Content area
Full Text
Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science. Translated Texts for Historians 17. Translated by N. P. Milner. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993. Distributed by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xxx, 152. $16.95.
At last! The most widely read Western military theorist before Clausewitz is fully translated in a reasonably priced paperback edition. A brief introduction on Vegetius's identity, dates, the nature of the work, and the Late Roman army is supplemented by a commentary relating Vegetius's anti-barbarian military reforms to contemporary events. The intended readership, students of Late Antiquity, will find the work competent, even enlightening: a strong case reasserts dedication of the treatise to Theodosius I (379-395), against recent arguments for Valentinian III (425-455), and argues for Vegetius's own Spanish origin, though at times the work seems an appendix to Milner's unpublished D.Phil. thesis (Vegetius and the Anonymous De Rebus Bellicis [Oxford 1991]), selling conclusions without detailed argumentation. Indeed some interpretations depend on a Theodosian date. Valentinian's proponents might see things differently and ideally a more disinterested translation and commentary could be desired.
Nevertheless, a full English translation of Vegetius is a momentous event for military historians. How well does this translation serve this...