Battle descriptions are usually seen as the raw material of the military historian, who uses them to explain why generals won or lost a given battle. This conference does not aim to contribute to this discussion; it rather approaches battle descriptions as literary texts that interact with the expectations of a given audience. Therefore literary traditions in structure, vocabulary and topics of battle descriptions should be explored. The transgression of genre-borders – we also include literary, fictional texts – and a broad comparative approach, combining evidence from the third millennium BC up to the 20^th century AD, should make cultural specifics and differences more easily perceivable.