High Imperial Roman army vs Late Roman army

[Robert Vermaat]

It depends on actually what you mean for 'the Romans recovered'.
The Eastern Romans recovered for sure because the Goths had suffered the main part of the casualties during the first day of battle, while the Western Roman Army was permanentely destroied, because nobody can think that in the V century you can recover from a huge defeat in a battle in which you have deployed 34.000 or 50.0000 men.
The names of the units quoted in the Notitia, after Frigidus, are only names written on the paper, the reality is that after Frigidus the West had no more a full working professional army.

Although I can agree with the opinion that Frigidus was the deathblow to the Western Roman army, I have to disagree with the rest.

The Western army was by no means destroyed, but the best units were removed into the Eastern army. That way, Theodosius both made good the losss suffered at Adrianoplle, but he also removed to flower of the Western army to deny any more rebelling (remember he had just defeated Magnus maximus in 388).

I disagree that the West had "no more a full working professional", or that the "names of the units quoted in the Notitia, after Frigidus, are only names written on the paper". I look forward to seeing evidence for that. I think that the West did have an army, but that Stilicho squandered that in a useless conflict with the East.