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about raising troops, formations, discipline, etc.. Instead it is divided into fifty chapters with titles such as “Distracting the Attention of the Enemy,” “By What Means the Enemy May be Reduced to Want,” “On Terrorizing the Besieged,” and “On the Effect of Discipline.” Each chapter contains a list of devices used by past commanders in the realization of their plans. For example, “whenever Alexander of Macedon had a strong army he chose the sort of warfare in which he could fight in open battle.” An ambassador of Scipio Africanus who was conducting a parley once deliberately had a horse run wild in the enemy’s camp, presenting his men with an opportunity to chase it around and thus observe more than they should have. The Carthaginians, lacking material for cordage, used their women’s hair to equip their fleet. Caesar once spurred his soldiers to battle by showering such praise on his Tenth Legion that the rest became envious and wanted to emulate it.
    Since Frontinus makes no attempt to link the various devices with each other, as an exercise in monotony his work has seldom been equaled. Yet it must be conceded that, as long as the technical limitations of his age are borne in mind, many of his suggestions were practical. A commander capable of employing only a small fraction of them would be considered highly inventive. Presumably that explains why he was quite popular in antiquity and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. When the great scholar Jean Gerson (1363–1429) drew up a list of works which ought to be in the library of the French Dauphin he included Frontinus. Machiavelli, who though a far greater writer possessed a practical mind not so very different from Frontinus’ own, considered him indispensable. He continued to be read, and quoted, by commanders down to the third quarter of the eighteenth century.
    Writing some three centuries after Frontinus, Flavius Renatus Vegetius and his
Epitoma
Rei Militaris
(A Summary of Military Matters) stand in a class all of his own. Vegetius was not a soldier but an administrator in the Imperial service. He appears to have produced the work on behalf of a Roman Emperor by the name of Valentian, though we do not know which one out of two possible candidates he had in mind. Faced with the much weakened state of the Empire, he charged Vegetius with explaining how the “ancient” Romans had gone about their business so successfully. Consequently the
Epitoma
does not deal with the army of Vegetius’ own day but with an idealized version of previous ones. Among the sources mentioned are Cato, Sallust, Frontinus, and the military ordinances of Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian. Thus it is likely that the military organization Vegetius described never existed at any single time and place. Still it is a tribute to his work that he succeeded in bringing it to life and presenting us with a remarkably coherent whole.
    Of the four parts, the first one discusses recruits. That includes the way they were selected (“fishermen, fowlers, confectioners, weavers, and all those who appear to have been engaged in occupations appropriate to women should not, in my opinion, be allowed near the barracks”) and trained in marching, the use of arms, and the various formations used in battle. Part 2 gives the best account of the legion’s organization we have or are likely to have. That includes its organization; the sub-units of which it consists; the officers; the promotion system; the auxiliary services; the troop of horse; and the way in which it ought to be drawn up for battle. Part 3 deals with the various tactical methods the legion used. Part 4, which seems to have been tagged on by another writer, discusses fortifications and naval warfare. Yet precisely because Vegetius does not focus on any particular period his work is as much prescriptive as it is descriptive. From beginning to end the importance of thorough training, strong discipline, hard work (as