Tenth-Century Byzantine Military Manual: The Sylloge Tacticorum

<p>The <em>Sylloge Tacticorum</em> is a mid-Byzantine example of the literary genre of military manuals or <i>Taktika</i> which stretches back to antiquity. It was one of a number produced during the tenth century CE a period when the Byzantine empire enjoyed a large measure of success in its wars against its traditional enemy the Arabs. Compiled to record and preserve military strategies know-how and tactics the manual discusses a wide variety of matters: battle formations raids sieges ambushes surprise attacks the treatment of prisoners of war and defectors distribution of booty punishment of military offences how to mount effective espionage and how to send and receive envoys. There is even advice on the personal qualities required by generals on how to neutralize enemy horses and on how to protect the troops against poisoned food. The work culminates in an account of the stratagems employed by great Greek and Roman military commanders of the past. While like so much of Byzantine literature the <em>Sylloge</em> often simply reproduces material found in earlier texts it also preserves a great deal of information about the military tactics being developed by the Byzantine army during the tenth century. It is the first Byzantine source to record the reappearance of a specialized heavy cavalry (the <i>kataphraktoi</i>) and of a specialized infantry (the <i>menavlatoi</i>) used to repel the attacks of the opposing heavy cavalry. There is also a great deal of information on new infantry and cavalry formations and on the new tactics that required them. </p><p></p><p>This is the first complete translation of the <em>Sylloge </em>into English. It is accompanied by a glossary of the specialised Greek military vocabulary used in the work and by footnotes which explain obscure references and identify the author’s classical and Byzantine sources. An introduction places the work in its historical and literary context and considers some of the questions that</p>