CORPUS FONTIUM THE TAKTIKA HISTORIAE BYZANTINAE OF LEO VI CONSILIO SOCIETATIS INTERNATIONALIS STUDIIS BYZANTINIS PROVEHENDIS TEXT, TRANSLATION, AND COMMENTARY DESTINATAE EDITUM by GEORGE DENNIS VOLUMEN XLIX LEONIS VI TACTICA EDIDIT, ANGLICE VERTIT, ADNOTAVIT GEORGE DENNIS SERIES WASHINGTONIENSIS, EDIDIT JOHN DUFFY DUMBARTON OAKS In aedibus Dumbarton Oaks RESEARCH LIBRARY AND COLLECTION Washingtoniae, D.C. WASHINGTON, D.C. MMX 2010 CONTENTS Preface vii Introduction ix © 2010 Dumbarton Oaks Select Bibliography XV Trustees for Harvard University Acronyms xix Washington, D.C. Sigla xxi All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. TEXT AND TRANSLATION LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Prologue 2 Leo VI, Emperor of the East, 866-912. Constitution 1: About Tactics and the General 12 [Tactica. English & Greek] The Taktika of Leo VI I text, translation, Constitution 2: About the Qualities Required and commentary by George Dennis. 1st ed. in the General 16 p. em. - (Dumbarton Oaks texts; 12) Constitution 3: About How It Is Necessary to Greek text and English translation on facing pages; Make Plans notes and commentary in English. Includes bibliographical references and index. Constitution 4: About the Division of the Army and ISBN 978-o-88402-359-3 (hardcover: alk. paper) the Appointment of Officers 46 1. Military art and science-Early works to 1800. Constitutions: About Weapons 2. Tactics-Early works to 18oo. 74 3. Military art and science-Byzantine Empire. Constitution 6: About Armament for the Cavalry 4. Byzantine Empire-History, Military-527-1081. and the Infantry 82 I. Dennis, George T. II. Title. Constitution 7: About Training for the Cavalry Ul01.L42313 2010 355.4'2-dc22 and the Infantry 104 2009075248 Constitution 8: About Military Punishments 146 Constitution 9: About Marches In accordance with the rules adopted by the 154 International Commission Constitution 10: About the Baggage Train 186 for the Edition of Sources of Byzantine History, Constitution 11: About Camps the text and translation of this volume have been verified 194 by John Duffy, John Haldan, and Alice-Mary Talbot. Constitution 12: About Advance Preparation for Battle 216 vi Contents Constitution 13: About the Day before Battle Constitution 14: About the Day of Battle 290 Constitution 15: About Besieging a City 350 Constitution 16: About Matters after the War 382 Constitution 17: About Surprise Attacks 392 PREFACE Constitution 18: About the Practices of Various Peoples and of the Romans in Their Battle Formations 436 Constitution 19: About Naval Warfare 502 Constitution 20: About Various Concise Sayings 536 My dissertation director, Raymond-J. Loenertz, OP, once told me that, in old 620 Epilogue age, one should not undertake a critical edition of a Greek text. Perhaps I should have followed his advice. When I began work on the present edition, however, Maps 644 old age was off in the distant future and I could still distinguish an acute ac­ Byzantine Measurements 647 cent from a grave. But, owing to unforeseen circumstances, the work took much longer than I had anticipated and I came to realize the pertinence of Fr. Loen­ Glossary 649 ertz's cautionary advice. Despite our best efforts, there surely remain imperfec­ Persons Mentioned 653 tions and mistakes. That they are not too numerous is due largely to the careful, Indexes time-consuming work of John Duffy in reading and correcting my typescript. I. Greek proper names 655 To him I express my heartfelt thanks. My thanks also to John Haldon for his II. Greek terms 657 helpful suggestions and, among other things, his corrections of the equine ter­ III. Fontes 669 minology. My sincere thanks go to Alice-Mary Talbot, ofDumbarton Oaks, for her kind and constant support and for expediting the production of this book. IV. General 672 My thanks, as well, to Joel Kalvesmaki, a former student, who so efficiently pre­ sided over the editorial process, and to Lionel Yaceczko who moved that process along carefully and professionally. I must, as any scholar must, acknowledge the gracious, professional assis­ tance of the librarians at Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Biblioteca de El Escorial, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, as well as those at Dumbarton Oaks, The Catholic University of America, and Santa Clara Uni­ versity. Los Gatos, California George T. Dennis, S./. September, 2009 INTRODUCTION Although he probably never set foot on a battlefield, the Byzantine emperor Leo VI (r. 886-912) appears to have had a lively interest in military matters and the conduct of war. He was after all the supreme commander of the Byzantine or, as he would prefer, Roman armed forces. Successor to Caesar Augustus, Tra­ jan, Constantine, and Justinian, he was expected to be victorious in war and to subject barbarian peoples to the authority of Rome. He soon realized that he could not do this without a solid knowledge of military equipment and prac­ tice. This is precisely what Leo set about to acquire. The Byzantines had inher­ ited a voluminous series of military treatises from antiquity: diagrams of battle formations and instructions for improving one's archery, for besieging or de­ fending a city, and for nearly every aspect of warfare. Leo went through all this, summarized it, and presented what he considered to be an elementary hand­ book for his officers on how to prepare soldiers for war and how to move them about on campaign and on the battlefield. The Tactical Constitutions, or Takti­ ka, were the result. Preceded by a prologue and concluding with an epilogue, the twenty Con­ stitutions, or chapters, offer little that is original. But the Byzantines were not interested in original compositions; they revered the authority of the ancients. Apart, then, from sections devoted to the Saracens and to naval warfare, the Taktika consist largely of adaptations and paraphrases of previous authors, the most obvious of which are Onasander (first century A.D.), Aelian (second cen­ tury A.D.), and Maurice (ca. A.D. 6oo). Leo must have compiled the Taktika during his reign as emperor, for he refers to his father, Basil I, as deceased. As with any work attributed to an emperor, it is not clear how much was written by Leo himself (although there are some very personal remarks) and how much by his secretaries or research assistants. At any rate, copies were made and, some­ time before the death of his son, Constantine VII, in 959, it was incorporated x Introduction Introduction xi into a large volume of Greek military treatises, a sort of military encyclopedia, Nl copy of M, a sort of second edition. Although mutilated in the beginning and and deposited in the imperial library. This, or a copy of it, is the mid-tenth­ at the end, and missing several folios, it must be consulted to establish the au­ century codex Mediceo-Laurentianus graecus, 55, 4 (M). thentic text of the Taktika. W is a small (octavo) parchment volume consisting This manuscript, written by one hand on good parchment, has been the presently of 249 folios. The script is clear, 24 lines to a page, although the ink has subject of several detailed studies.' Alphonse Dain claims that it exemplifies the faded in several places. Especially in the earlier chapters, there are numerous first manuscript family, which he designates as the authentic tradition. In its brief, crudely written marginal notations, perhaps by a later hand, often without present state, it is made up of 404 folios, mostly quaternions, although some diacritical marks (reproduced as such in this edition), meant to clarify certain folios are now missing, as will be noted suo loco. Each page measures 32.5 x 26 terms in the text. When W was written is not clear, probably early in the second em., 32 lines to a page. The script is a clear and somewhat elegant minuscule, half of the tenth century. with the titles in semi-uncial. The ink is dark brown, fading in places, with red A thorough study of the two manuscripts indicates that W may have been ink used for the titles, which are preceded by ornamental bands. copied directly from M or, at least, from a manuscript very closely linked to it. It seems that not many copies were made of M, and much of its subse­ The differences between the two are minimal, and a survey of the first fourteen quent history is not clear. Early in the fifteenth century, it was owned by a high­ chapters reveals some 220 common errors, such as KOUTou~epvtv and T6A.oov ranking army officer in the service of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, De-me­ (seep. xiii below). And, of course, each manuscript has some unique errors, with trios Laskaris Leontares, who made use of blank spaces to record births and W having a few more than M, including some omissions. Both seem to regard deaths in his family from 1408 to 1439. His grandson, also named Demetrios, indicative and subjunctive as interchangeable, o <-->- w, et <-->- '1· M tends to pre­ made further notations for the years 1448 to 1450.2 After the fall of Constanti­ sent numerals as such, whereas W tends to spell them out, e.g., tW versus nople, in 1453, the volume found its way to Thessaly, where it was purchased in 6wOeKa. Both prefer o to w in words such as KoupmiTope<;. In a few instances, W 1491 by Janus Laskaris and brought to Florence. has the correct reading whereas M does not, but these are usually due to simple The Tactical Constitutions, beginning on folio 281, originally consisted of scribal corrections of mistakes in M. W generally adds final v before a word be­ sixteen constitutions, which were followed by an assortment of maxims; an epi­ ginning with K or T.