\"Decurion\" vs. \"decanus\"

[Robert Vermaat]

Being gentle, and without simply dismissing Vegetius, it is fairly easy to summarise his approach as being one of harking back to the 'larger' legions of the Republic and Early Imperial times when compared, as he now sees it, to the 'smaller' legio's of the Field Armies (assumed to be around 1,000 men). His entire treatise is from an armchair academic decrying the overall weakening and downgrading of the army, as he sees it, and we can all sympathise given that everything was always better in the 'olden days'.

I agree. Vegetius is more than once seen to misunderstand numbers. he is our only source for a 10-man contubernium, but he may have derived that number from his idea tha the decanus commanded the contubernium. But as already stated here, the decurion did not command 10 men, the centurio did not command 100 men either.