VEGETIUS, Flavius Renatus, the compiler of a treatise on the art of war, dedicated to Valentinian II. (375-392). Nothing is known of his life save that in MSS. he is called vir illustris and also comes. His sources, according to his own statement, were Cato, Cornelius Celsus, Frontinus, Paternus, and the imperial constitutions of Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian. The book, which is a poor compilation, has to be used with great caution. The first edition appeared at Utrecht in 1473; the latest is that of Lang (Leipsic, 1869). The book has been often translated; an English version through the French was published by Caxton in 1489.