Vegetius emphasized things such as training of soldiers as a disciplined force, orderly strategy, maintenance of supply lines and logistics, quality leadership and use of tactics and even deceit to ensure advantage over the opposition.

The leader of the army (dux) had to take care of the men under his command and keep himself informed about the movements of the enemy to gain advantage in the battle.

In that sense, De re militari is a projection of Roman civilization into modern times and a continuation of its influence on its cultural descendants.

Watson observes, Vegetius' Epitoma "is the only ancient manual of Roman military institutions to have survived intact."

Despite this, Watson is dubious of its value, for he "was neither a historian nor a soldier: his work is a compilation carelessly constructed from material of all ages, a congeries of inconsistencies.

"[2] These antiquarian sources, according to his own statement, were Cato the Elder, Cornelius Celsus, Frontinus, Paternus and the imperial constitutions of Augustus, Trajan and Hadrian (1.8).

They are organized into four books: The first book, headed Primus liber electionem edocet iuniorum, ex quibus locis uel quales milites probandi sint aut quibus armorum exercitiis imbuendi [The first book will teach the choice of the young men, from what places, or what kind of soldiers they are to be tested, or with what exercises of arms they are to be imbued], explains the selection of recruits, from which places and what kinds (of men) are soldiers to be authorised and with what exercises of arms they are to be indoctrinated.

The third book, Tertius liber omnia artium genera, quae terrestri proelio necessaria uidentur, exponit, "sets forth all types of arts that appear to be necessary for fighting on land."

[3] Some of these rules were translated into Greek in the Strategikon of Maurice, 8.2, and they became influential in western Europe, from Paul the Deacon to William the Silent, Machiavelli, and Frederick the Great.

Some of the maxims may be mentioned here as illustrating the principles of a war for limited political objectives with which he deals: The book also includes the "seven normal dispositions for battle" ("depugnationum septem...genera," 3.20 and summarized at 3.26.18-24).

The fourth book, Quartus liber uniuersas machinas, quibus uel obpugnantur ciuitates uel defenduntur, enumerat; naualis quoque belli praecepta subnectit, enumerates "all the machines with which cities are besieged or defended" (chapters 1-30) and adds also the precepts of naval warfare (chapters 31-46).

Milner observes that it was "one of the most popular Latin technical works from Antiquity, rivalling the elder Pliny's Natural History in the number of surviving copies dating from before AD 1300.

It was translated into English, French (by Jean de Meun and others), Italian (by the Florentine judge Bono Giamboni and others), Catalan, Spanish, Czech, and Yiddish before the invention of printing.

However, after the first printed editions, Vegetius' position as the premier military authority began to decline, as ancient historians such as Polybius became available.

Niccolò Machiavelli attempted to address Vegetius's defects in his L'arte della Guerra (Florence, 1521), with heavy use of Polybius, Frontinus and Livy, but Justus Lipsius' accusation that he confused the institutions of diverse periods of the Roman Empire and G. Stewechius' opinion that the survival of Vegetius' work led to the loss of his named sources were more typical of the late Renaissance.

[11] While as late as the 18th century we find so eminent a soldier as Marshal Puysegur basing his own works on this acknowledged model, and the famous Prince de Ligne wrote "C'est un livre d'or" [This is a book of gold].

It ends with a paragraph starting: "Here endeth the boke that clerkes clepethe in Latyne Vegecii de re militari."