03-09-2017, 05:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-09-2017, 06:50 PM by Longovicium.)
Apologies for not replying sooner but got hit with manflu last Friday and only just shaking it off now!
Nathan, I think you are right about the use of milites in terms of ascribing any technical sense to it. However, your post above about the legion troops and the naval commands associated with them made me go back to the ND. Luke Ueda-Sarson's website carries some interesting breakdowns of these latter. He reports that some 38 milites units are specifically legion troops and many of them have naval titles or descriptors. Those who don't - according to McAndrews - either fill gaps in the known record of naval units or potentially could.
The remaining milites listed in the ND - some 23 in total - are auxiliary units and are demonstrably not legion troops brigaded out to specific naval operations. However, of these 23 troop units, all but 3 are stationed either under the command of the Dux Scythiae or the Dux Moesiae Secundae. Both these frontier commands also list legion troops below the register of the auxiliary milites. That's a very interesting grouping of units under 2 closely related frontier commands quite distinct from the remaining legionary milites identified by Ueda-Sarson.
My first thought was that these auxiliary milites - some of which have clear naval titles - were raised in response to a specific localised emergency on an ad-hoc basis to supplement the legion naval units and then remained on the lists as such. Speculation, obviously, but I do wonder on why those 21 milites exist as distinct from the legion naval/marine units under only 2 frontier commands closely associated together geographically and sited along the critical Danube frontier. The obvious historical event is the post-Adrianople period and the re-ordering of the frontier later . . .
Again, speculation, though.
As for the reason why the milites descriptor arose at all here in the ND, McAndrews points to Vegetius' use of the term in a naval context to describe what we today call marines. Is it possible that with the establishment of legion troops tasked with specific riverine and lacustral remits, it was adopted to distinguish them (along with other suffixes and titles) from main-line infantry legion troops? While still retaining a 'generic' quality, the descriptor, when applied to units stationed at specific river and lake and estuary fortifications took on a slightly less ambiguous meaning and stood to define specifically marine and/or naval units? Again, speculation and perhaps impossible to verify.
If one takes a step back from the ND with MacAndrews and Ueda-Sarson to hand, it does open up the possibility that late Roman naval capability (certainly in terms of its non-maritime aspect) was more developed and organised than I had perhaps appreciated in the past.
Nathan, I think you are right about the use of milites in terms of ascribing any technical sense to it. However, your post above about the legion troops and the naval commands associated with them made me go back to the ND. Luke Ueda-Sarson's website carries some interesting breakdowns of these latter. He reports that some 38 milites units are specifically legion troops and many of them have naval titles or descriptors. Those who don't - according to McAndrews - either fill gaps in the known record of naval units or potentially could.
The remaining milites listed in the ND - some 23 in total - are auxiliary units and are demonstrably not legion troops brigaded out to specific naval operations. However, of these 23 troop units, all but 3 are stationed either under the command of the Dux Scythiae or the Dux Moesiae Secundae. Both these frontier commands also list legion troops below the register of the auxiliary milites. That's a very interesting grouping of units under 2 closely related frontier commands quite distinct from the remaining legionary milites identified by Ueda-Sarson.
My first thought was that these auxiliary milites - some of which have clear naval titles - were raised in response to a specific localised emergency on an ad-hoc basis to supplement the legion naval units and then remained on the lists as such. Speculation, obviously, but I do wonder on why those 21 milites exist as distinct from the legion naval/marine units under only 2 frontier commands closely associated together geographically and sited along the critical Danube frontier. The obvious historical event is the post-Adrianople period and the re-ordering of the frontier later . . .
Again, speculation, though.
As for the reason why the milites descriptor arose at all here in the ND, McAndrews points to Vegetius' use of the term in a naval context to describe what we today call marines. Is it possible that with the establishment of legion troops tasked with specific riverine and lacustral remits, it was adopted to distinguish them (along with other suffixes and titles) from main-line infantry legion troops? While still retaining a 'generic' quality, the descriptor, when applied to units stationed at specific river and lake and estuary fortifications took on a slightly less ambiguous meaning and stood to define specifically marine and/or naval units? Again, speculation and perhaps impossible to verify.
If one takes a step back from the ND with MacAndrews and Ueda-Sarson to hand, it does open up the possibility that late Roman naval capability (certainly in terms of its non-maritime aspect) was more developed and organised than I had perhaps appreciated in the past.
Francis Hagan
The Barcarii
The Barcarii
