Late roman army (west)

[Nathan Ross]

Goths were hired on an 'as needed' basis, as evidenced by Constantine the Great hiring them for his proposed Sasanid campaign

That's interesting - what's the source? I knew about Constantine using large numbers of Franks in his final campaign against Licinius (presumably brought by Caesar Crispus from Gaul), but wasn't aware of further large scale Gothic employment by Constantine himself.

Constantius II approaching the Taifali and other Goths for various campaigns... a couple of auxilia units mentioned by Ammianus, namely the Taifali and the Heruli... which means that, if correct, there were Gothic troops in regular units long before Valens started hiring them in large numbers.

If we can believe the legend of St Nicholas (!), Constantine settled defeated Taifali as laeti in Phrygia. They rebelled in 336 and had to be crushed by Virius Nepotianus and Flavius Ursus, which implies there were a large number of them, and they could well have been drafted into army units even before this date.

The troops identified as the Cornuti on the Arch of Constantine do not appear to be wearing any body armour for instance.

Are these the soldiers on the 'siege of Verona' frieze? Their shields hide their bodies, but the one on the left of the line (an officer?) is certainly wearing a muscle cuirass. I've always been a bit dubious about this identification - the supposed horns on their helmets could just as easily be feathers. The 'horned animals' shield design doesn't actually belong to them (I don't think!) but to another figure on one of the arch pedestals - the animals in question could be dolphins, sea monsters or goats(?), but the shield also features a very Roman winged Victory!