Book
390
De Re Militari
Vegetius
Argues Rome's early military dominance came from rigorous training, discipline and engineering rather than superior numbers or courage, and that decline followed the abandonment of these practices.
Read itWhere it is now wrong
Vegetius is describing an army he never saw. Writing around AD 390, he assembled a 'former legion' from older written sources, and the tidy single system he presents reads now as a reformer's idealisation rather than any army that existed at one time.
Before you start
FreeIntermediatelink checked 17 Sept 2026
Filed under Ancient Rome in History.