As a veteran campaigner the Byzantine emperor Maurice (582-602) compiled a unique and influential handbook intended for the field commander. In this first complete English translation the Strategikon is an invaluable source not only for early Byzantine history but for the general history of the art of war. Describing in detail weaponry and armor daily life on the march or in camp clothing food medical care military law and titles of the Byzantine army of the seventh century the Strategikon offers insights into the Byzantine military ethos. In language contemporary down-to-earth and practical the text also provides important data for the historian and even the ethnologist including eyewitness accounts of the Persians Slavs Lombards and Avars at the frontier of the Empire.