, cf. Maenchen-Helfen, World of the Huns 185, 204. Vegetius need not attest to a considerable export of horses from barbaricum, since he clearly refers to breeds that could be reared in the Empire; thus, Hunniscus is perhaps better understood as a ‘Hun-type’ horse than as one imported from Hunnia. But this view may be incompatible with ancient techniques of breeding: Anderson, J. K., Ancient Greek Horsemanship (Berkeley 1961) 38–9.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Mulomed. 1.56.35–6; 2.79.16.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Ibid. 4.pr. (above n. 15).Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Ibid. Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Ibid. 1.pr.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Ibid. 2.pr.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Ibid, 1.pr.10; 2.pr.; 4.1.13.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Ibid. 1.56.12–13.Google Scholar

¹²¹ Ibid. 2.pr.Google Scholar

¹²² Ibid. 3.7.1.Google Scholar

¹²³ Aurel. Victor De Caesaribus 11.13. Cf. Sallust, , Catal. 51.37–8; and, in shameful contrast, Ammianus 14.6.19, 21–2.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ For these findings, Lommatzsch's introduction to his edition of the Mulomed. (1903) xl. A useful collection of passages illustrating the community of style between the veterinary and military treatises is found in Schanz-Hosius, Gesch. IV 1, 198.Google Scholar

¹²⁵ For Christian references, DRM 2.5, and below n. 132. In the early-third century, the Christian Julius Africanus had included military matters in his encyclopedic Kestoi, but this work was profane and distinct from his Christian opera: Dain–de Foucault, ‘Stratégistes byzantins,’ 335–6.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ The widespread use of Vegetius as a source for periods earlier than his own has had a large part in obscuring the relative importance of cavalry and infantry; see, for example, Stein, E., Histoire du Bas-Empire , tr. Palanque I (Paris 1959) 54–63, 423–30, with the statement, ‘Dans l'armée romaine du iv^e siècle l'infantrie conserva encore une partie de sa prépondérance tactique sur la cavalrie …” (430 n. 216). Yet, H. M. D. Parker (The Roman Legions [Oxford 1928] 249–54, 258–60) indicated that the transition from legionaries to auxilia as the principal fighting troops can be dated as far back as to the late-first century; and the accent on cavalry is visible, not only from the second half of the third century onward, but even in the writings of Arrian. Although fourth-century Roman infantry continued to contrast favorably with its Persian counterpart (Ammianus 33.6.83), it is hard to avoid the conclusion that cavalry was the decisive arm in offensive warfare, notably in the really serious enterprise of civil war.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ Thompson, , Reformer 79, scornfully contrasted Vegetius to the offensive orientation of the Anon. De rebus bellicis. Machiavelli's principal addition to Vegetius was a book on ‘the battle’: Gilbert (as above n. 4) 16–17.Google Scholar

¹²⁸ DRM 3.10; cf. 3.3, ‘Neque enim divitiarum secura possessio est, nisi armorum defensione servetur’ — a sound economic viewpoint in a society of landowners, and just as meaningful for the poor as for the rich.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ DRM 1.1; 2.18; 4.pr. and 26: always in reference to the veteres Romani. Google Scholar

¹³⁰ Cf. Erdmann, Carl, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedanken (Stuttgart 1935) 5–8; Possidius, Vita s. Augustini c. 30.Google Scholar

¹³¹ As above 78–79.Google Scholar

¹³² DRM 1.1 and 28; 3.10 (‘Apud veteres ars militaris in oblivionem saepius venit’). Schanz-Hosius (Gesch. IV 1, 195) chose to contrast Vegetius’ briefly announced Christianity to his emphatic ‘patriotism.’ This mistakenly presupposes the existence of a contradiction between the two allegiances. In fact, the Christianity of Vegetius operates at a profound level, notably in his adoption of a ‘secularized’ or ‘desacralized’ version of early Roman history — along the lines charted in 384 by Ambrose Epistola 18.4–7 in opposition to Symmachus Relatio 3.9, and subsequently elaborated by Prudentius, Augustine, and Orosius. See also Courcelle, Pierre, Histoire littéraire des grandes invasions germaniques ³ (Paris 1964) 26, from which one would infer that Vegetius is, in spirit, a descendant of Jerome rather than of the (pagan) confidence voiced by Libanius.Google Scholar

¹³³ DRM 1.1.Google Scholar

¹³⁴ DRM 3.10, ‘Hanc [scil. artem bellicam] quondam relictis doctrinis omnibus Lacedaemonii et postea coluere Romani; hanc solam hodieque barbari putant esse servandam; cetera aut in hac arte consistere omnia aut per hanc adsequi se posse confidunt’; cf. 3.pr., ‘eam praecipue artem … sine qua aliae artes esse non possunt.’ There is no possible doubt that Vegetius totally approves of the attitude of the barbarians (just as he praises the exploits against the Romans of the Spartan Xanthippus and the Carthaginian Hannibal), and that he is, in effect, urging the Romans of his day to follow their example. He says so explicitly in the special context of fortifying marching camps (3.10): ‘Omnes barbari carris suis in orbem conexis ad similitudinem castrorum securas a superventibus exigunt noctes. Veremur, ne discere nequeamus quae a nobis alii didicerunt?’ Cf. below n. 148.Google Scholar

¹³⁵ DRM 1.28; 2.18; 3.10.Google Scholar

¹³⁶ DRM 3.pr. and 10.Google Scholar

¹³⁷ Mulomed. 3.pr. 4–5. I am tempted to detect a mildly anti-Augustinian note in this remark, but the Latin Church of the day had room for a diversity of theological tendencies.Google Scholar

¹³⁸ DRM 3.10, ‘Quis autem dubitet artem bellicam rebus omnibus esse potiorem, per quam libertas retinetur et dignitas, propagantur provinciae, conservatur imperium?’ Cf. Nou. Valent. III 10.1.3, ‘reliqua opera, per quae ad splendorem defensionis publicae pervenitur … quorum adminiculo salutem pariter et decus tuemur imperii … sine quibus nihil necessarii operis effici potest.’Google Scholar

¹³⁹ DRM 2.3. The contemporary ranking of troops as equites, auxilia, legiones is repeatedly mentioned: 3.1, 4, 8, 9, 10.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁰ As Seeck observed (‘Zeit’ 82), Vegetius is clearly later than the Notitia, whose image of legions holds at best for its approximate date, i.e., 430. There were twelve legiones palatinae in the West as against fifty comitatenses and pseudocomitatenses. Where a unit is entered simply by its praepositus, I am disinclined to infer that much more subsisted than headquarters, if that.Google Scholar

¹⁴¹ Aside from the question of fighting troops (above n. 126), it is not so much that the legions ‘declined’ as that the seconding and promotion of their most valuable constituent elements eventually devalued the umbrella designation.Google Scholar

¹⁴² DRM 1.17; for an explanation of the ‘error,’ Ritterling, RE 12.1353, 1358.Google Scholar

¹⁴³ Cf. Blainey, Geoffrey, The Causes of War (London 1973) 212–14, 219.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁴ DRM pr. (to the complete treatise). A central tenet of twentieth-century Vegetius scholarship has been that the legion he portrays belongs to a fixed point in time; it is little wonder, therefore, that no agreement could ever be reached on this illusory date. Just because (in the words of Parker, ‘Antiqua legio’ 147) ‘the main points in his account of the internal organization of the legion appear to be consistent,’ it need not follow that he ‘derived [them] from an authoritative source,’ since the ‘authority’ could be himself or whoever commissioned him to write.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁵ Mag. mil. and comes, DRM 2.9; ‘centuriae, hoc est cohortes,’ 1.23; centurion now called centenarius, 2.13. This kind of translation of old institutions into new (an obvious way to make history ‘relevant’) was already common among fourth-century historians. Perhaps its acme would be reached in John Lydus’ sixth-century tract De magistratibus populi Romani; e.g., the praefectus praetorio as descended from the Republican ‘master of the horse,’ which contrasts with Cassiodorus’ making Joseph in Egypt the prototypical praefectus praetorio (Variae 6.3), an idea adumbrated by Sulp. Severus Chron. 1.11.7.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁶ Perquisites of centurions primi pili, as above 71–72; princeps primae cohortis ‘ad quem in legione prope omnia, quae ordinanda sunt, pertinent’: DRM 2.8. Vegetius alleges that the custom was for this princeps to be promoted to primus pilus (even though the primus hastatus was second in order of rank; cf. the relationship between princeps and primiscrinius discussed above). Perquisites of duces: Novella Theodosii II 24 (443), which mentions principes and praepositi castrorum alongside duces. To suppose that Vegetius wrote deliberately and with intent is preferable to claiming that he was mistaken or confused. He always refers to duces in the generic sense ‘general,’ never in the late Roman technical definition.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁷ DRM 2.25, ‘in quovis loco [legio] fixerit castra, armatam faciat civitatem’; cf. 1. 21–5; 3.8; 4.1–30.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁸ DRM 2.2, ‘Galli atque Celtiberi pluresque barbarae nationes catervis utebantur in proelio, in quibus erant sena milia armatorum. Romani legiones habent, in quibus singulis sena milia, interdum amplius militare consuerunt’ (significantly contrasted to the 8000-man Greek phalanx). Cf. above n. 134. Here again, the plain intent is a rapprochement of Romans and barbarians — meant, in this case, for a barbarian rather than a Roman audience.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁹ DRM 2.5. This passage may well be the earliest expression of Christian ‘knighthood.’ Cf. Erdmann, Kreuzzugsgedanken 235–7 (where Vegetius is overlooked), 239–40 (why ‘Germanic’?).Google Scholar

¹⁵⁰ DRM 2.3, 15–17; 3.1, 4, 14–17.Google Scholar

¹⁵¹ DRM 2.19 (the chapter is full of contemporary allusions suggestive of the proximity of soldiers to civilian life). On polyptychs, Speculum 47 (1972) 376–9 (where I endorse a wrong date for Vegetius).Google Scholar

¹⁵² DRM 2.4. What other authors make similar statements and in what contexts? The one parallel known to me (of ninth-century date) is reminiscent of Vegetius’ intent — a signpost to the reader to examine attentively and imaginatively with a view to practical application.Google Scholar

¹⁵³ DRM 2.2, 18, 21.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁴ Literate elements in the legion, esp. in cohors I: DRM 2.6, 12, 19. Disapproval of the current situation: 1.5, ‘necdum enim civilis pars florentiorem abducebat iuventutem’; also 1.7, 28. No other tendency in Vegetius more clearly distances him from the fourth century.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁵ The observation of Courcelle, indicated above n. 132, is applicable.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁶ DRM 3.10, ‘Unum illud est in hoc opere praedicendum, ut nemo desperet fieri posse quae facta sunt.’Google Scholar

¹⁵⁷ For common authorship with the Mulomedicina, above n. 124. The originality of Vegetius, overshadowed by the modern tradition of Quellenforschung, is quietly but continuously stressed by Andersson, Studia, esp. 21; more emphatically by de Jonge, ‘Ammianus and Vegetius’ (above n. 25) 102, who made the two authors contemporaries.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁸ In addition to the various prefaces, DRM 4.31, ‘Praecepto maiestatis tuae, imperator invicte, terrestris proelii rationibus absolutis …’Google Scholar

¹⁵⁹ DRM 1.pr., ‘De dilectu igitur atque exercitatione tironum … antiquam consuetudinem conamur ostendere; non quo tibi, imperator invicte, ista videantur incognita, sed ut, quae sponte pro reipublicae salute disponis, agnoscas olim custodisse Romani imperii conditores …’Google Scholar

¹⁶⁰ DRM 2.pr., ‘Quid enim audacius, quam domino ac principi generis humani, domitori omnium gentium barbararum, aliquid de usu ac disciplina insinuare bellorum, nisi forte iussisset fieri, quod ipse gessisset?’ This resembles the dedication to Trajan that Aelian set at the head of his treatise: Jähns, Kriegswissenschaften I 95.Google Scholar

¹⁶¹ Eutropius Breviarium pr.: ‘ut tranquillitatis tuae mens divina laetari prius se illustrium virorum facta in administrando imperium secutam, quam cognosceret lectione.’Google Scholar

¹⁶² DRM 2.18, ‘Nec moveat, quod olim est consuetudo mutata quae viguit; sed huius felicitatis ac provisionis est perennitas tua, ut pro salute reipublicae et nova excogitet et antiqua restituat.’ The first clause argues that, just because an old consuetudo was allowed to lapse, the emperor should not infer that it was rightly abandoned. The linking of nova and antiqua is indicative of the point made above 95: that ‘restoring’ abandoned practices differs hardly at all from ‘innovating.’Google Scholar

¹⁶³ In addition to n. 91 above, RE 20 (1950) 1922–6, s.v. ‘Placidia’; Dalheim, W., Reallexicon der germanischen Altertumskunde I (1973) 92.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁴ Stein, Bas-Empire I 337–42. The judicious summary by Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., The Barbarian West (London 1952) 26–8, is also influenced by this tradition.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁵ Although Gregory of Tours quotes the praise of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus (above n. 106), he personally portrays Aëtius as crafty rather than generally admirable (Hist. 2.7). Procopius (Wars 3.3. 14–36, 4.16–29) carries glorification of Aëtius to the point of inverting the chronology of his murder (454) and the Gallic invasion of Attila (451); I now believe this was intentional fiction rather than error (cf. American Historical Review 76 [1971] 426 n. 67). The rather negative, recent interpretation of Aëtius by Moss (n. 102 supra) merits attention. His attempt to piece the available scraps of information into intelligible order is admirable, but one is left wondering whether essential pieces of the puzzle might not be lost.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁶ Cf. above 82–83, on the kleinrömisch outlook of Vegetius. That Aëtius avoided entanglements with Constantinople is mainly an argument e silentio; still, the Hun invasion of Thrace in 442 came quite conveniently to force withdrawal of an Eastern expeditionary force from Sicily: Maenchen-Helfen, , World of the Huns 108–111. Aëtius’ support for the usurper John (423–5) was also unlikely to make him popular in the East.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁷ Merobaudes Paneg. I frag. 1b lines 2–9, ‘tunc si quid a bellis vacat, aut situs urbium aut angustias montium aut vasta camporum aut fluminum transitus aut viarum spatia metiris atque ibi quis pediti, quis equiti accommodatior locus, quis excursui aptior, quis receptui tutior, quis stationi uberior, exploras, ita ad bellum proficit etiam ipsa intercapedo bellorum.’ Cf. DRM 3.6–8.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁸ That is to say, the reign is more understandable in a perspective of medieval than of Roman history. Vegetius is all too well aware (e.g., DRM 4.31) that, when he refers to the populus Romanus, he is speaking of an entity belonging to the distant past, from which he dissociates himself.Google Scholar