07-09-2017, 06:59 PM
(07-09-2017, 06:46 PM)Robert Vermaat Wrote: Are you sure the auxilia palatina was infantry-based?... they may well have formed up as perhaps cavalry-based guard units?
Yes, I've wondered that myself - it would certainly explain why they seem to use cavalry ranks (or, more specifically, the same ranks as the Scholae - no exarchs etc).
We tend to think of the auxilia palatina as infantry because they usually appear like that in Ammianus. But it could be, as you suggest, that they were originally all mounted or part-mounted units, some of which, some time later, were reorganised as infantry.
Nathan Ross