Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 247 including the changing role of Byzantine cavalry and the development of a cadre of heavily- armoured pike-armed infantry. New formations were also devised to address the challenges posed by campaigning in this region. Overall, this work has a number of strengths. It provides a detailed analysis of the Byzantine army at a crucial juncture in its history, splicing an array of different sources and seeking to provide answers for important questions of interest to modern historians. As mentioned above, a clearer sense of narrative overview would have been desirable and at times the sources are too slight to enable the author to draw firm conclusions. Nevertheless, this work also offers several important findings; especially noteworthy are those concerning the cross- cultural exchange of ideas and technologies. Theotokis is also careful to situate his discussion in the broader context of wider debates (from the classical era to the modern day) concerning the conduct of war. Nicholas Morton Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK Nicholas.morton@ntu.ac.uk © 2019 Nicholas Morton https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2019.1614304 A Tenth-Century Byzantine Military Manual: The Sylloge Tacticorum, trans. Georgios Chatzelis and Jonathan Harris, 2017, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies, London: Routledge, ix + 170 pp. £115.00 (hardback) ISBN