The Roman Art of War in Late Antiquity : The Strategikon of the Emperor Maurice:A Translation with Introduction and Commentary Hardback

The Strategikon of the Emperor Maurice, written towards the end of the 6th century, is a key text in the history of late Roman and Byzantine warfare. It stands midway between the classical genre of tactica, dating back to the 4th century BC, and the subsequent Byzantine military corpus, which it profoundly influenced. Of unprecedented size and scope, the Strategikon discusses every aspect of contemporary land warfare, and includes ethnographic excursuses on the late Roman Empire's varied enemies. It is a work of outstanding utility, whose author was able to combine, in a deliberately vernacular Greek, the precepts of earlier military texts with a practical military knowledge.

This new English translation is accompanied by a detailed commentary, the first in nearly a century, which incorporates the vast amount of research recently conducted on this period. It is prefaced by a series of studies on the text's structure, composition, language and idiom, sources and literary antecedents. This study redefines the purpose and overall character of the Strategikon, by emphasising the descriptive, rather than prescriptive, nature of the text, and its vital role in preserving earlier traditions and practices, and transmitting them from the late Roman world to the Byzantine Empire.

This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of the late Antique and early Byzantine periods, as well as specialists in military history and the Byzantine literary tradition.