The Legions in the Late Empire

By R.S.O. Tomlin

The survival of the legions

I have good news, not that it will be news to most of us: our legions made it into the
Late Empire.i This paper concerns their survival, and is work in progress; a large
bundle of loose ends, and other people’s loose ends at that. As an Oxford colleague
of mine once said, I am ‘just talking aloud’.

Survival; but ‘no one is immortal’, a veteran of legio I Parthica wrote on the
tombstone of his daughter. She was called Castrensis, the Daughter of the Regiment,
and she was only 13 when she died.ii Not all the regiments survived either. Augustus
left 25 legions, 19 of which are still listed in the third century by the historian Dio
Cassius. When Septimius Severus died, the total had risen to 33 legions.iii This
increase of one-third can be attributed to the well-known factors which caused the
evolution of the late-Roman army: the loss of the initiative against enemies who were
now better organized, and the fatal need to defend fixed frontiers. The most
important new legion was Severus’ legio II Parthica, which was chiefly recruited,
like his enlarged, élite Praetorian Guard, from the Danubian provinces. Much is
known about legio II Parthica from the many tombstones found at its two bases,
Albanum south of Rome and Apamea in Syria, where it was based during the eastern
expeditions of Caracalla, Severus Alexander and Gordian III.iv Like the Praetorian
Guard, it was commanded by an equestrian prefect, not a senatorial legate; a
professional soldier in the emperor’s confidence.v Also like the Guard, it was
virtually the Emperor’s private army, not a frontier legion at all. These two
formations, the Praetorian Guard and legio II Parthica, with a combined strength of
more than 15,000 élite infantry, were the forerunners of the fourth-century mobile
army.vi

The next army list to survive is the famous Notitia Dignitatum, which dates from the
division of the empire in 395.vii This will be my closing date, although ‘legions’
maintain a shadow life until the late sixth century.viii Of Severus’ 33 legions, 29 are
still listed in the Notitia; the four casualties include legio II Parthica itself and our
own legio XX Valeria Victrix. However, these legions of the late-Roman world were
very different from their predecessors, and they would have startled Caesar or
Tacitus. Here are some random pieces of the mosaic, which hint at how they had
changed; and ‘what a change’, as Aeneas said, when he dreamed of the dead Hector.
(i) On 25 May 288, in Rough Cilicia, legio I Pontica finished cutting its parade
ground from the living rock. In the same spirit a British officer at the Khyber
Pass ‘set the defaulters to work with pick-axes and cold chisels to level a large
area of virgin rock to a perfect level’, for use as a military roller-skating rink.ix
The editors of the Cilician inscription comment: ‘At the spot where [it] was
found there is a level area, small but surprising nevertheless in this contorted
landscape’.x

(ii) Again in Cilicia, in 354, Isaurian brigands converged on the provincial capital
Seleuceia, which was then held by three legions. The legions made a sortie
but, despite morale being good, their officers decided not to risk battle
‘because walls were not far away, which could safely protect them all’. So
they stood siege instead and had to be rescued by a scratch force collected by
the Count of the East, a civilian.xi

(iii) In 360, Constantius II ruled that when a legion was on the march, it was
entitled to no more than two wagons of the Public Post to carry its invalids.xii
This would indicate that either the legionaries were very fit, or there were not
many of them.

(iv) Later in the 360s, the garrison of Phoenicia [the Lebanon], which included the
old legio III Gallica, the legion which greeted the rising sun at the Battle of
Cremona in 69, was commanded by a retired German king in the Roman
service.xiii

(v) In 378, immediately after the Battle of Adrianople in which the Goths crippled
the eastern Roman army, Saint Ambrose told the Emperor Gratian: ‘The name
and religion of Jesus must lead the army, not eagles and birds’.xiv Likewise
Saint Jerome in c. 401 tells his Daughter in Christ that military standards, the
vexilla militum, now bear the sign of the Cross. The Goths have mobile
churches, tent-churches, which is why they fight the Romans on level terms;
they are Christians too.xv

These references suggest that the legions survived in some numbers, but that they
were comparatively small, and that their morale and motivation had changed, as had
their command-structure. It is also clear that the legions did not always win,
something which, as Peter Connolly once said to me, makes the study of the late-
Roman army still more interesting. But the legions survived, more or less.

Frontier legions and mobile legions

‘More’, in fact, rather than ‘less’, for no fewer than 174 legions have been counted in
the Notitia Dignitatum. The reason that so many are listed is that the Notitia
embodies the strategy of Constantine, who concentrated élite ‘Court’ units
(comitatenses) in a mobile army not committed to immediate frontier defence, and
dispersed second-rate ‘Frontier’ units (limitanei) along the periphery. In the Notitia,
the mobile legions are listed by army in order of seniority, and implicitly are paired in
‘brigades’, whereas the frontier legions are located by their station.

Many of the old legions appear in both forms, but sometimes under new names. The
legio I Italica, for example, is recorded on three different levels: as a ‘river legion’
(legio ripariensis) at two places on the Lower Danube, its old location; but also as a
frontier legion which was subsequently promoted into a mobile army (legio
pseudocomitatensis), the army at Antioch; and even, now called the Moesiaci, as a
senior, ‘palatine’ legion in the western strategic reserve in northern Italy.xvi Beside
these old legions are many new ‘legions’ (the term persists), some with old-fashioned
names like Diocletian’s legio I Pontica, but others which bear titles as enigmatic as
his Mattiarii. They were an élite unit, as it happens, and more of them in a moment;
but they sound almost like those heretics at Rome called Mattarii, because they slept
on mats; according to Saint Augustine, they were a Manichaean splinter-group.xvii

New, informal names were the rule in the mobile armies, whereas the old numerals
and cognomina were used for units in the frontier armies. Thus we find legio tertia
Italica at no less than five different stations in the frontier province of Raetia, but the
Tertiani sive tertia Italica in the central reserve.xviii These numerical names, such as
Primani, are common both in the Notitia and in late-Roman inscriptions. One of
Valentinian’s Swiss blockhouses was built, not by legio VIII Augusta, but by ‘the
Legion of the Octavo-Augustanenses’.xix The historian Ammianus Marcellinus refers
long-windedly to ‘the Legion of the Primani.xx This convention, however, is very
old. The old African legion legio III Augusta, the Tertioaugustani of the Notitia,
already calls itself the Tertia Augustani or the Tertii Augustani in the third century.xxi
Indeed Hadrian, in his speech to the legion at Lambaesis, refers to the Tertiani.xxii
Tacitus speaks of the Nonani and the Quartadecimani, like Augustus more than a
century earlier still, who called his Fourth Legion the Quartani. Likewise a general
of Julius Caesar calls the famous Tenth Legion the Decumani.xxiii These numerical
titles, like many of the late-Roman army’s peculiarities, were thus the product of a
long evolution.

Other mobile legions adapted their cognomen. Thus the Minervii derives from
Domitian’s legio I Minervia, the Fortenses from Trajan’s legio II Traiana Fortis, and
the Martii from Diocletian’s legio I Martia. The latter called itself ‘the First Legion
of Martii’, which is also a colloquialism.xxiv This practice is found in late-Roman
Egypt, where the longest-lived of all the legions, legio V Macedonica, not only retains
its formal title but also masquerades as the Quintani and even as ‘the
Macedonians’.xxv A title of this kind is not, however, a guarantee of legionary origin;
for example, the mobile legion called the Pacatianenses must have derived its name
from an auxiliary cohort, cohors II Flavia Pacatiana.xxvi

A unit’s title need not have been derived from that of a previous legion. This was
assumed by the Notitia’s great editor, when he indexed the famous Ioviani and
Herculiani as if they were mobilised detachments of Diocletian’s new frontier legions
I Iovia and II Herculia, but it is very unlikely.xxvii First, there is a dedication to
Mithras by an old-style detachment of legio II Herculia in Mauretania, part of an
expeditionary force, which is explicitly identified as the legion’s Tenth and Seventh
Cohorts.xxviii Furthermore, there are circumstantial statements that the Ioviani and the
Herculiani were actually raised by Diocletian; and there seems to be visual
confirmation on the Arch of Galerius at Salonika, where the shields of soldiers
attending the Emperor carry the device of a standing Hercules or (like the Ioviani in
the Notitia) an eagle.xxix The Ioviani and Herculiani are the senior mobile ‘brigade’ in
the Notitia, and their names run parallel to those of another very senior pair, the
Solenses and Martenses, which recall the tutelary deities of Diocletian’s two junior
colleagues, Constantius and Galerius.xxx It would appear, therefore, that in raising
these four legions, Diocletian was consciously or unconsciously imitating Severus’
creation of legio II Parthica.. They were new legions, not committed to the defence
of fixed positions, and intimately linked to the new dynasty.

The Dianenses legion, on the other hand, does not bear a theophoric name like the
Ioviani, but was named after Ad Dianam on the Via Egnatia.xxxi A little further to the
east, at Lychnidus, a dedication for the well-being of Gallienus by detachments of
legiones II Parthica and III Augusta attests the strategic importance of this road.xxxii
A geographical name like Dianenses, derived from a previous station, is quite often
borne by mobile legions. This again was ancient practice; in Britain, for example, we
have the Longoviciani at Longovicium / Lanchester, and the Vinovienses at Vinovium
/ Binchester.xxxiii The most apposite example, however, is legio II Parthica, which
was soon called ‘the Albanians’ or ‘the Alban legion’, because it was based at
Albanum.xxxiv As we have seen, its indirect successor was the Ioviani - Herculiani
‘brigade’. These are followed in the western Notitia by the Divitenses and the
Tungrecani.xxxv The origin of the Divitenses is certain, for there are Tetrarchic
tombstones of men from the so-called legio II Italica ‘of the Divitenses’. xxxvi Clearly
it was a detachment from the old garrison of Noricum, Marcus Aurelius’ legio II
Italica, which was posted to the Cologne bridgehead fort of Divitia (castrum
Divitensium) built ‘in the land of the Franks in the Emperor’s presence’ after
Constantine had defeated them.xxxvii Brigaded with them in the fourth century are the
Tungrecani, not a cohort of Tungrians re-named, but the former garrison of the civitas
Tungrorum (Tongres), a key point on the strategic road leading west from
Cologne.xxxviii

Titles indicate that other mobile legions were once based at key points on the lines of
communication behind the frontiers. The Vesontes, for example, came from Vesontio
in the Belfort gap (Germania Superior), while the Cimbriani are not Germans, but
take their name from Cimbrianae, a meeting-point of major routes leading into the
interior of Pannonia.xxxix The equites Crispiani in Britain, incidentally, were not a
Constantinian unit named after the Caesar Crispus - an assumption which has been
used to date the Duke’s chapter in the Notitia - but an earlier cavalry unit of unknown
date, which was once based at another Pannonian road-junction, Crispiana.xl Another
group of legions, the Lanciarii Savarienses, Stobenses and Augustenses also fits this
pattern: they were units of Lanciarii - legionary detachments armed with the lance -
previously stationed at vital cross-roads behind the Danubian frontier at Savaria,
Stobi, and Augsburg.

Third-century detachments and the origins of the fourth-century legions

There is a simple explanation for these informal legionary names and, indeed, for
both the apparent duplication of legions and the proliferation of new legions with
geographical names. It lies in the centuries-old practice of the Roman army in
detaching vexillations for service elsewhere.xli This is the key to understanding how
the late-Roman army evolved. During the third century the legions, the Roman
army’s equivalent of the modern ‘division’, were gradually broken into ‘battalions’,
temporary or semi-permanent, to provide either holding garrisons for strongpoints
and centres of communications or, more significantly, specialist units for field service
elsewhere. The two categories were of course not mutually exclusive.xlii Field-
service units would have been formed from soldiers who were young and fit, judging
by the example of legio II Parthica again, which made two dedications at Rome for
the safe return from the East of Gordian III and then of Philip. The first is dated 24
July 242, and names the legionaries who joined in 216 and were now being
discharged; they were commanded by the deputy Praetorian Prefect (an indication of
the link between Guard and mobile legion) and by their own ‘reserve commander’
(praefectus reliquationis).xliii The other dedication is dated 23 July 244, and names
‘the class of 218’ now being discharged.xliv From these inscriptions it follows that
when the legion went on campaign the potential veterans, the men already in their
40s, were left behind.

Too little is known of the internal structure of these third-century vexillations, or how
they developed. The evidence is fragmentary, and space permits the review of only a
few examples here.

When the Normans built Carlisle cathedral and the castle, they used the Roman fort
and city as a stone-quarry. In 1987 an early third-century altar was found in the
castle, dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Mars, Victory, and ‘all the other gods and
goddesses’, by Marcus Aurelius Syrio of Nicopolis in the province of Thrace, tribune
of the Twentieth Legion.xlv The altar carries a motif of clasped hands, symbol of
‘concord’ in marriage or public life, which links it to an inscribed block found in
1988 re-used in the foundations of the cathedral. This is the base of a statue-group
depicting two legionaries embracing, and is dedicated to the Concord of the legions II
Augusta and XX Valeria Victrix.xlvi By combining these two pieces of evidence, we
can envisage the following scenario. After Septimius Severus or Caracalla divided
Britain, two under-employed legions were left in the south. So they provided a
‘brigade’ for the northern frontier, even though it lay in another province, Lower
Britain, which had but a single legion. From Carlisle, this ‘brigade’ could have
operated as a field force in conjunction with the most powerful mobile unit in Britain,
the double-strength ala Petriana based across the river at Stanwix. This was nothing
new, of course. An ala and part of legio XX Valeria Victrix had been based at
Newstead in the Antonine period.xlvii A similar arrangement also existed there in the
Flavian period, to judge from the manuscript evidence of the presence of legionaries
and a military tribune.xlviii On the Syrian frontier, contemporary with the Carlisle
altar, there is an inscription from Dura Europos dated 216, recording the construction
of an amphitheatre by detachments of the legions IV Scythica and III Cyrenaica.xlix
This amphitheatre would have seated about 1,000 spectators, and it is tempting to see
this figure as the approximate strength of the two vexillations.l In third-century
Arabia too, as in Numidia, other legionary vexillations were being out-posted.li

The officer commanding the Carlisle ‘brigade’, Marcus Aurelius Syrio, was not a
centurion but a military tribune, which indicates its importance, especially when we
note that he was not an old-style tribunus militum - an inexperienced equestrian
officer or a young would-be senator - but a long-term professional soldier. Like
many of the men in the third-century Praetorian Guard and legio II Parthica, he came
from Thrace; he probably began his military career by joining his nearest legion, legio
I Italica, and then transferred to the new Guard after Severus seized Rome, before
being promoted to an independent command after (say) sixteen years. In this he was
like Maximinus Thrax, also from Thrace, the first of the ‘soldier emperors’ who were
members of the third-century Danubian officer-corps drawn from the Empire’s most
important frontier. Their careers anticipate those of the fourth-century protectores,
whose attachment to the imperial court intervened between service in the ranks and a
military command of their own.

By contrast with the Danube, the northern frontier of Britain was quiet during the
third century, and this Carlisle ‘brigade’ may have been withdrawn for service on the
Continent. The Notitia records no garrison at Carlisle - a striking omission - but an
identical ‘brigade’ is attested on a round bronze plaque now in Paris, which depicts
third-century legionaries of the legions II Augusta and XX Valeria Victrix watching a
wild beast show.lii This roundel is first recorded in a seventeenth-century Italian
collection, but unfortunately its provenance is unknown. There are several other
pieces of evidence which attest the activity of British legions on the Continent in the
third century. They certainly contributed to Gallienus’ expeditionary forces, and
there is a fragmentary dedication by legio XX from Mainz dated 255.liii The cenotaph
at Caerleon of Tadius Exuperatus, a locally-born soldier of legio II Augusta, who
‘died in the German expedition’ aged 37, may also belong to this period.liv In
particular there is a dedication to Gallienus’ well-being by ‘vexillations of the
German and British legions with their auxilia’ at Sirmium.lv On the other hand, the
British legions are not among the 17 legions, from the Rhine and Danube, which
Gallienus honoured on coins of c. 260. This omission can be explained, however, for
at the time he did not control these frontiers, and it is very likely that his ‘legions’
were only vexillations based in northern Italy.lvi They formed an improvised field
army like the legionary detachments which fought for Septimius Severus and other
third-century emperors.lvii The same may be said of the ‘legions’ honoured by
Carausius on his coinage.lviii

Turning to the Tetrachy, we find more evidence for the use of legionary detachments.
When Galerius counter-attacked the Persians in Mesopotamia, he first ‘mustered
troops in Illyricum and Moesia’, surely detachments of Danubian legions.lix When
Maximian campaigned in Mauretania, he took the two cohorts already mentioned of
legio II Herculia from the lower Danube. Soldiers of legiones II and III Italica are
also buried in Mauretania.lx Diocletian’s order of battle in Egypt in 295 is indicated
by a Greek papyrus which records the issue of fodder to the acting-commanders
(praepositi) of twenty detachments.lxi Among those named are the Danubian legions
IV Flavia and VII Claudia, and that they accompanied Diocletian is clear from the
mention also of imperial staff officers (protectores Augustorum) and a mobile cavalry
regiment, the Comites. Two of the unnamed legions in this force must have been V
Macedonica and XIII Gemina from Dacia Ripensis, since they are named with
Diocletian and Maximian on a papyrus ‘poster’ also from Egypt; this has been seen as
a cartoon for a stone inscription, but the brush-drawn lettering is so assured - indeed,
so beautiful - that it must be an inscription in its own right, the rarest of survivals, an
ephemeral public notice written on paper.lxii These two legions are located in the Nile
Delta by the Notitia and other documents, indicating that detachments were left by
Diocletian to secure the rebellious province.

All these legionaries were campaigning far from home for years on end; they are the
men of Aurelian’s ‘Select Army’ with its gilded battle-standards, the soldiers who
proudly record their service in the ‘imperial entourage’ (comitatus).lxiii There is an
occasional glimpse of the professional pride and high morale of these élite troops.
The most detailed of these documents, sadly damaged though it is, is the tombstone
erected for his wife by a Tetrarchic legionary called Aurelius Gaius.lxiv Like Aurelius
Syrio, Gaius enlisted in legio I Italica but, instead of transferring to the Guard, he
served in other legions with geographical titles, VIII Augusta ‘of Germany’ and I
Iovia ‘of Scythia’. By this he means the origin of the detachment to which he was
promoted, not where it actually operated, since he lists at least 23 provinces in which
he saw service - including most of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Syria, Upper Egypt,
Mauretania and Spain - and also the barbarian countries he visited as a soldier: the
Carpi, the Sarmatians and the Goths. Aurelius Gaius, although he was a Christian,
did not court martyrdom like his contemporary, St Julius the Veteran, but he might
have echoed Julius’ words: ‘In all the 27 years I served, I was never brought before a
magistrate either as a criminal or a trouble-maker. I went on seven military
campaigns, and never hid behind anyone nor was I the inferior of any man in
battle.’lxv

Specialist detachments

Aurelius Gaius first trained in the legion as a trooper (eques), and was then promoted
within it to mounted lancer (eques lanciarius).lxvi This brings us to the question of the
specialist units formed from the legions in the third century. Of these, the equites
promoti are the best known. The Notitia ‘brigades’ them with the Comites as the
senior cavalry units in the strategic reserves both of East and West, and other units of
equites promoti also occur, usually in pairs, in almost all the frontier armies.lxvii
Several Egyptian papyri refer (in Greek) to ‘the equites promoti of legio II Traiana’,
and one explicitly describes it as a ‘vexillation’ of the legion.lxviii These units
evidently began as the small cavalry component within each legion, which was
eventually detached from its parent-formation and in the fourth century became
independent. In the first century this component numbered 120 horsemen, a likely
figure thereafter; Vegetius’ huge figure of 726 equites in the Ancient Legion is a
schematic fantasy.lxix The imperial equites promoti par excellence are attested as
early as 293, and were probably the old cavalry component of the Praetorian Guard or
the legio II Parthica.lxx

Another series of cavalry units, the Stablesiani, may also have been legionary in
origin, but this remains uncertain. There is no doubt, however, about the Lanciarii,
units of legionaries armed with the ‘lance’ (lancia).lxxi Aurelius Gaius, as I have said,
served as a mounted lancer in legio I Italica, but the only other evidence of just such a
sub-unit is the tombstone which commemorates a member of the Lanciarii par
excellence, who served in its mounted component.lxxii Hadrian also mentions cavalry
who threw the lance, in his speech at Lambaesis, but these were auxiliaries, like the
late first-century ‘lancers’ of the ala Sebosiana at Carlisle.lxxiii Lanciarii otherwise
served as infantry, and their tactical use is described by Arrian in his account of a
legionary ‘phalanx’.lxxiv Writing in the reign of Hadrian, he arms the first four ranks
of his Cappadocian legions conventionally with the pilum; the next four ranks with
lanceae. These were lighter javelins, which could be thrown over the heads of the
front ranks, thus multiplying the fire-power of the legion.lxxv One of the most
interesting of the tombstones of legio II Parthica at Apamea is that of Aurelius
Mucianus, a trainee lanciarius, who has been buried by a duplicarius lanciarius. The
carved relief shows Mucianus holding five lances and an oval shield. A similar
tombstone shows another legionary holding four lances.lxxvi Until the Tetrarchic
period, these lanciarii continued to be part of the parent legion, as can be deduced
from references to ‘the lancearii soldiers of the vexillation of II Traiana’ or ‘the
praepositus of the most noble lancearii soldiers of legio III Diocletiana’.lxxvii But like
the equites promoti, these specialised sub-units must have later been separated from
their legionary parent, the arrangement which is found in the Notitia.

The Lanciarii par excellence, however, the élite unit ‘brigaded’ with the Mattiarii,
was already independent of any legion by the Tetrarchic period. This is clear from
the career of Valerius Thiumpus, who served in legio XI Claudia, before being
‘chosen lanciarius in the imperial entourage’.lxxviii Some rare coins of Diocletian
actually depict the emperor holding what looks like a bundle of lances, as if he were
an élite light infantryman himself. Like the Lanciarii, the Mattiarii were probably
named after their use of a specialist weapon, the mattiobarbulus or lead-weighted dart
(plumbata) of Vegetius. Some manuscripts have trivialized this to Martiobarbulus
(‘Mars barb’), but the alternative reading mattio- is much to be preferred; it must
embody the name of the Celtic missile variously recorded as materis, mataris, or
matara.lxxix The mattiobarbulus was thus a lightweight, rapid-fire substitute for the
pilum. A legionary could carry five of them, and modern experiments have suggested
that it had a range of 60 metres when thrown underarm in a high trajectory like a
mortar bomb.lxxx This armour-piercing missile, like the lancea, would have increased
the legion’s fire power in the tense, vital moments before battle was joined.

Constantine’s grand strategy

Sir Michael Howard has called the nineteenth-century British Army ‘a congeries of
families, of quasi-autonomous regiments’, echoing his own description of ‘an army
which was [no] more than a congeries of stubbornly independent regiments for whom
tradition often ranked higher than efficiency’.lxxxi This might also describe the
infantry material inherited by Constantine from his father: a patchwork of legionary
detachments and mobilised garrisons, concentrated for campaigning, but between-
times returned to their parent units or outposted to key points. It was Constantine
who carried the strategy of Gallienus, Aurelian and the Tetrarchs to its logical
conclusion, by withdrawing these detachments for good and establishing them as
independent units. Zosimus’ view of his strategy is well known: he blames
Constantine for weakening the frontiers by withdrawing most of Diocletian’s
garrisons and posting them to towns which did not need them.lxxxii There may be
another, still more muddled, reference to the new strategy in the sixth-century
antiquarian writer John the Lydian, who repeatedly says that Constantine dispersed
the Danube garrisons over Lower Asia ‘for fear of an usurpation’, with the result that
Scythia and Moesia and their revenues were lost when the barbarians crossed the
Danube without opposition.lxxxiii

A better judgement is that Constantine made permanent what Diocletian and his
colleagues had formed only in emergency: a powerful field force at the expense of the
frontier garrisons. Unlike his pagan critic Zosimus, he understood the strategic
principle enunciated by Frederick the Great: ‘He who defends everything, defends
nothing’.lxxxiv By reducing the frontier armies to a screen and keeping the best troops
under his immediate control, by thus investing in a mobile army, Constantine paid
himself a rich political dividend: he guarded against another usurpation like his own.
Perhaps John the Lydian, after all, grasped part of the truth.

The size of legions in the fourth century

Constantine’s new ‘legions’, unlike the old legio II Parthica, could not have been
legion-sized; not 5,000 men; but how many men did they contain? The size of units
is a major problem in late-Roman army studies, and no satisfactory answer is possible
because the evidence is so scrappy and anecdotal.lxxxv Nor should we assume that
there was a ‘standard’ size.

The literary evidence is unclear, but here are some figures worth quoting. Towards
the end of Diocletian’s reign there was an attempted coup at Seleuceia, the port of
Antioch; local tradition attributed it to the mutiny of an infantry unit which was
deepening the harbour. The unit was 500-strong, and we may conjecture that, in view
of the work involved, it was a legionary vexillation.lxxxvi This figure can be compared
with contemporary archaeological evidence for the size of fortresses built expressly
for Diocletian’s new legions. These are only a fraction the size of George Boon’s
Caerleon (20.5 hectares); they include:

Kaiseraugst 3.6 hectares legio I Martia.

Noviodunum 5.6 hectares legio I Iovia.

Troesmis 2.8 hectares legio II Herculia.

El Lejjun 4.6 hectares legio IV Martia.

In 359 the city of Amida was garrisoned by legio V Parthica, but another seven
‘legions’ had taken refuge there from the Persians.lxxxvii Ammianus says that the total
numbers trapped here, which included civilians, were (only) 20,000. His figure has
been questioned, but it gains support from his later statement that the Persians lost
30,000 men during the siege; he implies that this figure was more than the Romans
lost in casualties and prisoners taken.lxxxviii During the siege, two of the ‘legions’
made a night sortie which inflicted heavy losses upon the Persians; the Romans
themselves lost 400 men.lxxxix Since this was regarded as an heroic feat - the
commanders were subsequently honoured with public statues - the Roman casualties
are likely to have been heavy; the figure is consistent with these units being each 500-
strong, like the one at Seleuceia.

Two years later, in 361, when Constantius marched westward against Julian in civil
war, he chose the Lanciarii and Mattiarii as his vanguard.xc These units are also said,
by a contemporary source independent of Ammianus, to have provided Julian’s
vanguard when he invaded Persia: 1,500 men commanded by ‘Lucianus’.xci
Ammianus and Zosimus, without identifying its composition, also say that the
vanguard numbered 1,500; and Zosimus adds that it was commanded by Lucillianus.
The argument is not conclusive, but if we combine these three independent witnesses,
we may deduce that the Lanciarii and Mattiarii numbered 750 men each.xcii

Ammianus makes three references to detachments being withdrawn from their parent
units for special service, showing that this process continued. ‘Auxiliaries’ consisting
of four whole units and 300 men from the others were drafted from Julian’s Gallic
army to the East; 500 men were drawn ‘from each legion’ by Gratian to storm a
mountain position in the Black Forest; and 300 men ‘from each unit’ were used by
Valens’ general Sebastian for guerrilla warfare against the Goths.xciii The exact status
of all these parent units is uncertain. Julian’s are said to have been auxilia, which is
certainly true of the four units named. Gratian’s ‘legions’ were infantry in view of
their mission, but Ammianus may not have used the term literally in its formal Notitia
sense of legiones. Sebastianus’ field force, we are told by Eunapius and Zosimus,
numbered only 2,000 men, so they cannot have been drawn from every unit in
Valens’ field army; but it is conjectural that they were cavalry guardsmen drawn from
the scholae.xciv Those detachments yielded by Julian are said to have crippled his
army (true, its units may have been under-strength), and it is reasonable to take these
references in general to imply a ‘battalion’ strength between 500 and 1,000.

Three figures from the reign of Honorius, giving the strength and composition of
small mobile armies, also survive. The most explicit is Claudian’s list of the units
which sailed to Africa in 398 - the Ioviani and Herculiani, another legion and four
crack auxilia - and Orosius gives their numbers as 5,000 men for the campaign.xcv
The context is rhetorical, since Orosius is emphasising the smallness of their
numbers, but it should be borne in mind that Count Theodosius had only 3,500 men at
a critical moment of his African campaign, and that both these African expeditionary
forces are in line with the other two figures. The first is that for the army withdrawn
from Dalmatia by Honorius to fight the Goths: five first-rate units (tagmata)
numbering 6,000 men.xcvi The other is for the reinforcements sent by the eastern
empire to Honorius at Ravenna, made up of six tagmata numbering 4,000 men.xcvii
These figures would also support a range of 500 to 1,000 for mobile infantry units.

Unit-size: the evidence of rations, pay and donatives

Two papyrus receipts record the issue of daily rations of wine and meat to a
detachment of legio V Macedonica in Egypt for two days, 18 and 19 March 399; a
total of 835 rations.xcviii This does not mean that there were 417 1/2 men, of course,
but that officers and NCOs were receiving multiple rations. This same unit, as we
know from another document, sent four NCOs to the imperial court at this very time
to be promoted protector, and they each received four rations.xcix It is clear, therefore,
that these figures do not indicate fighting-strength, but they may imply an actual
strength of about 300 officers and men.

This is our most explicit evidence, but it may be compared with a major documentary
source a century older: two papyri superbly edited more than thirty years ago, but
even yet not fully exploited, the Beatty Panopolis Papyri. These are extensive
fragments from the archives of an Egyptian deputy-governor, the strategus of the
Panopolite nome.c The first contains copies of letters written by the strategus in 298,
many of them relating to an impending visit by Diocletian and the provisioning of his
troops. It is a key source for the logistics of the late-Roman army. The letters which
bear most directly on the question of unit-size are three dated 24 September 298,
which authorize the issue of two months’ rations to a cavalry unit in the Thebaid, the
ala I Iberorum: 2,610 modii of barley; 228 7/8 artabae of wheat (equivalent to 1,030
modii).ci This gives a ratio between barley (for the horses) and wheat (for the men) of
almost 5:2.cii A text from Carlisle records the issue of barley and wheat to the ala
Sebosiana in the late first century: 630 modii of barley, 267 modii of wheat; a ratio of
7:3.ciii These barley / wheat ratios from Panopolis and Carlisle two centuries apart are
equivalent to 35:14 and 35:15 respectively, which is such a coincidence that it
inspires confidence in both documents.

Taken together, they suggest that the ala I Iberorum was not even one-fifth the
strength of the old ala Sebosiana.. The Carlisle figures, I have argued elsewhere,
represent three days’ consumption. To calculate two months’ consumption, multiply
by 20: 12,600 modii of barley, 5,340 modii of wheat. The barley figure can be
checked against the only figure we have for the annual consumption of barley by an
ala, from Egypt in AD 187: 90,000 modii, or 15,000 modii for two months.civ This
latter is an estimate of future consumption, an ‘establishment’ figure averaging out
the quantity of barley needed vis-à-vis fodder, which would have varied during the
year, whereas the Carlisle figure is actual day-by-day consumption by an active unit;
but both figures are in the same order of magnitude, even if the Carlisle figure, as one
would have expected, is the smaller. Arithmetically, the ration strength in horses of
the ala I Iberorum is 20.7 per cent that of the Carlisle ala, 17.4 per cent that of the
Egyptian ala. If we assume that the ‘established’ strength of the latter was 576
horses, this would give the ala I Iberorum 100 horses, or rather, horse-rations.cv The
actual number of horsemen would have been much lower, since after Diocletian’s
reforms, when rations became the major part of a soldier’s regular pay, officers and
NCOs received multiple rations.cvi I have already mentioned the four protectores in c.
399 who received quadruple rations for themselves and their horses. Another
warrant, dated 6 December 293, authorizes the issue of rations to a middle-ranking
civil servant [nominally a soldier], who receives three capitus (three fodder
allowances a day) and multiple annonae.cvii

Suppose we check this calculation of barley against figures for wheat and pay. The
ala I Iberorum consumed only 19.3 per cent as much wheat as the ala Sebosiana. If
we assume that the ‘established’ strength of the latter was 512 men, this would give
the ala I Iberorum 99 men, or rather, men-rations. Alternatively there is some
evidence that one artaba of wheat was a man’s rations for a month.cviii Regarded as 2
1/2 sextarii (pints) a day, this would give the ala Sebosiana at Carlisle 570 men [too
many], and the ala I Iberorum 110 men. The latter is, again, a ration-figure. It means
that Diocletian’s ala I Iberorum, with a ration-strength in the region of 100, would
have had an effective strength, in men and horses, of much less than this.
Archaeologically this conclusion is borne out by evidence like that of the well-
preserved contemporary fort of castra Praetorii Mobeni, Qasr Bsheir in Jordan,
where the intact stabling comprises 21 rooms, each with 3 mangers; in other words,
enough space for 63 horses.cix

The contrast in pay is also interesting. On 1 January 300, the ala I Hiberorum
received 73,500 denarii in pay and 23,600 denarii cash in lieu of four months’
annona. If we take this to be the Diocletianic equivalent of one of the three annual
pay-instalments received by a soldier in the late first century, which then included the
cost of his food before deduction, and if we assume that the 480 troopers of the ala
Sebosiana at full strength were each being paid the same as a legionary, that is 100
denarii (4 aurei) three times a year, and if we reckon that 1000 denarii were worth
one aureus in 300, we can say that on 1 January 100, the men of ala Sebosiana would
have received 1,920 aurei, but those of ala I Iberorum on 1 January 300, only 97
aurei.cx The second figure is 19.7 per cent of the first. An exact comparison is not
possible since we are ignoring the (multiple) pay received by the officers of ala
Sebosiana, otherwise assumed to be at full-strength, and ignoring the regular
donatives received by ala I Iberorum, and the whole question of whether Diocletianic
‘pay’ (even including rations and donatives) had kept pace with inflation.
Nonetheless the figures for the ala I Iberorum are cumulatively one-fifth those of the
old ala Sebosiana, and we must think in terms of this order of magnitude. In fact
there is a hint that this is still too high: the ala I Iberorum was commanded by a
decurion, the implication being that it approximated to an old turma of 30 men.cxi

These are all cavalry figures, of course, but we may extend them by analogy to the
legions: the old-style units of Diocletian’s army were grossly under-strength by the
standards of the Principate. This conclusion is supported by the second Panopolis
Papyrus, which consists of file copies of letters sent out by the strategus two years
later, in 300. Some of these order the payment of donatives to two other units of
auxiliaries and to five legionary detachments in the Thebaid, and in each case the
total sum is specified. The number of recipients is not specified, but A.H.M. Jones
famously noticed that all the sums are divisible by 625.cxii However, this does not
mean that 625 denarii was the actual donative, nor that officers and men all received
the same donative, although both these assumptions have been made. Our sources
unfortunately report donatives as if they were a single figure, because this is what the
mass of soldiers received.cxiii But when Marcus Aurelius on his accession went to the
Praetorian barracks, he ‘promised each soldier 20,000 sestertii [5,000 denarii] and the
rest accordingly.’ The natural interpretation is that officers and NCOs were ‘the rest’,
and that they received multiples of the basic donative.cxiv This is also implied in a
hostile description of ‘the day of an imperial donative’ ordered by Julian the
Apostate, ‘either annual or improvised out of the Emperor’s wickedness, [when] the
soldiers had to parade to be rewarded according to their individual merit or rank’.cxv
Even if this explicit evidence were lacking, a flat-rate donative would be surprising,
in view of the steepness of the Roman social and economic pyramid. Consider the
Gallic grandee Sennius Sollemnis, who in 220 was promised 25,000 sestertii ‘in gold’
(nominally 6,250 denarii) for a six months’ commission as a legionary tribune, when
the squaddies of his future legion (legio VI Victrix at York) were probably getting
only 2,700 sestertii (675 denarii) a year in debased silver coin, a differential in his
favour of almost 20 to 1.cxvi The likelihood that officers received multiple donatives
is also supported by the famous Beaurains [Arras] hoard, which contains die-linked
gold aurei and multiples struck to celebrate imperial consulates and anniversaries; in
short, to pay donatives during the period 285 to 310. Although the hoard is now
incomplete, and consisted only of what the recipient saved from each donative, it has
been calculated that he received the equivalent of 59 aurei in gold for the recovery of
Britain in 296, and at least 138 aurei for the vicennalia of 303.cxvii

These sums would have been many times the common soldier’s donative, which even
in the mid-fourth century, when gold was much more abundant, was only five gold
solidi every five years, less than one (old) aureus a year. In 300, when denarii were
units of account, not silver coins, and the nominal value of one aureus was 1,000
denarii, the two donatives of 302,500 denarii received by the whole unit of equites
sagittarii at ‘Potecoptus’ would have nominally been worth 605 aurei. Their real
value must have been much less. Compare this with the stipendium (pay, not
donative) received by the legionary praepositus Leontius on 1 January 300: 18,000
denarii, presumably one-third of his annual (cash) salary.cxviii A closer comparison is
with the stipendium paid the same day to two auxiliary units and a legionary
detachment: 343,300 denarii for legionaries seconded to the office of the governor of
the Thebaid, 73,500 denarii for the ala I Iberorum, and 65,500 denarii for the cohors
XI Chamavorum. Compared with Leontius’ 18,000 denarii, these whole units
received in round figures only 19 times (4 times, 3.6 times) as much pay as he did on
his own. We must conclude that a ‘colonel’ was paid many times as much as a
‘private’.cxix

Donatives, we might expect, were related to pay; thus a sesquiplicarius would receive
one-and-a-half times the basic donative, and a duplicarius two times. Officers would
have received far more. It follows that the factor of ‘625’ in the Panopolis donatives
is not the donative itself, but only a unit of calculation. The base rate must have been
twice or four times 625, for if the sesquiplicarii, for example, were to receive one-
and-a-half times the basic rate and this was only 625 denarii, it would be
mathematically almost impossible for the totals each to be a whole number.cxx

Another difficulty is that we do not know whether the units all received the same rate
of donative, but they fall into four possible grades: (1) legionary cavalry, (2)
legionary infantry, (3) auxiliary cavalry and (4) auxiliary infantry. Suppose that the
legionary donatives in honour of Diocletian in 299 were worth 2,500 denarii (base
rate), and for the consulship of the Caesars (A.D. 300) the base rate was 1,250
denarii. This cannot be argued here in detail, but it would give the following number
of ‘shares’ per unit:

(detachments of legio II Traiana)

vexillation at Apollinopolis: 554 1/2 shares

vexillation at Ptolemais: 4211/2 shares

lancearii at Ptolemais: 440 shares

equites promoti at Tentyra: 74 1/2 shares

(detachment of [two] ‘eastern legions’)cxxi

vexillation at ‘Potecoptus’: 998 1/2 shares

These are ‘shares’, I repeat, not recipients. The fractions do not matter, for they can
be explained by the presence of sesquiplicarii; and in view of the multiple donatives
received by officers and NCOs, the number of actual recipients would be much less
than the total of ‘shares’.

A further source of enquiry, and a rough and ready cross-check, is provided by the
quantities of oil issued to two legionary units, the Lancearii of legio II Traiana at
Ptolemais, and the vexillation of legio III Diocletiana at Syene. These are 3,596 pints
for two months (61 days) and 8,280 pints for four months (122 days) respectively.cxxii
The rate of issue is not stated, but a plausible ration-figure is 1/8th pint per man per
day.cxxiii This again is probably a ‘share’, a constituent part of one annona, not the
amount actually received by each officer and man. It gives, in round figures:

lancearii of legio II Traiana: 480 shares.

vexillation of legio III Diocletiana: 552 shares.cxxiv

There is no comparable donative figure for legio III Diocletiana, but the lancearii of
legio II Traiana at Ptolemais receive donatives on two occasions a month apart, each
of 1,097,500 denarii (4 x 625 x 439). Since 439 is a prime number, we might guess
there were 439 donative ‘shares’ of 2,500 denarii. Even if we assume that donatives
were related to pay, we cannot expect an arithmetical coincidence between donative
‘shares’ and ration ‘shares’, even if the number of recipients were identical (it would
surely have varied slightly from month to month), since ‘pay’ was reckoned partly in
cash, partly in rations, and its cash element may have contained half-units (for
sesquiplicarii) whereas rations were whole units. But at least the broad impression
remains that the basic donative was not 625 denarii, but a multiple of it; and thus that
we are dealing with quite small military units.

It would be hazardous to reach any firm conclusions from such a summary discussion
but, in crude terms, it does look as if a legionary unit was only about 400 men, and a
cavalry unit much less than 100. The difference is difficult to quantify, but fourth-
century ‘legions’ were much smaller than their namesakes of the Principate. This is
understandable. Active-service units dwindle rapidly if they are not replenished.
After the conquest of Gaul and a year of civil war, Julius Caesar fought the battle of
Pharsalus with legions approaching half their nominal strength.cxxv When Heraclius
held a census of his army after the Persian Wars in 626/7, he found that only two
soldiers survived from the accession of Phocas in 602.cxxvi More important than
attrition as a factor, however, is the origin of these fourth-century ‘legions’ as
legionary detachments. In the Late Empire, the army undoubtedly thought in terms of
much smaller units; and even Diocletian’s new frontier legions, judging by the size of
their bases, were small fractions of the old legion-size.

My tentative conclusion will come as no surprise: we must envisage infantry units

including ‘legions’ of battalion-size, like cohorts of the Principate, which were
‘brigaded’ in pairs and grouped into larger armies when the need arose. Thus we hear
that twelve ‘legions’ invaded Armenia under Valens,cxxvii and that thirty ‘units’ were
concentrated by Stilicho at Ticinum [Pavia].cxxviii Cavalry units, as one would expect
from their high cost and special skills, must have been much smaller still, and
Synesius’ 40-strong Unnigardae in early fifth-century Cyrenaica cannot have been
exceptional. He wished they were only 200-strong.cxxix The late-Roman army was
still successful with armies quite small by early standards. Think of Count
Theodosius’ four units in Britain, and his 3,500 men in Africa; or the seven units
(5,000 men) which defeated Gildo. Whether these changes were ‘a good thing’ is
beside the question. Small units would have been more flexible, and their logistics
easier, but it must have taken longer to concentrate a sizeable force than during the
Principate, and thus the army’s reaction time would have been lengthened. But
whatever the advantages or disadvantages of these changes, it must be emphasised
that they were not consciously willed; like so many institutions of the Late Empire,
they resulted from a long process of forced adaptation.

The rôle of fourth-century legions as heavy infantry

How distinctive were these late-Roman ‘legions’? They had certainly lost their
mounted component, as well as specialists like the lancearii. There is evidence, both
literary and in the form of building inscriptions, that they still worked as military
engineers. The emperor Valens, for example, built a new fort in the Danube delta;
rhetorically we are told that even the imperial bodyguards carried their quota of
crushed brick, but the surviving building inscription credits the Primani, a First
Legion.cxxx Another unit of Primani built a game reserve for the western emperor,
Valens’ brother Valentinian, which was surrounded by forty miles of wall, the
Langmauer in the Eifel.cxxxi By contrast, Ammianus is surprised when Julian’s auxilia
take a hand in building, such work being ‘beneath them’.cxxxii

I would say that the prime rôle of the legions in the late army remained what it had
always been, that of heavy infantry. The difficult question of armament I leave to
others more competent, for the evidence, so far as it exists, is still being collected
from tombstones and other sculpture, from scattered literary references, from
publication of surviving weapons and equipment.cxxxiii We face the same problems as
in the Early Empire, of literary and artistic stereotyping, and of identifying what if
anything is exclusively legionary. I would turn to the Arch of Galerius for an
impression of the late-Roman legionary: he still wore flexible body armour of ring-
mail or scales; he wore an iron helmet mass-produced in the arms ‘factories’, crudely
made of two plates riveted together under a prominent ridge; he carried an oval
shield, not the old rectangular scutum, and a thrusting spear. At close quarters he
fought with a longsword, the spatha, not the ‘Spanish’ gladius. The use of a different
type of sword, to slash instead of to stab, must correspond to a change of training and
close-order tactics as yet not understood. But a legionary was still protected against
missile weapons; he formed a line of battle which resisted attack by cavalry and light
infantry, and he thrust enemy infantry formations off the field of battle in disorder. In
other words, he held ground.

This is the picture which emerges from the battle narratives in Ammianus.
Strasbourg (359) and Adrianople (378) are both battles in which the Roman infantry
deployed from column into line, its flanks protected by cavalry, but with very
different outcomes. Both battles were preceded by a long march in the heat of the
day; the men were tired and thirsty; and at Adrianople Ammianus dwells on the
‘exhausting weight of arms and armour’. In both battles, the legionary infantry held
its ground: the Primani at Strasbourg, the Lanciarii and Mattiarii at Adrianople. On
both occasions, the Roman cavalry was incompetent and undisciplined, but at
Strasbourg their rout was not fatal, because Julian checked it in time and, more
importantly, because the thick of the battle was in the centre. Here the successive
attacks of light German infantry, strongly motivated but unarmoured, exhausted
themselves against the ‘wall’ of Roman heavy infantry until the Germans were forced
to retreat in disorder. Strasbourg was just another old-fashioned battle.cxxxiv

At Adrianople by contrast the battle tactics were similar, but the outcome for the
Romans was an immense disaster.cxxxv Valens’ best general, the dashing and
experienced Sebastianus, was as confident as Julian’s generals had been at
Strasbourg. Ammianus’ narrative of Adrianople is confused, no doubt because it was
a confused battle, but at risk of over-simplifying, we can see two essential differences
from Strasbourg. First of all, the Roman infantry never completed its deployment
from column into line, when the fighting started prematurely. This was the fault of
Roman cavalry units.cxxxvi Secondly, the Gothic cavalry transformed its own bad luck
into a battle-winning tactic. Having arrived late for the battle, it turned this brilliantly
to its own advantage, by launching a devastating attack upon the Roman left wing,
whose cavalry screen collapsed.cxxxvii

Ammianus compares the disaster at Adrianople with that at Cannae: both battles
produced the nightmare scenario for Roman heavy infantry, envelopment by the
enemy. At Adrianople the Roman line was distorted and disordered by a futile
advance which lapped the Goths’ wagon circle; its rear ranks still pressed forward as
the front ranks recoiled at being forced to fight simultaneously to the front and to one
side by the failure of the cavalry. In consequence, behind the scissors’ edge of the
battle, where some hapless legionary was forever fighting two opponents at once, his
comrades were too crowded to use their weapons at all. They were already drained of
energy by hunger, still more by dehydration and the sheer physical effort of fighting
in heavy armour in the Balkan summer heat; in the special conditions of this horrible
battle they lost cohesion, they could not even retreat safely. In the end they broke
altogether, and were cut down from behind as they fled; two-thirds of the army were
killed. We can deduce from the Notitia lists that the cavalry used its speed to save
itself, but that many infantry units were shattered and ceased to exist. The Empire’s
capital asset of trained soldiers was savagely depleted; and by losing the strategic
initiative as well, it was denied the time to replace them.

Let me conclude by exploiting a coincidence of dates. General Ludendorff reckoned

that Germany effectively lost the First World War on 8 August 1918, when the
British broke through. Adrianople, which destroyed the east Roman army, was
fought on 9 August 378. To adapt Ludendorff’s famous phrase, Adrianople is the
Black Day of the Legions in the late-Roman empire.

i
See Casey 1991, for a sympathetic and illuminating survey. I have unjustly
neglected Cooper 1968, which I recommend. More accessible is Jones 1964, chapter
17, developed by Southern and Dixon 1996, chapter 2. My own ideas (Tomlin 1987)
owe much to Jones and to Hoffmann 1969 and 1970, and to the words and writings of
Eric Birley and Michael Speidel. It was George Boon who read my first inscription
for me, a legionary stamped tile given me by a builder in Caerleon when I was a
schoolboy.
ii
AE 1981.784 (Ankara), in Greek.
iii
Dio Cassius 55.23-24, listing the 14 post-Augustan legions that survived. See
also ILS 2288.
iv
Balty and van Rengen 1993.
v
Historia Augusta, Caracalla 6.7 (Triccianus); AE 1966.596, Licinius
Hierocles praefectus vice legati. Some tombstones at Apamea refer to the ‘legate’,
but only as an office; it does not follow that the officer himself existed.
vi
Birley 1969. See also Smith 1972.
vii
Edited by Seeck 1876. There is no modern commentary, but see Jones 1964,
iii, 347-80 (Appendix II), and Goodburn and Bartholomew 1976. Its military content
is minutely analysed by Hoffmann 1969 and 1970, which I have found invaluable;
despite the welcome appearance of Elton 1996 and Southern and Dixon 1996,
Hoffmann’s remains the major contribution to the study of the late-Roman army since
Jones.
viii
See Casey 1991, who quotes (24-25) Theophylact Simocatta ii 6.1-9 for legio
IV Parthica in 586. For legio V Macedonica see Jones 1964, iii, 203, n. 111, and
Zuckerman 1988. The prize of longevity has been claimed for the Scythae (cf. Not.
Dig. Or. 6.44), who were at Gaza in c. 640, but their connection with the Notitia
legion is doubtful (Hoffmann 1970, 85, n. 117).
ix
Allen 1975, 203.
x
Bean and Mitford 1970, 76-7, No. 50. The text is published as AE 1972.636,
but see Gilliam 1974.
xi
Amm. Marc. 14.2.15-20. Contrast Goldsworthy 1996, especially chapter 3,
who emphasizes that the army of the Principate always tried to seize the initiative.
xii
Codex Theodosianus 8.5.11.
xiii
Amm. Marc. 21.3.5, with Not. Dig. Or. 32.31.
xiv
De Fide Christiana 2.16. See further, Tomlin 1998a.
xv
Letter 107.2, a reference to the labarum. The passage is packed with
rhetorical images of the spread of Christianity, and the Gothic ecclesiarum tentoria
are just as valid as the psalm-singing Huns (Huni discunt psalterium).
xvi
Not. Dig. Or. 40.30-32 (including its old base at Novae); Or. 7.53. Occ. 5.150
= 7.8. For the evolution of the term Moesiaci, see AE 1981.777 and AE 1982.383
with Speidel 1990.
xvii
Not. Dig. Or. 6.42, where the seniores are the first legion-pair with the
Lanciarii (Or. 5.42); cf. Amm. Marc. 21.13.16, 31.13.8. Augustine, Contra Faustum
5.5 (CSEL 25, p. 278).
xviii
Not. Dig. Occ. 35.17-19; 21; 22. Occ. 5.88, Tertiani = 5. 237, [Tertiani sive]
tertia Italica.
xix
ILS 8949, with Hoffmann 1970, 69, n. 588: leg(io) Octa(vo)
[August]anensium.
xx
Amm. Marc. 16.12.49, Primanorum legio.
xxi
Rebuffat 1995, the gate-inscription at Bu Njem, dated 222; CIL iii 2571 with
Kolbe 1974 (Lambaesis, 267/8). Codex Theodosianus iv 12.3 (321), tertiis
Augustanis.
xxii
ILS 2487.
xxiii
Tacitus, Agric. 26.2; Hist. 2.11 and 5.16. Augustus, quoted by Domitian in
CIL ix 5420. Incerti Auctoris, De bello Hispaniensi liber 30.76
24
ILS 775, praepositus legionis primae Martiorum.
xxv
Jones 1964, 655 and 662. Zuckerman 1988.
xxvi
Hoffmann 1969, 190.
xxvii
Seeck 1876, 309.
xxviii
ILS 4195 (Sitifis). Speidel 1982.
xxix
Vegetius 1. 17. Sozomen 6.6. Zosimus 3.30.2. Laubscher 1975, pls. 38.1 and
56.2 (Hercules); 32.1 and 42.1 (eagle). Not. Dig. Or. 5.3 (Ioviani iuniores); Occ. 5.2
(Ioviani seniores); the device by implication antedates the division of the legion into
iuniores and seniores.
xxx
Hoffmann 1969, 173.
xxxi
Hoffmann 1969, 226.
xxxii
AE 1934.193.
xxxiii
Not. Dig. Occ. 40.30 (restored reading), cf. RIB 1074. RIB 1036.
xxxiv
Dio Cassius 79.13 (‘the Albanian army’); 79.34.2 and 5 (‘the Albanians’ at
Apamea); 80.2.3 (‘the Albanians’); 80.4.6 (‘soldiers in the Albanum’). Herodian, viii
5.8 (at Aquileia).
xxxv
Not. Dig. Occ. 5.145-8
xxxvi
ILS 2346, milex legionis secundae Divitensium Italice; ILS 2777, leg(ionis) II
Ital(icae) Divit(ensis?).
xxxvii
ILS 8937.
xxxviii
Hoffmann 1969, 177.
xxxix
Hoffmann 1969, 184; cf. Itin. Ant. 267.8.
xl
Frere 1987, 219, implicitly from Jones 1964, 99 (‘certainly a Constantinian
creation’). Not. Dig. Occ. 40.20; cf. Itin. Ant. 267.9.
xli
Saxer 1967.
xlii
Units when not actively campaigning in the field must be housed somewhere;
thus in winter 360/61 Julian concentrated his field army, cunctos e stationibus
egressos in quibus hiemabant (Amm. Marc. 20.4.9). Fortified road-junctions in the
interior, where units would be readily available without forming links in the frontier-
chain, were ideal as bases.
xliii
AE 1981.134 (Rome).
xliv
ILS 505, whose provenance of Rome (not Alba) is now confirmed by the
discovery of AE 1981.134.
xlv
Britannia 20 (1989), 331, No. 5. See more fully, Tomlin and Annis 1989.
xlvi
Britannia 20 (1989), 331, No. 4, with Pl. 24.
xlvii
Richmond 1950, 15-23, combining the evidence of archaeology with RIB
2120-2124.
xlviii
Britannia 19 (1988), 496, No. 31. RIB II.6, 2492.7.
xlix
Rostovtzeff et al. 1936, 77-80, No. 630 = AE 1937.239.
l
Welles et al. 1959, 25, n. 14.
li
Kennedy 1980.
lii
RIB ii.3, 2427.26; colour illustration in Cross 1991, 49.
liii
CIL xiii 6780.
liv
RIB 369.
lv
ILS 546.
lvi
Alföldi 1959.
lvii
The evidence is collected by Cooper 1968, chapter 7. See for example ILS
1153, the career of C. Iulius Septimius Castinus (PIR I 566), legate of legio I
Minervia and dux of detachments drawn from the four German legions adversus
defectores et rebelles.
lviii
Casey 1994, 92-3.
lix
Eutropius, Brev. 9.25.1 (repeated by Orosius 7.25.10); cf. Festus, Brev. 25,
reparato de limitaneis Daciae exercitu.
lx
ILS 4195 (Sitifis). Speidel 1982.
lxi
P. Oxy. 43.
lxii
P. Oxy. 2950.
lxiii
Dexippus, frag. 6.2: a fine picture of Aurelian receiving a German delegation
in front of ‘the standards of the select army, golden eagles, imperial images, and the
names of units picked out in golden letters’. Speidel 1979. See for example ILS
2781, Val(erius) Thiumpus, lectus in sacro comit(atu) lanciarius. AE 1979.535,
Aureli(us) (A)eli(anus) optio age(n)s sacru comitatu. Optatus, App. I: in 320, the
teacher Victor recalled his grandfather, a Moorish soldier at Court: avo milite; in
comitatu militaverat; nam origo nostra de sanguine Mauro descendit.
lxiv
AE 1981.777 (in Greek), which summarises the very full commentary by the
inscription’s editor, T. Drew-Bear.
lxv
Passio Iuli Veterani, 2. Text with translation in Musurillo 1972, 260-5.
lxvi
Lanciarius is a probable restoration of the damaged text.
lxvii
Seeck 1876, Index, pp. 318-9. Hoffmann 1969, 246.
lxviii
P. Beatty Panop. ii 198, 204 (AD 300); P. Grenf. ii 74 (AD 302). P. Columb.
vii 188 (AD 320). The mobile cavalry regiments of the Notitia are ‘vexillations’, but
by now the term had changed its meaning; it did not mean that they derived from
legions, but that they were cavalry (cf. Vegetius, Epit. ii 1, with a false etymology).
lxix
Josephus, BJ 3.6.2. Vegetius, Epit. 2.6.
lxx
P. Grenf. ii 110 (AD 293), [equit]ibus promotis d(ominorum) n(ostrorum)
Diocletiani et Ma[x]imian[i Aug(ustorum)] et [Constanti et Maximiani]
nobilissimorum Caesarum. For their origin, see Hoffmann 1969, 246.
lxxi
Also written lancea (whence lancearii). It originated as a Celtic dual-purpose
spear, for throwing or for thrusting.
lxxii
ILS 2791 (Rome), ex numero lanciarorum ... iscola aequitum. Scola is used
here in the sense of a specialist sub-unit, but there is no subsequent evidence that the
Lanciarii were part-mounted.
lxxiii
ILS 9134; cf. Fronto, Ad Verum Imp. 2.1.19. Tomlin 1998b, No. 16.
lxxiv
Whence Wheeler 1979, whose insight has been confirmed since by the
discovery of a discens phalang(arium) at Apamea. But phalangarii, unlike the
lanciarii, did not provide specialist detachments; there is no ‘legion’ of this name in
the Notitia. For Vegetius (only in Epit. 2.2) the ‘phalanx’ is not Roman, but a
historic Greco-Macedonian formation.
lxxv
Arrian, Ektaxis, 18; with Speidel 1992, especially 14-20.
lxxvi
Balty and van Rengen 1993, 26, pl. 5; 24, pl. 3. ‘Five lances’ are included in
the military equipment which Paniskos, a soldier at Coptos, or perhaps an arms
dealer, keeps asking his wife to send in 296: see P. Mich. iii, Nos. 214, 216 and 217.
For legionaries at Coptos (‘Potecoptus’), see P. Beatty Panop. 2.186 and 192 with ILS
8882.
lxxvii
P. Beatty Panop. 2, 285-7; 301.
lxxviii
ILS 2781, lectus in sacro comit(atu) lanciarius.
lxxix
Vegetius, Epit. 3.14 (836, ed. Önnerfors). Hoffmann 1969, 218.
lxxx
Eagle 1989.
lxxxi
Verbally at a seminar, echoing Howard 1970, 98.
lxxxii
Zosimus 2.34.
lxxxiii
John Lydus, de magistratibus 3.31, with 2.10 and 3.40.
lxxxiv
Quoted by Keegan 1982, 33.
lxxxv
There is a good collection of evidence in Duncan-Jones 1978, 352-6; and see
now Coello 1996.
lxxxvi
Libanius, oratio 20. 18.
lxxxvii
Amm. Marc. 18.9.3; but only four of the eight units actually bear ‘legionary’
names.
lxxxviii
Amm. Marc. 19.2.14, 19.9.9. Rhetorically he estimates the Persian total
strength as 100,000 (19.6.11).
lxxxix
Amm. Marc. 19.6.11, minuto numero. The western Decentiaci and
Magnentiaci did not share the eastern legions’ patience with siege warfare, and were
probably auxilia, not legions proper.
xc
Amm. Marc. 21.13.16.
xci
Magnus cited by Malalas, Chron. 329: 1,500 proskulkatoras commanded by
‘Lucianus’, from the unit [sic] of the Lanciarii and Mattiarii.
xcii
Amm. Marc. 24.1.2, excursatores quingentos et mille (unit(s) and commander
not specified); Zosimus 3.14.1, 1,500 men commanded by Lucillianus. Zosimus used
Eunapius, who had first-hand information; Ammianus may have read Eunapius, but
not vice versa. Neither source explicitly says that this vanguard was infantry, but
Ammianus implies that it was by locating ‘the cavalry’ on the left wing (ibid.). He
calls this vanguard excursatores (cf. proskulkatoras in Magnas / Malalas), which I
take to be different from the procursatorum tres turmas (24.3.1) = tres
procursatorum cohortes expeditae (24.5.5, but actually cavalry, see 24.5.10) which
were subsequently defeated in the forefront. But see Hoffmann 1970, 139, n. 175. If
these three cavalry units actually totalled 1,500 men, it would give a unit-size for
cavalry of 500, which seems much too high.
xciii
20.4.2, auxiliares milites ... lectos ex numeris aliis trecentos. Cf. Libanius,
oratio 18.90-94 (rhetorically described as crippling, but without details). Amm.
Marc. 31.10.13, per legiones singulas quingenteni leguntur armati. 31.11.2, cum
trecentenis militibus per singulos numeros lectis (cf. Eunapius, frag. 44.1 (Blockley)
with Zosimus 4.23).
xciv
This is well argued by Speidel 1996, but the men were recent recruits
(Zosimus 4.23.3), they looked like Gothic raiders (cf. Amm. Marc. 31.11.3), and it is
nowhere explicit that they were mounted.
xcv
Claudian, Bell. Gild. 1.418-19, with Orosius 7.36.6, cum parva manu, hoc est
cum quinque milibus (ut aiunt) militum.
xcvi
Zosimus 5.45.1.
xcvii
Zosimus 6.8.2 [Olympiodorus]; the total number of men, but not the number
of units, is repeated by Sozomen 9.8.
xcviii
Zuckerman 1988, d(iurnae) an(nonae).
xcix
CPL 267, annonas quaternas kapitum quatuor. No doubt they took their
families with them. The unit is commanded by the same tribune.
c
Skeat 1964, with further commentary by Jones 1964. See also Duncan-Jones
1978. This is the ‘document dating to 299 and 300’ summarised in Dixon and
Southern 1996, 77.
ci
Reckoning 4 1/2 modii to the artaba. See Duncan-Jones 1976. Duncan-Jones
1978, 547, understands 128 7/8 artabae of wheat (cf. P. Beatty Panop. 1. 395-8), but
the ala received a further instalment of 100 artabae (ibid., 399).
cii
Speidel 1989, 241-2, estimates a somewhat higher ratio, 3:1.
ciii
Tomlin 1998b, No. 1.
civ
P. Amherst ii 107.
cv
Allowing the Egyptian ala the theoretical maximum size of 16 turmae, each
consisting of 30 equites (including a sesquiplicarius with 1 remount) commanded by
a decurion (2 remounts) and a duplicarius (1 remount).
cvi
Jones 1964, 626-30.
cvii
Rea et al. 1985. The exact number of annonae is lost. The man is an adiutor
memoriae returning to the imperial entourage, proficiscenti ... in sacrum comitatum.
Dixon and Southern 1996, 29, follow Jones 1964 in still using the term comitatus for
(Diocletian’s) ‘mobile army’, but documents like this prove that the word retained its
old sense. Soldiers who served in comitatu, i.e. who were attached to the imperial
entourage, were collectively known as comitatenses, not as ‘the comitatus’.
cviii
Fink 1971, Nos. 78, 79, 81. Reckoning 4 1/2 modii (each of 16 sextarii) to the
artaba. See further, Tomlin 1998b, No. 1.
cix
Parker 1986, 247 with 249, Fig. 11. The fort is named in CIL iii 14149.
cx
The pay of an alaris is not known for sure, but it was a promotion for a
legionary eques to become a duplicarius in an ala (Speidel 1970, 146-7); they were
paid in coins of high intrinsic value. P. Beatty Panop. 2. 216 gives the contemporary
price of gold as 1 lb: 60,000 denarii. (The aureus was struck at 60 to the pound.) But
this is what the government, with its coercive power, paid for gold, not the ‘free’
price. Even by 301 the official price had risen to 96,000 denarii: Erim et al. 1971,
especially 175.
cxi
P. Beatty Panop. 2.37.
cxii
Skeat 1964, quoted by Crook 1971, 425. The donatives and other issues to
military units are conveniently tabulated by Skeat, p. xxvii (where the last two
figures, for the equites sagittarii, should read 302,500d.); by Jones 1964, iii, 187-8
(with hypothetical analysis of numbers of recipients and rates of payment); and by
Duncan-Jones 1978, 547.
cxiii
Thus Ammianus speaks of donatives by Julian: 20.4.18, quinos omnibus
aureos argentique singula pondo promisit; 24.3.3, argenteos nummos centenos
viritim pollicitus. But the context on each occasion is a mass of soldiers almost out of
control. Surviving one-pound silver ingots have been interpreted as donatives, so the
three three-pound silver ingots in the Kaiseraugst treasure hints at multiple donatives:
see Cahn and Kaufmann-Heinimann 1984, 326-9, 407.
cxiv
Historia Augusta, Marcus 7.9, vicena milia nummum singulis ob participatum
imperium militibus promiserunt et ceteris pro rata, cited with this interpretation by
Bastien and Metzger 1977, 202. This report should be taken as authentic, but even if
it really reflects fourth-century practice, the argument is unaffected.
cxv
Gregory Nazianzenus, oratio 4 (Contra Iulianum 1), 82 = PG 35, 608.
cxvi
CIL xiii 3162, published with commentary by Pflaum 1948. Domitian’s basic
rate of 300 denarii was increased by Severus and again by Caracalla; I follow the
reconstruction by Alston 1994, 114-5. Note that Sollemnis’ salary already implies an
accounting-unit of 625 denarii (nominally 25 aurei).
cxvii
Bastien and Metzger 1977, 215.
cxviii
P. Beatty Panop. 2.197. The two donatives of 2,500 denarii paid to him for
the same occasions (ibid.) are not comparable, since they were ‘arrears’ and not
necessarily complete.
cxix
Skeat 1964, p. xxvii. P. Panop. 2.201 (Leontius’ pay).
cxx
Only possible if each of the seven units contained an even number of
sesquiplicarii.
cxxi
Its number of ‘shares’ indicate that it was about twice the strength of the other
(named) legionary detachments, no doubt because two legions contributed. Duncan-
Jones 1978, 548, n. 19, convincingly identifies it with the vexillation of the legions III
Gallica and I Illyrica recorded at Coptos in 315/6 (ILS 8882). The equites sagittarii
also at ‘Potecoptus’ (P. Beatty Panop. 2.162) can be identified with the equites
sagittarii indigenae at Coptos (Not. Dig. Or. 31.26). For the temporary change of
name, see Skeat 1964, 145.
cxxii
Tabulated by Skeat 1964, p. xxvii. I follow him (p. 149, note to 2.247-8) in
supposing that the ‘pounds’ of oil have been transposed with the ‘pints’ of salt.
cxxiii
The rate issued to soldiers in two difficult late sixth-century documents, P.
Oxy. 2046 and 1920, which are tabulated and discussed by Jones 1964, iii, 191-2.
cxxiv
Assuming, for ease of calculation, 3,600 pints for legio II Traiana, and a 30-
day month for both figures.
cxxv
Julius Caesar, De bello civili 3.89: 80 cohorts [i.e. 8 legions] numbering
22,000 men; but their ‘nominal’ strength is uncertain.
cxxvi
Theophylact Simocatta 8.12.12, repeated by Theophanes, Chron. AM 6103
(300 de Boor). In the more settled conditions of the Principate, Keppie 1984, 182,
reckons that ‘about half the recruits survived their 25 years of service to earn
discharge’.
cxxvii
Amm. Marc. 27.12.16. They numbered 6,000,000 men according to the
Armenian historian Faustus (quoted by Baynes 1960, 201), a lesson of the danger in
collating two sources.
cxxviii
Zosimus 5.26 [Olympiodorus].
cxxix
Synesius, ep. 78 and Catastasis ii, 1576 AB.
cxxx
Themistius, oratio 10, 136D - 138A, with ILS 770. The identification, which
is not certain, is made by Velkov 1958, 131. The crushed brick would be for concrete
(Vitruvius, De architectura 2.5.1).
cxxxi
CIL xiii 4139, pedatura Primanorum. CIL xiii 4140, similar.
cxxxii
Amm. Marc. 18.2.6. These are fourth-century auxilia, units of shock troops,
not the ‘auxiliaries’ of the Principate.
cxxxiii
Bishop and Coulston 1993, especially chapter 8.
cxxxiv
Amm. Marc. 16.12.
cxxxv
The only detailed narrative is in Amm. Marc. 31.12-13, but Socrates (4.38)
and Sozomen (6.40) both blame the cavalry for exposing the infantry. From
Libanius, oratio 24, esp. 3-5, it appears that the ‘cause’ of the disaster was disputed.
See further, Austin 1972.
cxxxvi
Amm. Marc. 31.12.16, sagittarii et scutarii. Sagittarii might be infantry or
cavalry, but the sagittarii of 30.1.11 who pursue mounted fugitives must be cavalry.
There was a scola scutariorum sagittariorum (Not. Dig. Or. 11.7). Scutarii are
always cavalry; and even if one of the scolae scutariorum itself is not meant (cf. Not.
Dig. Or. 11. 4, 5, 7 and 8), it is a general term for cavalry guardsmen (scholares).
cxxxvii
Amm. Marc. 31.12.17 (the Gothic cavalry arrives) with 31.13. 2, the left wing
is deserted by ‘the rest of the cavalry’: sinistrum cornu a reliquo equitatu desertum.
‘The rest of the cavalry’ is apparently the units on the left wing other than the
sagittarii et scutarii (see previous note), which were already in retreat.