War-Craft: Surprise Attacks and Military Ethics in the Old English Orosius

The Old English translation of Orosius’s Historiarum adversus paganos libri septem includes several additions, many of which bear on military deception. This article adopts a historical- philological approach to examine the descriptions of military stratagems in the Old English Orosius. Particularly, it focuses on surprise attacks and considers the modification of specific details and the translator’s lexical choices, thereby interrogating the translator’s stance on military trickery. The Old English translator criticizes the use of surprise attacks that take place at night or after oath-taking, as these tactics were typically associated with Viking raiders. He modifies the episodes of Hercules and Camillus, linking their night attacks with cowardice. In his modification, night attacks are acceptable only for defensive purposes and in numerically disproportionate situations. Additionally, by altering the accounts of Sergius Galba and Agathocles, the translator correlates their uses of military trickery following oaths with untrustworthiness and the eventual collapse of authority.