Walter Emil Kaegi, Jr.

Some Thoughts on Byzantine Military Strategy

© Hellenic College Press, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1983

 

Page 13

The author of the Strategikon advises his readers to fashion craftiness and cunning in war and to avoid open battles, that it is often preferable to strike the enemy "by means of deceptions or raids or hunger" instead of open battle. [14]

[14. Strategikon 8.2.4.]

He warns against engaging the enemy in combat or showing them your own strength before you know their disposition of forces and their plans. He recommends the use of guile in war as efficacious. He calls attention to the disastrous example of the general who loses most of his army in one battle. There is great emphasis on caution in making war: "The suspicion-loving general is safe in war." [15]

[15. Ibid. 8.2.47.16.]

He advises against mixing allied barbarian forces (i.e., from various barbarian tribes, such as Germanic, Arab, Hunnic and other peoples) with Byzantine troops. Instead, they should be placed in their own camps, and assigned their own routes so that they cannot learn your deployment and strategy and then betray them to your enemy. [16]

[16. Ibid.8.2.80.]

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