Chlup James T., Whately Conor. Greek and Roman Military Manuals: Genre and History

Routledge, 2020. — 308 p.This volume explores the enigmatic primary source known as the ancient military manual. In particular, the volume explores the extent to which these diverse texts constitute a genre (sometimes unsatisfactorily classified as "technical literature"), and the degree to which they reflect the practice of warfare. With contributions from a diverse group of scholars, the chapters examine military manuals from early Archaic Greece to the Byzantine period, covering a wide range of topics including readership, siege warfare, mercenaries, defeat, textual history, and religion. Coverage includes most of the major contemporary siege manual writers, including Xenophon, Frontinus, Vegetius, and Maurice. Close examination of these texts serves to reveals the complex ways in which ancient Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines sought to understand better, and impose order upon, the seemingly irrational phenomenon known as war. Providing insight into the multifaceted collection of texts that constituted military manuals, this volume is a key resource for students and scholars of warfare and military literature in the classical and Byzantine periods.
Introduction: The Ancient Military Treatise, Genre, and History - James T. Chlup and Conor Whately
Military Manuals from Aeneas Tacticus to Maurice: Origins, Scholarship, Genre, Audience, and History - Conor Whately
The Limited Source Value of Works of Military Literature - Hans Michael Schellenberg
The Blind Leading the Blind? Civilian Writers and Audiences of Military Manuals in the Roman World - Nadya Williams
Homeric Taktika - Nicholas Sekunda
Aeneas Tacticus, Philon of Byzantium, Onasander and the Good Siege: A Case-Study of Demetrius at Rhodes - Graham Wrightson
Mercenaries and Moral Concerns - Aaron L. Beek
Xenophon’s On Horsemanship: the Equestrian Military Manual - Lucy Felmingham-Cockburn
Refighting Cunaxa: Xenophon’s Education of Cyrus as a Manual on Military Leadership - Jeffrey Rop
The Lost Tactica of Lucius Papirius Paetus - Murray Dahm
Defeat as Stratagem: Frontinus on Cannae - James T. Chlup
Vegetius’ Regulae bellorum generales - Jonathan Warner
Vegetius’ Naval Appendix and the Battle of the Hellespont (324 CE) - Craig H. Caldwell
Justinian's Warfare as Role Model for Byzantine Warfare? The Evidence of the Military Manuals - Clemens Koehn
"God has sent the thunder": Ideological Distinctives of Middle Byzantine Military Manuals - Meredith L. D. Riedel
Epilogue: Is War an Art? The Past, Present, and Future of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Military Literature - Immacolata Eramo.