Vegetius

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Vegetius
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana
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Publius (or Flavius) Vegetius Renatus,

De re militari), and the lesser-known Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae, a guide to veterinary medicine. He identifies himself in the opening of his work Epitoma rei militaris as a Christian.[2]

Dating of work

The latest event alluded to in his Epitoma rei militaris is the death of the Emperor

agens in rebus.[7]

Epitoma rei militaris

Main article: De re militari

Vegetius' epitome mainly focuses on military organization and how to react to certain occasions in war. Vegetius explains how one should fortify and organize a camp, how to train troops, how to handle undisciplined troops, how to handle a battle engagement, how to march, formation gauge and many other useful methods of promoting organization and valour in the legion.

As G. R. Watson observes, Vegetius' Epitoma "is the only ancient manual of Roman military institutions to have survived intact". Despite this, Watson doubts its value, for Vegetius "was neither a historian nor a soldier: his work is a compilation carelessly constructed from material of all ages, a congeries of inconsistencies".

Paternus and the imperial constitutions of Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian (1.8).[9]

The first book is a plea for army reform; it vividly portrays the military decadence of the Late Roman Empire. Vegetius also describes in detail the organisation, training and equipment of the army of the early Empire. The third book contains a series of military maxims, which were (appropriately enough, considering the similarity in the military conditions of the two ages) the foundation of military learning for every European commander from William the Silent to Frederick the Great.[9]

His book on

onager, which afterwards played a great part in sieges until the development of modern cannonry. The fifth book gives an account of the materiel and personnel of the Roman navy.[9]

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "In manuscript, Vegetius' work had a great vogue from its first advent. Its rules of siegecraft were much studied in the Middle Ages." N.P. Milner observes that it was "one of the most popular Latin technical works from Antiquity, rivalling the elder Pliny's Natural History in the number of surviving copies dating from before AD 1300."[10] It was translated into English, French (by Jean de Meun and others), Italian (by the Florentine judge Bono Giamboni and others), Catalan, Spanish, Czech, and Yiddish before the invention of printing. The first printed editions are ascribed to Utrecht (1473), Cologne (1476), Paris (1478), Rome (in Veteres de re mil. scriptores, 1487), and Pisa (1488). A German translation by Ludwig Hohenwang appeared at Ulm in 1475.[9]

However, from that point Vegetius' position as the premier military authority began to decline, as ancient historians such as

Marshal Puysegur based his own works on this acknowledged model,[9] in Milner's words, Vegetius' work suffered "a long period of deepening neglect".[12]

Vegetius emphasizes the shortcomings of the Roman Army in his lifetime. To do this, he eulogises the army of the early Empire. In particular, he stresses the high standard of the legionaries and the excellence of the training and the officer corps. In reality, Vegetius probably describes an ideal rather than the reality. The army of the early Empire was a formidable fighting force, but it probably was not in its entirety quite as good as Vegetius describes. In particular, the 5-foot-10-inch minimum height identified by Vegetius would have excluded the majority of the men in Roman times (the Roman foot was 29.6 centimetres (11.7 in) and inch was 2.46 centimetres (0.97 in), hence a 5'10" Roman was 172.6 centimetres (5 ft 8.0 in), which is just above average height of Roman (Italian) men of the time from skeletal evidence from Herculaneum in 79 AD). The emperor Valentinian (364–375) lowered the height minimum to 5' 7" Roman which equals 165.2 centimetres (5 ft 5.0 in). Despite the romanticism extolling the idealized virtues of the Roman legion of an earlier time, Vegetius' De Re Militari remains a reliable and useful insight into the success of the early Roman Empire, and the military failure of its fall.

References

  1. ^ His name appears both as Publius Vegetius Renatus and Flavius Vegetius Renatus. Milner, Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science (Liverpool University Press, 1993), pp. xxxi–xxxiii, believes the evidence favors Publius.
  2. ^ Lipowsky, Felix Joseph (1827). Des Flavius Vegetius Renatus fünf Bücher über Kriegswissenschaft und Kriegskunst der Römer. Seidel.
  3. ^
    ISBN 1 85285 001 9
  4. ^ N.P. Milner sets forth the argument for Theodosius in Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science, second edition (Liverpool: University Press, 1996), pp. xxxvii ff; T. D. Barnes, "The Date of Vegetius" Phoenix 33.3 (Autumn 1979), pp. 254–257, makes the case for Theodosius.
  5. ^ Seeck, "Die Zeit des Vegetius", Hermes 11 (1876), 61–83. Seeck's conclusions changed the mind of Karl Lang, who twice edited the Teubner De re militaria, and adopted Seeck's ascription.
  6. ^ G. R. Watson, The Roman Soldier (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), p. 26.
  7. ^ Rosenbaum, S; "Who was Vegetius?" published on Academia.edu 2015 https://www.academia.edu/5496690/Who_was_Vegetius
  8. ^ Watson, The Roman Soldier, pp. 25f
  9. ^ a b c d e  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vegetius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 968.
  10. ^ Milner, Vegetius, p. xiii
  11. ^ Milner, Vegetius, pp. xiiif.
  12. ^ Milner, Vegetius, p. xiv.

Translations

  • Military Institutions of Vegetius, translated with a preface and notes by Lieutenant John Clarke, London, 1767. Abridged reprint (Books IV and V omitted): The Military Institutions of the Romans, Military Service Publishing Company, Harrisburg, Pa.. 1944.
  • Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science, translated with notes and introduction by N.P. Milner, Translated Texts for Historians, Vol. 16, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993. (Second edition 1996; second revised edition 2011.)
  • Het Romeinse leger, Dutch translation by Fik Meijer, Polak/Van gennep Publishers, Amsterdam, 2004.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Vegetius.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus.

The complete Latin text of De Re Militari is available online:

From the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress

The 1944 abridged edition of Lieutenant John Clarke's 1767 translation (omitting Books IV and V, "of interest only to military antiquarians") is available online:

A complete facsimile of John Clarke's 1767 translation is available at Google Books:

1529 German-language edition of De re militari published by Heinrich Stayner with woodcuts variously depicting underwater diving suits, siege equipment, cannons, and air mattresses for the comfort of soldiers in the field.

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