De Rebus Bellicis

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Ox-powered Roman paddle wheel boat from a 15th century copy of De Rebus Bellicis
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Ox-powered Roman paddle wheel boat from a 15th century copy of De Rebus Bellicis
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Military of ancient Rome (Portal)
800 BC - AD 476

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Roman army (unit types,
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De Rebus Bellicis is a 4th or 5th century anonymous work about war machines used by the Roman army of the time.

[edit] Date of the writing

De Rebus Bellicis was surely written after the death of Constantine I (337; explicitly states that Constantine was dead when the work was written), and before the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476). Some researchers suggest that it may refer to the Battle of Adrianople (378; speaks about the serious threat posed by the barbarian tribes to the empire), or even the death of Emperor Theodosius I (395; in many cases it uses the plural form of the word "princeps", the title of the emperor, which may refer to the split of the Empire between Honorius and Arcadius after the death of Theodosius).

[edit] Editions

Anonymi Auctoris De Rebus Bellicis. recensvit Robert I. Ireland (Bibliotheca scriptorvm Graecorvm et Romanorvm Tevbneriana), Lipsiae, 1984.

[edit] See also