Battles and generals : : combat, culture, and didacticism in Procopius' Wars / / by Conor Whately.

• Superior document: History of Warfare, Volume 111
• VerfasserIn: Whately, Conor,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, The Netherlands ;, Boston, [Massachusetts] : : Brill,, 2016.; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: History of warfare ; Volume 111.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (290 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

In Battles and Generals: Combat, Culture, and Didacticism in Procopius’ Wars, Whately reads Procopius’ descriptions of combat through the lens of didacticism, arguing that one of Procopius’ intentions was to construct those accounts not only so that they might be entertaining to his audience, but also so that they might provide real value to his readership, which was comprised, in part, of the empire’s military command. In the course of this analysis we discover that the varied battles and sieges that Procopius describes are not generic; rather, they have been crafted to reflect the nature of combat – as understood by Procopius – on the three fronts of Justinian’s wars, the frontier with Persia, Vandal north Africa, and Gothic Italy.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 The Life of Procopius -- 2 How to Defeat the Persians in Combat -- 3 How to Defeat the Vandals in Combat -- 4 How to Defeat the Goths in Combat -- 5 Book Eight -- 6 Procopius’ Worldview and the Wider Intellectual Context -- Appendix 1: Glossary of Procopian Battles and Sieges -- Appendix 2: Win/Loss Records of the Persian and Roman Armies in the Persian Wars -- Select Bibliography -- Index.