Roman Army "General Staff"?

[Nathan Ross]

Certainly the reflections of a camp prefect upon his time in the service would be invaluable.

Absolutely. A few of the letters of the younger Pliny make reference to his spell as military tribune of III Gallica in c.AD81, but they provide little detail. At one point (7.31) he says that he was 'ordered by the consular legate to audit the accounts of the cohorts and alae; in several cases I found a great deal of shocking rapacity and deliberate inaccuracy...' Aside from that rather inglorious anecdote, we have little idea of the internal administrative workings of the army.

I do suspect that, if we could somehow get a glimpse of the Roman legions, we might be surprised at the variety in arms and equipment between, and even within, the various units. Our general conception of a homogeneity in overall appearance is probably more the effect of imperial monuments than reality on the ground!