Aeneas Tacticus
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For other uses, see Aeneas (disambiguation).
Aeneas Tacticus (4th century BC) was one of the earliest Greek writers on the art of war.
According to Aelianus Tacticus and Polybius, he wrote a number of treatises (Hypomnemata) on the subject. The only extant one, How to Survive under Siege (Greek: Περὶ τοῦ πῶς χρὴ πολιορκουμένους ἀντέχειν), deals with the best methods of defending a fortified city. An epitome of the whole was made by Cineas, minister of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. The work is chiefly valuable as containing a large number of historical illustrations.
Aeneas was considered by Casaubon to have been a contemporary of Xenophon and identical with the Arcadian general Aeneas of Stymphalus, whom Xenophon (Hellenica, vii.3) mentions as fighting at the Battle of Mantinea (362 BC).
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.