Zodiac and Late Roman Army Organisation

[Robert Vermaat]

@Robert
Sarcasm is probably inappropriate. Especially statements like "your pompeius failed to see that old units and new units existed next to another". This is simply not true since I gave many examples in my elaboration about old and new units - existing in the same time era. Also your Statement is wrong regarding cavalry -attached to the legion in the 3rd century. But later more about this.

@Sarcasm – none intended, so my apologies if it sounded that way. :oops: I probably posted too soon 9and while suffering from a nasty cold that kept me at home for a week), so I think we got off on the wrong foot. I found your contribution on the other forum very interesting.

Btw, we are not looking to ‘bash' Vegetius, but keep an eye open for what can be used as fact and what should probably be regarded as ‘wishful thinking. For one, I don’t read Vegetius as a military handbook, but as an ‘intended’ military handbook. For my research into plumbatae, I believe quite a lot of what he writes.

As to missing quotes, you are quite right to ask for them. I fear this has been a mix of a) haste and b) a simple fact that Vegetius has been discussed here many many times over the years, and members (me included) sometimes forget to include the references every single time when a topic comes up again.. :oops:

To the Ducenarius
[..]
Another sign for his higher rank and higher responsibility compared to the centenarius is given in the Codex Iust. I 27,2 (compare with Johannem Hierosolymilanum episcopum 19) - in which a Centenarius received 2 1/2 annonae and a Ducenarius 3 1/2 annonae. The list after the Ducenarius was just followed by the Senator - then Primicerius and finally by the tribunus.
That this term was confused by Vegetius with the ducentenarius known from horse-racings is pure speculation and it becomes not true if it's repeated like a mantra.

I think you misread the statement made here in the thread. That a ducenarius existed and ranked higher than a centurion is not in this dispute, never was for that matter.
However, it’s the claim of Vegetius that the ducenarius commanded 200 men that’s disputed, and Milner offered a possibility why that may have happened. Vegetius is known to make mistakes (not all the time, but now and then), and (like the claim of the contubernium numbering 10 men) he stands alone here. As you say, the ducenarius may have commanded units of 200 men – I fully agree with you on the actual numbers of units not being fixed.

I offered the ‘ducentenarius’ as an analogy, and as an example of where the word came from – not a military context.
However, it’s not a ‘mantra’, used against ‘evidence’ offered by Vegetius.

And balancing all given information and the fact that even the edictum anastasii page 138 §7 and page 151 mentiones troops of 200 I must say that the circumstance is likely that Vegetius is right once more - and not writing out of the blue.

Again, the number of 200 men in a unit is not in dispute, nor is the ducenarius as a rank. However, Vegetius’ assertion that the ducenarius commanded 200 like centurions commanded 100 men is, to me at least, a generalizing statement.