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Thread: Lieutenant John Clarke

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    Renatus's Avatar Decanus
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    Default Lieutenant John Clarke

    As members may know, before the editions of Stelten and Milner in the 1990s, the last English translation of Vegetius was Military Institutions of Vegetius by Lieutenant John Clarke, published in 1767. Little is generally known of John Clarke but I have been doing some research and can identify him and give an account of his career and family background. My findings have been published in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, the reference being:

    Michael King Macdona, ‘Lieutenant John Clarke: An Eighteenth-Century Translator of Vegetius’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 95 (2017), 119-140.

    I have uploaded the article to Academia.edu, the reference there being:

    https://www.academia.edu/35432676/LI...OR_OF_VEGETIUS

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    Diocle's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Lieutenant John Clarke

    I'm reading, thanks for the link and the work!

    I have few questions in mind, but for now, this is the most relevant: in which way the different translations act on the meanings of Vegetius' text?
    I mean: how much the new translations change the work done by John Clarke? I ask because on my two Italian translations I've read about the difficulties in translating Vegetius, especially seen its peculiar style and the different sources on which you can base the translation's work itself. Is perhaps the critical approach to the ancient sources, the key to evaluate the quality of the more recent works? What does this critic approach improve in the contents of the Epitoma Rei Militaris?

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    Renatus's Avatar Decanus
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    Default Re: Lieutenant John Clarke

    I hope that you find the article interesting. You will understand that I was more concerned with identifying Clarke and giving an account of his career than in commenting upon his translation. The point to remember is that he was using an edition of the text (1670) that would today be regarded as unsatisfactory. This reflects upon the quality and value of his translation. A particular instance is his description of cataphract cavalry in III.23. There, following his source, he states that because of the weight of their armour they become easy prey to the infantry, who attack without order, and with whom they more often engaged than with cavalry. Modern translators, using better texts, have them better in battle against loose-order infantry than against cavalry.
    Last edited by Renatus; December 17, 2017 at 11:15 AM.

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    Diocle's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Lieutenant John Clarke

    Thank you very much for the prompt reply, Renatus. I'm reading the text and I must say that it manages to ignite the interest in the facts of John Clarke's life, even in the casual reader as I am.
    So, thanks again for this interesting and fascinating travel inside the life of 'a gentleman, a soldier, and a scholar', that is, a kind of man we have now lost any track of.


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    Renatus's Avatar Decanus
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    Default Re: Lieutenant John Clarke

    A friend of mine who read the article commented, 'I feel very sorry for John Clarke, holed up in Africa, surrounded by dubious characters, and dead at 42.' One wonders how his career would have developed had he lived.

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    Diocle's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Lieutenant John Clarke

    Quote Originally Posted by Renatus View Post
    A friend of mine who read the article commented, 'I feel very sorry for John Clarke, holed up in Africa, surrounded by dubious characters, and dead at 42.' One wonders how his career would have developed had he lived.
    Yes, also I thought something similar at first, the human history of John Clarke reminds me a character of Conrad, lost in a forgotten land, where it's more easy dying, than living, and where it's even easier losing the respect for yourself and for what you are; but now I think that even if the years' count of his life is low, what really counts is how he lived those years and we must say that he lived the time reserved him by fate with a great amount of class and human quality, and in my opinion this is no small thing.

    Knowing that some time ago you was interested in the subject, do you think the translation of Vegetius used by George Washington was the one written by John Clarke? After the reading of your text it seems to me more than possible.

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    Renatus's Avatar Decanus
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    Default Re: Lieutenant John Clarke

    Quote Originally Posted by Diocle View Post
    Knowing that some time ago you was interested in the subject, do you think the translation of Vegetius used by George Washington was the one written by John Clarke? After the reading of your text it seems to me more than possible.
    I think that, if Washington had used Vegetius, it would have been in Clarke's translation. As you will have seen from my article, one of his officers certainly did. However, the key word is 'if'. You will have noted from my 'George Washington and Vegetius' thread, that I have found nothing to indicate that he had owned a copy of Vegetius or recommended it to any of his officers. The same applies to other ancient military writers. He may have taken a positive view that it was more useful to rely upon modern writers than to refer back to the ancients.

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