Aelianus Tacticus

Who is Aelianus Tacticus?

Aelianus Tacticus, also known as Aelian, was a Greek military writer who lived in Rome.

Aelian's military treatise in fifty-three chapters on the tactics of the Greeks, titled On tactical arrays of the Greeks, is dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian, though this is probably a mistake for Trajan, and the date 106 AD has been assigned to it. It is a handbook of Greek, i.e. Macedonian, drill and tactics as practiced by the Hellenistic successors of Alexander the Great. The author claims to have consulted all the best authorities, the most important of which was a lost treatise on the subject by Polybius. Perhaps the chief value of Aelian's work lies in his critical account of preceding works on the art of war, and in the fullness of his technical details in matters of drill.

He also gives a brief account of the constitution of a Roman army at that time. The work arose, he says, from a conversation he had with the emperor Nerva at Frontinus's house at Formiae. He promises a work on Naval Tactics also; but this, if it was written, is lost.

Critics of the 18th century — Guichard Folard and the Prince de Ligne — were unanimous in thinking Aelian greatly inferior to Arrian, but Aelian exercised a great influence both on his immediate successors, the Byzantines, and later on the Arabs,. Emperor Leo VI the Wise incorporated much of Aelian's text in his own work on the military art. The Arabic version of Aelian was made about 1350. It was first translated into Latin by Theodore Gaza, published at Rome in 1487. The Greek editio princeps was edited by Francesco Robortello and published at Venice in 1552.