Late Roman Unit Sizes

[Renatus]

You might be interested in this quote, from de rebus bellicis (5,5):

scilicet ut centeni aut quinquageni iuniores, extra hos qui in matriculis continentur, habeantur in promptu armis exerciti et minori utpote tirones stipendio sublevati, in locum amissorum si res ita tulerit subrogandi

I can't find a translation and don't know latin, but Richard Duncan-Jones (Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy) claims it "suggests that gaps in the standing army should be filled" by the recruitment of subunits of 50 and (?) 100 men.

R. I. Ireland's translation is as follows:

' . . . namely, that divisions of a hundred or fifty younger men, in addition to those who are listed on the pay-rolls, should be kept ready for action, trained in the use of weapons, and paid (as being recruits) at a lower rate, to be drafted into the place of those who have been lost if events should make this necessary.'

De rebus bellicis is dated to the joint reigns of Valentinian and Valens, so the Latin is mid-4th century.

[antiochus]

Mark wrote:
I'll go further - for any suggestions of a change in organisational structures really should be accompanied by a reason as to why. Steven/Antiochus thinks it may be due to non-Earthly and cultural mathematical reasons; but whilst I don't agree, it is a reason that by-passes the other more obviously logical reasons - which I believe to be tenuous at best for the arms and armour change very little, if at all.

Why have you bought this into the debate? There are views presented in a discussion that I don’t agree with but I don’t feel the need to go out of my way and air my opinion.
[part of this reply removed by moderator]

[ValentinianVictrix]

Whilst I was checking some references yesterday I discovered a passage in the Rolfe translation of Ammianus where he translated 'numerus' as 'Legion'.

This has made me acutely aware to check the orginal text when looking at translations. When Ammianus discusses Legions he calls them as such. Why Rolfe chose to render numerus as Legion is a bit baffling?

[Caballo]

I've come very late to this debate, but Evan suggested that this may be a useful contribution for the Post Roman period?

In seventh century Visigothic Spain "The provinces of the Spanish kingdon continued to be used as military districts with provoncial armies commanded by a dux exercitus provinciae.....As in the sixth century , the army itself was divided into apparently decimally organised sub-units led by tiuphadi ..."commander of a thousand", quingentarii (commanders of 500), centuriones and decuriones."

. (Halsall G., Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West 450-900, Routledge 2003, page 60 )

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Ultimately, this discussion has proved invaluable to my book, as I plan to present my theory on the 2400-man Legion in the chapter on the Roman Army.

Great discussion, and I hope more will continue.

[antiochus]

Evan wrote:
Ultimately, this discussion has proved invaluable to my book, as I plan to present my theory on the 2400-man Legion in the chapter on the Roman Army.

At the moment I’m exploring 3000 man legions (1500 iuniores and 1500 seniores). The Romans don’t do things ad hoc and Julian’s army having to hand over bodies of 300 men tells me a mathematical ratio has to be in play. Besides playing with the numbers, it is important to try and understand Roman military doctrine for this period. Did the Romans attach one 500 man cohort of auxiliaries (archers?) to a legion, thereby increasing the iuniores and seniores from my theory of 1500 men to 2000 men? Taking into account Ammianus numbering 1000 archers accompanying the targeteers, this could be a possibility. However, we don’t know if the figure of 1000 archers is rounded down from 1200 archers or the figure is correct. Also could the Romans leave behind 300 men as garrison troops, thereby sending a force of 1200 iuniores or seniores into the field? What if of the 1500 men, 500 men are left behind as a garrison force? Now we have a legion of 1000 men. At present I believe I am building a better case for the 1500 man legion for the iuniores and seniores than the 2400 man legion.

Evan wrote:
Zozimus describes the Palatina units coming from Constantinople totalling 4000 men and would average 666 men a piece, not accounting for variations.

This is taken from an earlier post in this thread and I am curious as to where you got the figure of 4000 men from as Zosimus only gives 6000 men on two accounts.

[ValentinianVictrix]

Evan wrote:
Ultimately, this discussion has proved invaluable to my book, as I plan to present my theory on the 2400-man Legion in the chapter on the Roman Army.

At the moment I’m exploring 3000 man legions (1500 iuniores and 1500 seniores). The Romans don’t do things ad hoc and Julian’s army having to hand over bodies of 300 men tells me a mathematical ratio has to be in play. Besides playing with the numbers, it is important to try and understand Roman military doctrine for this period. Did the Romans attach one 500 man cohort of auxiliaries (archers?) to a legion, thereby increasing the iuniores and seniores from my theory of 1500 men to 2000 men? Taking into account Ammianus numbering 1000 archers accompanying the targeteers, this could be a possibility. However, we don’t know if the figure of 1000 archers is rounded down from 1200 archers or the figure is correct. Also could the Romans leave behind 300 men as garrison troops, thereby sending a force of 1200 iuniores or seniores into the field? What if of the 1500 men, 500 men are left behind as a garrison force? Now we have a legion of 1000 men. At present I believe I am building a better case for the 1500 man legion for the iuniores and seniores than the 2400 man legion.

Evan wrote:
Zozimus describes the Palatina units coming from Constantinople totalling 4000 men and would average 666 men a piece, not accounting for variations.

This is taken from an earlier post in this thread and I am curious as to where you got the figure of 4000 men from as Zosimus only gives 6000 men on two accounts.

Ammianus gives two accounts where numbers of men were detached specifically from each Legion, Gratian detached 500 men from each legion to go chasing the Lentienses up the mountains and then Valens allowed Sebastianus to detach 300 men from each legion. There is also a passage which I believe is in Lydus where he states that 1500 men from the Legiones Lanciarii and Mattiarii were involved in a tunnelling operation when Julian invaded Sassanid Persia. Its unclear whether it was 1500 men from each Legion or 1500 men in total, or 750 men from each legion. If it was 1500 men from each legion then obviously the Legiones were much larger than 1500, I would suggest even if it was 750 men detached from each legion then the legion size would have also been larger than 1500, probably around 2250 men.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Evan wrote:
Ultimately, this discussion has proved invaluable to my book, as I plan to present my theory on the 2400-man Legion in the chapter on the Roman Army.

At the moment I’m exploring 3000 man legions (1500 iuniores and 1500 seniores). The Romans don’t do things ad hoc and Julian’s army having to hand over bodies of 300 men tells me a mathematical ratio has to be in play. Besides playing with the numbers, it is important to try and understand Roman military doctrine for this period. Did the Romans attach one 500 man cohort of auxiliaries (archers?) to a legion, thereby increasing the iuniores and seniores from my theory of 1500 men to 2000 men? Taking into account Ammianus numbering 1000 archers accompanying the targeteers, this could be a possibility. However, we don’t know if the figure of 1000 archers is rounded down from 1200 archers or the figure is correct. Also could the Romans leave behind 300 men as garrison troops, thereby sending a force of 1200 iuniores or seniores into the field? What if of the 1500 men, 500 men are left behind as a garrison force? Now we have a legion of 1000 men. At present I believe I am building a better case for the 1500 man legion for the iuniores and seniores than the 2400 man legion.

Evan wrote:
Zozimus describes the Palatina units coming from Constantinople totalling 4000 men and would average 666 men a piece, not accounting for variations.

This is taken from an earlier post in this thread and I am curious as to where you got the figure of 4000 men from as Zosimus only gives 6000 men on two accounts.

It's Synesius, not Zozimus

[Renatus]

Evan wrote:
Zozimus describes the Palatina units coming from Constantinople totalling 4000 men and would average 666 men a piece, not accounting for variations.

This is taken from an earlier post in this thread and I am curious as to where you got the figure of 4000 men from as Zosimus only gives 6000 men on two accounts.

This is Zos. 6.8.2:

'Just then six cohorts sailed in which had been expected since the time of Stilicho but which had only now arrived from the East in accordance with the alliance; they numbered four thousand.' (Ridley's translation)

The word Ridley translates as 'cohorts' is tagmata. However, elsewhere (Zos. 5.45.1) Zosimus speaks of five tagmata totalling 6000 men. Here, Ridley translates tagmata as 'legions'. It seems possible that Zosimus is not using tagma in a technical sense but as a general word for 'unit'.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Agreed, Zozimus never makes any account of what a Tagmata is equal to.

[antiochus]

Renatus wrote:
This is Zos. 6.8.2: 'Just then six cohorts sailed in which had been expected since the time of Stilicho but which had only now arrived from the East in accordance with the alliance; they numbered four thousand.' (Ridley's translation)

The 4000 men means my exploration into 1500 man legions is going the way of the Titanic. The Zosimus translation I have gives six regiments numbering 6000 men and not 4000 men. I’ve been working under the impression that there were two references by Zosimus to 6000 man units, one reference of five units numbering 6000 men (1200 per unit) and six units numbering 6000 men (1000 per unit).

Evan has discussed the possibility of the 4000 men being organised into units of 666 men. This does align with a Vegetius cohort, which consists of 600 infantry and 66 cavalry, but if it was just 666 infantry I have to disagree as I have found the Romans like to work with round numbers. There is the possibility the six units each numbered 600 men for a total of 3600 men, which has been rounded to 4000. I’ve gotten some insights into how Ammianus’ numbers could work in regard to rounding, but this is mainly concentrated on his cavalry numbers.

In the pre-maniple legion, the Romans had a fixed size for a legion, which was used for the city legions and the seniores. It was a small legion, but depending on the situation they would increase its size by adding more military tribunes for a particular campaign. My hunch is the Romans could be repeating the same procedures again.

[Macedon]

Zosimus gives two specific accounts in which he gives numbers related to the tagmata. The one is those from Illyria sent to Rome and the other those sent from the east to Honorius.

"πέντε τῶν ἀπὸ Δαλματίας στρατιωτικὰ τάγματα, τῆς οἰκείας μεταστάντα καθέδρας, ἐπὶ φυλακῇ τῆς Ῥώμης ἐλθεῖν• τὰ δὲ τάγματα ταῦτα ἐπλήρουν ἄνδρες ἑξακισχίλιοι", 5.45.1

"ἓξ τάγματα στρατιωτῶν προσωρμίσθησαν, πάλαι μὲν ἔτι περιόντος Στελίχωνος προσδοκώμενα, τότε δὲ πρὸς συμμαχίαν ἐκ τῆς ἑῴας παραγενόμενα, μυριάδων ἀριθμὸν ὄντα τεσσάρων." 6.8.2

The first one is generally translated as the whole force being 6,000 men but unfortunately the text is a bit vague as it says (in a word by word translation) :

"Five of the from Dalmatia military tagmata relocated their base and came for the guard of Rome. These tagmata were filled by 6,000 men."

I personally stand for the text to mean the total force is 6,000 men in proper Greek, BUT, just to fuel some controversy :evil: :evil: , one could use this text, with some stretching, to support that each of these tagmata was 6,000 strong instead of all five.

Where does Synesius mention the 4,000 men? I have probably missed this when I read him.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Actually that was my mistake. Synesius was talking about a 240 man unit of Huns. Right below it on Coello's table of sources is Zozimus, who mentions the 4000 men coming from Constantinople to reinforce Rome.

It was Zozimus who mentions it.

Tagmata is a tricky word. Julian uses it to refer to Cavalry in his letter to the Athenians, while using Arithmoi (Numerii) to describe infantry he sent to Constantius.

Zozimus uses it to refer to units of roughly 1200 and units of 666; the first is usually translated as Legions and the latter as Cohorts in English, but there is no distinction.

[Macedon]

Aha... he means the 40,000 strong force, not 4,000. The text reads "four myriads" This makes the units an average of 6,666 men strong. In my reading of Zosimus, the term tagma is probably usually used as legion (along with the term telos), but certain doubtless identification in all instances is impossible, which unfortunately leaves a lot of space for alternative theories/translations regarding the consistency of his terminology.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Wait what.

40,000 men is absurd. That would be an entire Praesental Field Army, and enough to crush the Visigoths. Organizing that many men and provisions would take over a year, and considering Uldin and the Huns were being an absolute pain in the Ass in the Balkans, there's no way the East would have let their defenses lax that much.