Late Roman Unit Sizes

[Macedon]

"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

Six tagmata of soldiers sailed in....... from the east they came, being four myriads in number"

Absurd or not (I guess this is another issue), this is what the text reads unless there is another manuscript writing "chiliades" instead of "myriades".

[Flavivs Aetivs]

According to wikipedia:

"The rank continued in use in later ages: Greek writers wrote of "chiliarchs" when referring to the Roman legionary tribunes, and in the Byzantine army, the title was used as an alternative to that of the droungarios and the taxiarches."

Could this mean that the four Chiliarcae were 4 Legionary Tribunes, commanding 6 units?

This would make sense if we saw 4 legionary units of 800 and two cavalry vexillationes of possibly 200. This would make sense when considering the Beatty (Panopolis) Papyrii, which lists the Cavalry part of II Traiana at 160 men.

[antiochus]

[b]Evan wrote[b]:
This would make sense when considering the Beatty (Panopolis) Papyrii, which lists the Cavalry part of II Traiana at 160 men.

Evan is there a time frame associated with the Beatty (Panopolis) Papyrii?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I think it's 298-304 AD. Coello devotes like 20 pages to it. It lists the two Vexillationes of II Traiana in Egypt at about 550 each, and totals it at 1100 men.

Of course, this is entirely dependent on whether or not Jones' and Duncan-Jones' interpretations of 6th Century records of Stipends and whatnot are correct. Inflation in that timeframe of the urn of the 4th century really can mess those figures up.

In fact, it would suggest a Sagitarii unit of 120 men and a Dromedarii unit of 24!

[Macedon]

The term chiliarchos indeed, in Roman legionary context, is used as military tribune. Which 4 chiliarchoi are you referring to?

Another interesting point in Zosimus would also be the 600 man cavalry ile mentioned (3.3.4) in Argentoratum, where Julianus defeated the Alamanni (357 AD).

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The 600 man cavalry unit is almost equal to Ammianus' two Alae of 350 men. What does he call the cavalry unit? A Tagma?

Also, I should mention that if he says 4 Chiliades (what I meant by Chiliarchoi) in his text, the size of that force is entirely dependent on the size of the Legion.

He says six units are under the command of four Legionary Tribuni. In that case, is it six Legions, with two groups of 2 (a seniores and iuniores?) and 2 legions? Or is it 4 legions and 2 cohortes? 4 legions and 2 numeri? 4 legions and their cavalry compnents?

We can't say.

[Macedon]

Why are you mixing up chiliades and chiliarchoi? I of course agree that Zosimus may not be talking about legions, but this has nothing to do with any number of chiliarchoi. The terms are not similar nor can the chiliarchos be used here.

However, first you should check if there is a manuscript mentioning chiliades (thousands) since the texts I have studied say myriads... Most possibly the 4,000 translation is just a printing mistake.

He calls it an ile (I always use the original words in my translations, I think this makes them much more useful for us military freaks), the usual term for ala and generally meaning squadron.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

An Ala of 600, and Ammianus mentions two alae of 350 equalling 700... fascinating.

As for the Chiliades - sorry, I thought you were talking about a Military unit under command of a Chiliarch, not the number. Sorry.

[Macedon]

Ah, no! A unit (either about 1,000 strong or commanded by a chiliarchos) would be called a chiliarchia.

By the way, i is my opinion that Zosimus' tagmata are most probably legions. He seems pretty consistent in the use of the term, although he DOES use the term in a different way like in 4.55.2, where he mentions cavalry tagmata.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Yeah, what I thought. So what the heck is a Chiliades?

Frankly, my knowledge of the Greek language is mostly limited to Late Byzantine Army terms, various Greek words for "Huns" (ouvvoi and xuvvoi), and the word 'Toxoballistra' I can identify if I see it.

[Macedon]

I list some words in plural (most usual when giving troop numbers)

chiliades means "thousands"
myriades means "myriads (10,000)"
(h)ekatontades means "hundreds"

the suffix -archos or -arches means "leader of" from the verb archo which means lead.

thus :

a chiliarchos or chiliarches is a leader of 1,000 (literally)
a (h)ekatntarchos or (h)ekatontarches is a leader of 100

[Flavivs Aetivs]

So it is just "four thousand" and "six units"?

That comes out to 666 (what a delightful number lol)

[Longovicium]

Is it not 40,000 as first posted? Four myriades (ie: 4 times 10,000)?

[Macedon]

EEEEEVVVAAAAAANNNN!!!!

Four MYRIADS! Are you in love or something? :grin: :grin:

[Renatus]

Aha... he means the 40,000 strong force, not 4,000. The text reads "four myriads".

Ridley has an endnote on this as follows:

'The forty thousand men in the MS should obviously be emended, since Soz. 9.8 gives 4,000 (6 arithmoi).'