Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius

[jho]

Salvete,
 

First of all, thank you to all contributors for what must be one of the best argued discussions on RAT ever.

 

I have two further small observations on the topic of the veredarii. But I must admit that I have no qualification whatsoever in Latin or Greek epigraphy and have not had the chance to review Mr. Onur’s 2017 publication on this (only his earlier ones):

 

First, on the nature of veredarii as cavalry:

 

There is a citation in  Paulinus Nolensis (Ep. 28,1) referring to a messenger (on foot) as a „veredarius pedes, aut veredus bipes“. The joking nature of this remark („two-legged post horse“) would appear to imply that in general  usage veredarius always implies the use of a horse and not simply the function as a messenger.

 

Secondly, Hieronymus (In Abd. 17,18) refers to „eos enim, quos nunc agentes in rebus vel veredarios appellant, veteres frumentarios appellabant “. This citation could imply that in military usage veredarius could imply a function without necessarily impyling use of a horse.

 

Secondly on the „veredarii alii“:

 

Onur expands „all“ in the inscription as Greek „alloi“ = Latin „alii“. However, in view of the fact that the language here is Latin transcribed to Greek, couldn’t this rather be “allecti” = “adlecti”?

Adlectus is often used in military inscriptions to describe a transfer to a higher rank or higher ranking unit (adlectus in comitatu imperatoris). This could in fact support Onur’s argument that these are candidates who are waiting for a free space among the (few) troopers or maybe have received riding lessons to be able to replace them if  they become casualties. On the other hand, adlectus appears generally to used for a change which has already happened rather that for somebody waiting to be adlected.

 

I must admit that I am still struggling with the large cavalry complement and trying to explain it away.

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After taking another look at the inscription, I have one further comment to add:

The "Vexillarii" are unlikely to be cavalry standard bears in view of the fact that they receive only 2 annona: 2 annona is the same as the imaginifer etc. but less than the "true" veredarii (who receive 3).

I would assume that both the vexillum and the imago were used only for church parades and the like and therefore these are infantrymen with a (limited) special function which puts them in the same annona group as the libarii, mensores etc.