Name Aeneas Tacticus | Role Writer | |
Books Aeneas Tacticus, Asclepiodotus, Onasander | ||
Aeneas Tacticus (Greek: Αἰνείας ὁ Τακτικός; fl. 4th century BC) was one of the earliest Greek writers on the art of war and is credited as the first author to provide a complete guide to securing military communications. Polybius described his design for a hydraulic semaphore system.
According to Aelianus Tacticus and Polybius, he wrote a number of treatises (Ὺπομνήματα 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 Isaac 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).