[MGSA-L] Princeton Hellenic Studies Workshop: November 21, 2014

[Dimitri H. Gondicas]

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies





Workshop


Rethinking the Enemy, Secret Strategy and Tactics: An Early Byzantine Military Treatise


Petr Shuvalov

St. Petersburg State University

Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellow, Hellenic Studies



Respondent:  John Haldon, History and Hellenic Studies


The Greek text of the famous late Roman compendium of the classic art of war, the Strategikon of Pseudo-Maurice, can be divided into different chronological layers, dated from the fifth to the seventh centuries. The basis for this division is the analysis of textual unity, of inner citation, of the described strategic and tactical schemes and used terms. The main three phases of the development of the text coincide with the three great military reforms - introduction of the Hunnic mobile cavalry tactics of "hippotoxotae" (the so-called defensors and cursors), the secret "hyperkerastae" reform of Justinian's brother Germanus, and the reform according to the Avarian scheme of time of the emperor Heraklios. All three reforms are based on the deep contemplation of the ethnographical data gathered by imperial intelligence services.

Petr Shuvalov graduated in 1985 from St. Petersburg State University, studying medieval history and classics. His Ph.D. (1989) focused on the history, archaeology, and numismatics of the Lower Danube area in late antiquity.  He worked at the Institute of Archaeology and State Hermitage (a total of circa twenty archaeological seasons in Moldavia, Olbia and Crimea).  As associate professor at St. Petersburg State University, in the Russian Academy of Arts, and St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium he teaches courses and seminars dealing with Roman, Mediaeval and Byzantine history, early Slavs and other barbarians.





Friday, November 21, 2014

1:30 p.m.

Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103



Supported by Christos G. and Rhoda Papaioannou Modern Greek Studies Fund


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