Insights into the Writer Vegetius

Abstract

This paper, “Insights into the writer Vegetius” aims to introduce to fellow scholars provocative information hidden within a Late Roman military treatise. It has long been known by commentators and translators that the writer Vegetius composed his most famous work, Epitoma Rei Militaris, in the shadow of some recent catastrophic defeat of imperial arms. The inability to properly identify this battle has led to much erroneous speculation regarding the date of this document, the purpose for which it was originally written, the origins of the writer himself, and the anonymous emperor to whom it was later sent. Answer to these problems were found rather inadvertently during research into an unrelated subject. The following observations, having been refined over the course of a decade or more, rely on close comparison of the parent material in the original Latin to numerous geographical, linguistic and literary cognates. Conclusions are based on rational weight of evidence. While one matching factor can be rightly ignored, and multiple similarities dismissed with sound arguments, dozens of verifiable parallels demand the attention of the most incredulous historian. Much work remains to be done. Review and further investigation into the sources cited by individuals on a personal basis is strongly encouraged. The insights offered by this paper towards our dim understanding of events in the fifth century A.D. are, as of yet, unmeasured. It would seem that the events recorded by Vegetius have an additional hidden potential. Like a dark age “Rosetta stone”, other obscure historical material, once undecipherable, can perhaps be identified and placed into proper context. Such a unusual suggestion, that long sought information has lain quietly within the Epitoma, will hopefully stimulate no small growth of curiosity.