Vegetius Epitome of Military Science Pdf

Vegetius’ Epitome of Military Science is a military treatise written in the fourth century AD by the Roman Emperor Flavius Vegetius Renatus. As the title suggests, it is an epitome, a shortening, of Vegetius’ longer work De re militari (“Concerning Military Matters”), which itself was a combination of his earlier works De arboribus (“On Trees”) and De siege et de stratagematum lignis contra gallos (“On Forts and Sieges, as well as Tactics Against the Gauls.

Vegetius’ Epitome of Military Science , written in the fourth century AD, is a short manual about Roman army strategy and tactics, meant for new recruits of the army. Simple language and detailed instructions are used in order to make the information easier to understand . Allied with Vegetius’ writings on military matters is his De Re Militari (Concerning Military Matters), also known as De militia Romana (On the Roman Army). This article will cover specifically his Epitome of Military Science. Vegetius wrote this book as a handbook for potential officers of the army, and he based much of it off of his own personal experience. The first chapter of his book is an introduction to military matters, including how Rome has used warfare in the past to build up an empire and how this could be used in the future.

Vegetius’ “ Epitome of Military Science ” is a concise treatise on the practice of warfare in Late Antiquity. There are two surviving versions: one, a rather succinct abridgement, survives in the Carolingian manuscripts, while the fuller original, written in three books, has been lost. The former contains perhaps 80% of the full text of the epitome; it is this version with which we deal here.