Aeneas Tacticus

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).

Works: David Whitehead (publisher): Aineias the Tactician. How to Survive under Siege, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1990, ISBN 0-19-814744-9

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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