Dux Germania Secunda?

[Robert Vermaat]

Thanks Robert, that's an interesting map. Would you say the situation would have looked any different at the beginning of the 4th century?

My pleasure.
It's hard to say what would be different, but i expect more fortifications in use along the Rhine, and far less triangle (hillforts, refuges, burgi) in place. We 'only' have the Notitia at hand here, and it's nigh impossible to look back 80 years or so from that document.

I don't quite follow what you're suggesting here! What was this 'Lower Rhine command', prior to its collapse in the 4th/5th C? How would it be different to a 'military command... of Germania Inferior'?

Two things:
1) although there was a civil governemnt of the province Germania Inferior, the conclusion that THEREFORE there would have been a military commander of Germania Inferior is simply incorrect. The Late Roman military border commands were never exactly the same as the civil administration of the provinces. There may have been a Dux Germania Inferior, but we can't ever be sure.
2) The Mainzer Ducate was a stopgap solution, judging from the units under command of the Dux. Scharf is certainly right about that, meaning this was created after a military disaster wiped out the former military organisation, which was not reinstated. We don't know when this happened, prior to 394 (creation of the ND) or during the early years of the 5th century (when the ND was (in places) updated.

It seems inconceivable that the substantial number of military installations below Koln would have had no overall commander... Do you mean that there might have been one 'Dux Germaniae' overseeing the whole length of the Rhine?
I notice that Ammianus (29,4,7) mentions Florenti Germaniae ducis - Florentius the Dux Germaniae! :errr:

Sure, in theory, there may have been one Dux Germaniae at one time, perhaps during the mid 350s or something. But alas, this command never made it into the Notitia. Like I said, we have a Dux germania Prima, flanked by the Dux Mogontiacensis and the Comes (tractus) Argentoratensis. For all we know, the Dux Belgica Secunda was responsible for the Lower Rhine, after the command of a theoretical Dux Germaniae was perhaps gone by the time of Julianus?