The life and times of Flavius Vegetius

The Life and times of Flavius Vegetius
Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus was a notable historian and a writer who lived in the 5-th century. There are no primary sources recording his life. Yet, the information about Flavius Vegetius can be found his two books that serve as the representation of the author’s talent and contribution to the literature.
Flavius Vegetius shortly after 383 compiled a long handbook of traditional Roman military practices in hope that it would aid in restoring the strength of the army. His Military Institutions of the Romans is the most thorough description of the legions and their training and tactics, both as they had been at the time of Rome’s greatness and as they were in the fourth century (Watson 26). While not a great captain himself, Vegetius was a good historian, and drew intelligently from the histories of Rome’s wars to give a good picture of the old practices. Numerous histories of Roman wars and campaigns, such as Caesar Gallic Wars, survived into the Middle Ages, but Vegetius’ book was the only military manual that was available to medieval men. Manuscript copies circulated at the time of Charlemagne, and about 150 copies were made from the years 1000 to 1400. Vegetius was translated into French, German, English, and Italian during the late Middle Ages, and the first printed edition dates from 1473 (Barnes 255).
While it was the main textbook on military matters for 1,300 years after it was written, the Military Institutions had little impact in its own time and did little or nothing to halt the decline in the late Roman military. In particular the author did not fully project how the economic decline of the empire influenced the practice of hiring less costly barbarian mercenaries, which he rejected (Barnes 256). As the quality of Roman soldiers declined, the barbarians, mostly Germanic, were viewed as having the martial spirit and skills now lacking in the Roman population. With the disappearance of Roman discipline, the legionary’s style of fighting with the short sword, the essence of Roman military success, began to disappear as well. Even Roman recruits began to fight in the German style. The foreign troops were loyal to the empire and with strikingly few exceptions fought well and bravely for it. But the Roman army of which they now constituted the core was no longer clearly superior to those barbarian tribes that sought to invade the empire rather than serve it.
What is prominent is that the legacy of Greek and Roman warfare is known largely through Vegetius’ Military Institutions (Michael 45-48). The fourteenth-century poetess Christine de Pisan recommended that the wives of barons read Vegetius in order to be prepared to defend their properties in the absence of their husbands (Michael 48).

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