Late in the fourth century A.D., a Roman bureaucrat named Flavius Vegetius Renatus composed the Epitome of Military Science for the Roman emperor Theodosius the Great. 1 Theodosius had been a very successful general before assuming the imperial purple, and at the time of his accession in 379, the empire needed a strong military leader. 2 The once-invincible legions had been defeated soundly in an abortive invasion of Persia in 363 and by the Goths at the battle of Adrianople in 378. The mighty Roman Empire seemed on the verge of collapse.

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