Generalship in Ancient Greece, Rome and Byzantium

378 Pages·2022·19.207 MB·English

by  Shaun Tougher, Richard Evans

Generalship in Ancient Greece,
Rome and Byzantium
For NCT
Generalship in Ancient Greece,
Rome and Byzantium
Edited by Richard Evans and Shaun Tougher
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© editorial matter and organisation Richard Evans and Shaun Tougher, 2022
© the chapters their several authors, 2022
Cover image: Tapestry showing Constantine’s Triumphal Entry into Rome 1623–1625.
Figural composition designed in 1622 by Peter Paul Rubens. Philadelphia Museum
of Art: Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1959, 1959-78-1.
Cover design: Workhaus.
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
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ISBN 978 1 4744 5994 5 (hardback)
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ISBN 978 1 4744 5997 6 (epub)
The right of Richard Evans and Shaun Tougher to be identified as the editors of this work has
been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright
and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of Contributors ix
Abbreviations xii
Introduction 1
Richard Evans and Shaun Tougher
1. Kings, Tyrants and Bandy-Legged Men: Generalship in Archaic
Greece 6
Cezary Kucewicz
2. Commemorating Thermopylae: The andreia of Glorious Defeat
as a Literary Construct 36
Richard Evans
3. Plato on Military and Political Leadership 52
Nicholas Rockwell
4. Reconstructing Early Seleucid Generalship, 301–222 bc 67
Alex McAuley
5. Generalship and Knowledge in the Middle Roman Republic 86
Michael Taylor
6. Command Assessment in the Bellum Gallicum: Caesar and Fortuna 98
David Nolan
vi | CONTENTS
7. Remembering P. Quinctilius Varus: Opposing Perspectives on the
Memory and Memorialisation of the Failed General in the Annales
of Tacitus 116
Daniel Crosby
8. Decius and the Battle near Abritus 139
David Potter
9. Ammianus and the Heroic Mode of Generalship in the Fourth
Century ad 151
Conor Whately
10. The Fine Line between Courage and Fear in the Vandal War 164
Michael Stewart
11. The Generalship of John Troglita: Art in Artifice 187
Martine de Marre
12. The Best of Men: Cross-Cultural Command in the 630s ad 206
Eve MacDonald
13. Tian Yue Marshals His Tropes: Public Persuasion and the Character of
Military Leadership in Late Tang China 225
David A. Graff
14. The Ideal of the Roman General in Byzantium: The Reception of
Onasander’s Strategikos in Byzantine Military Literature 242
Philip Rance
15. Generalship and Gender in Byzantium: Non-Campaigning Emperors
and Eunuch Generals in the Age of the Macedonian Dynasty 264
Shaun Tougher
16. The Politics of War: Virtue, Tyche, Persuasion and the Byzantine
General 284
Dimitris Krallis
Epilogue 306
Richard Evans and Shaun Tougher
Bibliography 307
Index 351
Acknowledgements
This volume has its origins in a panel on ‘The Art of Generalship: Late Antique,
Byzantine, and Chinese Ideals’ held at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds
in 2014. For this publication the scope of the original panel was extended to encom-
pass the ancient Graeco-Roman world. In the course of its production several debts
of gratitude have been incurred. We would like to thank all the contributors to the
original panel, including those who were not able to contribute to the final volume:
Doug Lee, Peter Lorge, Ken Swope and Jamie Wood. We are also indebted to the
many colleagues around the world who acted as readers for the individual chap-
ters and supplied helpful and constructive feedback. In addition, we cannot thank
enough Edinburgh University Press for their support and extreme patience, espe-
cially Carol Macdonald. The schedule faced of course not just the usual obstructions
to finalisation experienced by academics but also the ongoing Covid pandemic.
Finally, Shaun would like to thank Richard for his immense contribution to the
completion of the volume; he proved as excellent and positive a co-editor as he was
a colleague at Cardiff.
Richard Evans and Shaun Tougher
Pretoria and Cardiff