Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius

[Nathan Ross]

Meanwhile, like some fiendish crossword, the list of numbers continues to obsess me...

It occurs to me that if the cornicines and bucinators might be infantry hornblowers, and the tubicines belong to the cavalry, their numbers could be added to the breakdown of ordines (I'm using 'ordo' in preference to 'century' or 'turma' here!).

We could do the same with the various other 'double pay' specialists: the praeco (herald) would be best mounted, for example, and gets the same annona as the veredarii alii. The others could be added to the infantry ranks. But we would have to decide whether the Augustales and Flaviales belonged in the infantry or cavalry ordines, or both (probably the latter, I think...)

So for the infantry we might get a breakdown like this:

The Armaturae Duplares and Semissales (20 men each), the Torquati Semissales (136 men) and Bracchiati Semissales (256 men) are all skilled infantry. Total = 432 men
Plus 8 cornicines and 2 bucinators = 442 men
Plus 5 librarii and mensores = 447 men
Plus 4 beneficiarii = 451 men
Plus 100 Augustales Alii (both grades) = 551 men
Plus 140 Flaviales Alii = 691 men
Plus 10 Optiones = 701 men
Plus 10 Signiferi = 711
Plus 10 Imaginifers = 721
Plus 60 Flaviales = 781
Plus 159 (minimum number) munifices = 940 infantry

Divided between 10 infantry ordines = 94 men + 1 Ordinarius = 95 men per infantry ordo.



For the cavalry, like this:

225 Veredarii Alii
50 Veredarii
20 Augustales
10 Vexillarii
4 Tubicines
1 Praeco
Total = 310 cavalry

Divided between 10 cavalry ordines = 31 men + 1 Ordinarius = 32 men per cavalry ordo.


With 10 infantry ordines of 95 men, 10 cavalry ordines of 32 men, and the 2 tribunes, we get a total full-strength legion size of 1272 men, all inclusive, which fits exactly with the numbers given as the minimum possible. To this we must add an unknown number of (supernumerary?) 'clerici et deputati'.

For a larger legion, the number of munifices could increased by the hundred, with 10 extra infantry being added to the ordines each time. So with 259 munifices the infantry ordo would number 105 men and the legion total 1372. And so on.

Plenty of speculation there, of course - and the relative strengths of infantry and cavalry ordines would change depending on where we put the Augustales and Flaviales - but it does appear to make sense of the jumble of numbers!