Strategemata

This article is about the book by Frontinus. For the work by Polyaenus, see Stratagems (Polyaenus). For articles with similar titles, see Stratagem.

The nineteenth-century Teubner edition of the Latin text

Strategemata, or Stratagems, is a work by the Roman author Frontinus (c. 40 – 103 AD). It is a collection of examples of military stratagems from Greek and Roman history, ostensibly for the use of generals. Frontinus is assumed to have written Strategemata towards the end of the first century AD, possibly in connection with a lost work on military theory.

Frontinus is best known as a writer on water engineering, but he had a distinguished military career. In Stratagems he draws partly on his own experience as a general in Germany under Domitian. However, most of the (more than five hundred) examples which he gives are less recent, for example he mentions the Siege of Uxellodunum in 51 BC. Similarities to versions in other Roman authors like Valerius Maximus and Livy suggest that he drew mainly on literary sources.

The work consists of four books, of which three are undoubtedly by Frontinus. The authenticity of the fourth book has been challenged.

External sources

• Strategemata (in Latin)
• Frontinus: The man and the works (LacusCurtius website): this source provides the Latin text and the English translation from the 1925 Loeb edition.