Greek and Roman war treatises

[Robert Vermaat]

There were many Romans who moved to improve thing in their own time, in their own way, by progress...

I don't think Romans were against progress, but not in the way we see it today. Improving wasd a good thing (seen for instance in architecture), but when you look at Roman industrial history overall, the picture is more like 'don't change anything if it works'.

The same goes for military treatises, we see ancient material being re-used over and over again. Partly because it gives the writer a 'learned' image (which was immensely important, partly because that's how they looked at older work. You see innovations only when older solutions no longer work. I.e. we see Maurice explaining why he changed the role of the cavalry: he devetes far more space for cavalry tactics than infantry, which he no doubt considered well-known to his readers (and not less important, which you sometimes hear).