05-02-2018, 10:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-03-2018, 01:05 AM by Nathan Ross.)
(05-02-2018, 07:55 AM)Robert Vermaat Wrote: the residue of units being hauled around!
On the same subject of units being hauled around, I checked through the 'soldier' tombstones from the Concordia cemetery to try and work out where their units were supposed to be placed according to the Notitia Dignitatum. Interestingly, all but one were from the west, as you'd expect, but they come from different field armies.
The Mattiaci Seniores, Bracchiati (Seniores, probably?), Batavi Seniores, Mattiaci Iuniores, Heruli Seniores, Ioviani Legion and Equites Bracchiati Seniores are all from the field army of Italy.
The Leones Seniores, Bructeri, Equites Armigeri, Equites Batavi Seniores and Equites Octo Dalmatae are from the field army of Gaul.
The Sagittari Nervil, Fortenses Legion and Equites Scutarii are placed in Spain in the ND, under the Comes Hispanias.
The Iovii Iuniores are supposed to be with the Comes Illyricum.
The numerus equitum catafractariorum and three other units are of unknown origin.
One unit, the auxilia palatina numerus of Hiberi, comes from the eastern command in the ND.
Only one tombstone, of a soldier of the Batavi, has a date - the consulship of Arcadius and Honorius. This would make it either AD394, 396 or 402. Assuming that all these tombstones are from around the same date (which is a stretch, but not impossible), then they might represent western casualties from the battle of Frigidus in 394, or troops from the army assembled by Stilicho to fight Alaric in Greece in 395, having returned west again. More interestingly, perhaps, the third date might suggest that these units were among the 'thirty numeri' that Stilicho assembled for the battle of Pollentia in 402: his army would presumably have tracked Alaric's Goths back eastward after that battle, and he could well have based himself at Concordia or around Aquileia once they had crossed back into Pannonia.
Whatever the date, though, this appears to be concrete evidence that the various field army dispositions listed in the western Notia had become completely confused by the turn of the 4th-5th century!
(I don't know whether Dietrich Hoffman has any points to make about this - I scanned through his Die spätrömischen Soldatengrabschriften von Concordia on Luke Ueda-Sarsen's site link, but once again the text defeats me!)
Nathan Ross
