VEGETIUS

flourished 4th century AD in full Flavius Vegetius Renatus Roman military expert who wrote what was perhaps the single most influential military treatise in the Western world. His work exercised great influence on European tactics after the Middle Ages. A patrician and reformer with little actual military experience, Vegetius lived in an era when cavalry and foreign auxiliary levies had diluted and corrupted the traditional legionary formation, which had been based on a disciplined infantry and cohesive organization. His treatise Rei militaris instituta, also called Epitoma rei militaris, advocated a revival of the old system but had almost no influence on the decaying military forces of the later Roman Empire. His rules on siege craft, however, were studied during the Middle Ages, and, after the crossbow, the longbow, gunpowder, and the pike had deprived cavalry of much of its shock power, Vegetius' work became, and remained for centuries, the military bible of Europe. Vegetius' emphasis on constant drill, severe discipline, the use of reserves, the gathering of intelligence, encirclement, and the use of terrain features helped to transform Western warfare from a capricious game played by aristocrats to the efficient destructive force it became after the Renaissance.