A riotous account of bluffs, subterfuges and sly tricks used by ancient military commanders to win and sometimes lose large and small battles in ancient times. No complicated terminology or accounts of dull maneuvers, but rather a quick-witted narration of general outsmarting general.

ISBN 0-89005503-3/504-1
xxxiii + 549 pages and iii + 542 pages 
Paperback

The two volumes of Polyaenus, Stratagems of War contain three works: Polyaenus, Strategica, the anonymous Excerpts of Polyaenus and the so-called Stratagems of the Emperor Leo. They represent a collection of stratagems presented to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus on the occasion of the Parthian War of AD 161-166, and two Byzantine paraphrases of this work.

The text preserves many fragments of otherwise lost historical texts and often provides unique testimony for many individuals and events, especially from the Hellenistic Period. These two volumes contain an introduction, bibliography and both the original Greek texts and English translation.