Defences of the western Roman empire in 5th century

[Theodosius the Great]

Sorry, Fabiano. I misunderstood.

Yes, your estimate sounds plausible, IMO. It's too bad Stilicho returned so many of his troops to the Eastern Empire when he did.

But where did Heather get his numbers from? Majorian was only attempting to ferry an army across the narrows at the Straits of Gibraltar. Would he use all of the available ships or just as many as could be quickly gathered and used at short notice?

Heather is just using "300" as a base. You're right, the Empire could have perhaps raised more ships. The Visigoths were reconciled to Majorian so he may have had the additional resources to build a full scale invasion fleet with support vessels. But that would probably risk being noticed by the Vandals who were tipped off anyway. The Romans were clearly hoping to invade Africa using the same route the Vandals used decades earlier to approach Carthage from the West instead of directly from Sicily or Italy.

The number "300" comes from Priscus, the contemporary Eastern historian :

• "Majorian even attempted to cross over to Libya with a great force, after he had collected about three hundred ships. The ruler of the Vandals first sent envoys to him to resolve the disagreements by diplomacy. When the emperor was not persuaded, he laid waste all the land of the Moors to which Majorian and his troops had to cross from Spain and harassed the surrounding waters (Priscus, fr.27: Gordon trans., pp.116-117) (Quoted from this website)

I agree that the Notitia is important, but a list of units does not give us figures for manpower.

True. Units were rarely at full strength as we know from the early Empire. But official paper strength does give us some historical basis for modern estimates.

I'm still unhappy about many of the numbers being bandied about: it still all appears to be guesswork!

Well, it is. By definition that's was estimates are :wink:

I don't know any generals who died naturally but I suspect many may have fled to the Eastern Empire. That would be my choice !

Would the Eastern Empire have wanted them? With the infighting amongst the buereaucratic and military ranks, would a Westerner have been welcomed and promoted/installed above people already in the system?

The East lost so many commanders and men fighting the Huns - certainly far more so than the West lost. So, some "opennings", shall we say, may have needed to be filled :lol: . The West probably had more experienced commanders than the East. To answer your last question : it would depend, I think, on whether they were of barbarian stock / upbringing, in which case the East may have turned them away. In a short time the East would purge their forces of all Gothic troops and commanders.

~Theo