Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius

[Nathan Ross]

How many centuriae (infantry) are in a cohors miliaria equitata? What about the strength of the cavalry (compare with P.Dura 82)

Ah yes, 223 cavalry in a unit of 914 for Cohors XX Palmyrenorum - interesting!

This kind of numbers game is exciting, but probably not helpful at the moment.

Yes, but I enjoy excitement

(Plus, this inscription is, as far as I know, the only breakdown of numbers for a full-strength military unit from any point in Roman history, which makes trying to do the sums rather unavoidable!)

Is it helpful to learn a bit about the job of the optio in the late 5th and 6th century? And why we have just 10 of them (and not 20)?

Hmm, yes.

I did wonder whether the vexillarii, rather than being standard bearers, were actually cavalry commanders - just as the ordinarii lead the infantry ordines, so the vexillarii lead the cavalry vexillationes. In which case the optiones could be deputies to the vexillarii...

We could imagine nine of the vexillarii each commanding a unit of 25 horsemen, with the tenth commanding a double-strength unit of 50 horsemen under the overall command of one of the tribuni (tribunus minor, with the maior leading the infantry?)

The problem with this is that a cavalry vexillatio was supposedly several hundred men strong, not c.25. Also, these men seem to be rather too far down the pay scale to be small unit commanders.

What about military instructors of the 6th century?

Yes, I've been wondering what happened to the campidoctors, as they were so prominent in the 4th century. Perhaps they were renamed Augustales, as the prestige and duties of their rank expanded from mere training?

In slab B there is also described that the μαγιστέρων τῶν δρακωναρίων is responsible for all draconarii - the ὀπτίονας are superviced by the πρινκιπίων - the κανπιδούκτορος is responsible for ἀρματούρους, κορνίκας, τούβικας, βουκινάτοραςto and to carry out the σχολῶν.

Marcel, for the benefit of those of us who can't read Greek (I'm sure I'm not the only one!), do you think you could provide transliterations of these words? It would be very helpful!

Draconarii, though - that's interesting. What might their title be on Slab C?

Robert VermaatThat's one of the reasons I still hold with the theory that a biarchus was a caput contubernii (Maurikios' dekarch).
yes, most likely.

I don't know... I still think that biarchus belongs to a different schema of ranks to the ones we're looking at here, so it's better not to confuse them. Vegetius calls the man a decanus, Maurikios calls him a dekarch, and that seems a good enough title for a contubernium or small subunit leader.

Another interesting Papyri (P.Abinn.42), 326-375AD is documentating an order, most likely even a warning, from the ducenarius Romanus to his contubernalis Geladius (Decanus or caput contubernii?)in the name of ἀδελφῷ πριμικῆρι τῆς οὐιξιλλατίωνος. I personally would expect a kind of nco between a ducenarius (centurion/ordinarius) and a small regular soldier. Therefore the κοντουβερνάλιον is most likely the file-leader.  

But Abinnaeus was commander of a cavalry ala, I think, so the ranks mentioned in the archive would be cavalry ranks, not infantry ones - unless this document concerns another unit... 'contubernalis' was just a way of saying 'fellow soldier' wasn't it, rather than a rank in itself?

I'm still not convinced that the Veredarii were cavalry. Why the strange name? The word means a mounted messenger or despatch rider, and appears in Procopius with that same meaning, so why would the legion cavalry have ended up being called this?

Alternatively, perhaps the Veredarii could have been a grade of (light?) infantry, no more 'despatch riders' than the bracchiati are 'armband wearers' (?) or the torquati 'torque wearers'.

I'm keen on this idea, as if we keep the Veredarii on the infantry books the legion breaks up rather neatly, with a bit speculation.

Here it is, based on a minimum size (159 munifices), at a strength of 1280 men (this is to try and bring it close to the usual estimate for a late legion; more munifices would make for a bigger overall number!):

   

(I've adapted the graphic from Gary Brueggeman's excellent site)

Each century of 60 men has either an imaginifer or vexillarius, with a signifer (at the front) and an optio (at the back) for each double century.

The 'office staff' (praeco, beneficiarii, mensores and librarii) are not included on the century rolls, but the musicians are.

Obviously there's not one musician per century, so I've arranged them at points in the overall array - the two bucinators at the front relay messages from the tribune to the four tubicens stationed between the century blocks to the eight cornicens at the rear. These musicians should be on the century rolls, so positioned like this they would leave random gaps in the centuries, but that was too fiddly to work out!

The 'clerici ve deputati' are still an unknown quantity, so I've added a nominal 8 of them - although they're not on the century rolls, so they're just to make up a round number.

Anyway, maybe complete nonsense, but fun nonetheless!