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Using Vegetius' Epitoma Rei Militaris as a Source for Late Antiquity Some Reflections on Methodology
Book chapter

Using Vegetius' Epitoma Rei Militaris as a Source for Late Antiquity Some Reflections on Methodology

Michael B. Charles
Military Literature in the Medieval Roman World and Beyond, pp.29-48
Reading Medieval Sources: Volume 8, Brill
05/2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004696433_003

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Abstract

Vegetius’ Epitoma Rei Militaris remains one of the most well-read military texts from late antiquity.1 But it is a text that must be used with a great deal of care, and a considered understanding of what Vegetius was trying to achieve in its four books. The first piece in the puzzle, of course, is working out who Vegetius was, and when he wrote his Epitoma. The first matter is perhaps easier to resolve than the latter. The appearance of ‘Flavius’ in manuscripts containing the Epitoma suggests that Vegetius enjoyed a reasonably high social standing. By the Late Empire, ‘Flavius’, often abbreviated to ‘Fl.’ before the praenomen, had become a kind of honorific title for members of the higher echelons of society.2 Other manuscripts refer to Vegetius as a vir inlustris or even a comes of some sort, again an indication of esteem, although much uncertainty remains.3 That Vegetius is also associated with a much-less-read text of animal husbandry, the Mulomedicina, suggests that he had some familiarity with the management of large estates. The jury remains out on whether Vegetius had any military experience to speak of. He never seems to write from the position of personal experience and many details that he provides about the military are simply wrong (as we shall see below). So, a military background is doubtful at best. What we do know, given the number of sources to which he refers, is that Vegetius was well read and had access to a library4 – factors which again suggest a privileged background.

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