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Aeneas Tacticus

 

Aeneas Tacticus (‘the tactician’), probably Aeneas of Stymphalus, an Arcadian general of the fourth century BC, named ‘Tacticus’ for his military treatises, one of which has survived, ‘On the defence of fortified positions’. It is interesting for revealing social and political conditions in early fourth-century Greece, as well as for being a work outside the Attic literary tradition of its time.

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Aeneas Tacticus (4th century BC) was one of the earliest Greek writers on the art of war.

According to Aelianus Tacticus and Polybius, he wrote a number of treatises (Hypomnemata) on the subject. The only extant one, How to Survive under Siege (Greek: Περὶ τοῦ πῶς χρὴ πολιορκουμένους ἀντέχειν), deals with the best methods of defending a fortified city. An epitome of the whole was made by Cineas, minister of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. The work is chiefly valuable as containing a large number of historical illustrations.

Aeneas was considered by Casaubon to have been a contemporary of Xenophon and identical with the Arcadian general Aeneas of Stymphalus, whom Xenophon (Hellenica, vii.3) mentions as fighting at the Battle of Mantinea (362 BC).

Further reading

  • Aeneas Tacitus, Asclepiodotus, and Onasander. Translated by Illinois Greek Club. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99172-9

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Classical Literature Companion. The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Copyright © 1993, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
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