09-29-2017, 05:28 PM
Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science, Translated with notes and introduction by N.P. Milner, Translated Texts for Historians Volume 16, Liverpool University Press, 1996 (1993)
However, it seems that one can also have too much of a good thing. Learned commentators such as G. Stewechius (Leiden 1585) expressed disappointment that it was due to the preservation of Vegetius that works by his named sources, Cato, Celsus, Frontinus and Paternus, had not survived whereas Vegetius’ Epitome, a late Christian source not from the best period of Roman culture, gave no indication which parts were owed to which classical author. This complaint is almost certainly misguided; there are a number of indications in the Epitome that even Vegetius worked from late epitomes of the named sources, so that it may be doubted that the latter would have had an independent chance of survival. Secondly, in spite of the demand for Roman military treatises from the Carolingian period onwards, no manuscript of the lost authors can be demonstrated to have been discovered.
However, it seems that one can also have too much of a good thing. Learned commentators such as G. Stewechius (Leiden 1585) expressed disappointment that it was due to the preservation of Vegetius that works by his named sources, Cato, Celsus, Frontinus and Paternus, had not survived whereas Vegetius’ Epitome, a late Christian source not from the best period of Roman culture, gave no indication which parts were owed to which classical author. This complaint is almost certainly misguided; there are a number of indications in the Epitome that even Vegetius worked from late epitomes of the named sources, so that it may be doubted that the latter would have had an independent chance of survival. Secondly, in spite of the demand for Roman military treatises from the Carolingian period onwards, no manuscript of the lost authors can be demonstrated to have been discovered.
