Late Roman Army - seniores and iuniores

[Natuspardo]

That Hoffmann has to be read carefully is not my theory but of some of the best experts of Late Roman army organisation.
For example Scharf: Seniores-iuniores und die Heeresteilung von 364, ZPE 89, 1991 p.267.
last mentioned in: Ralf Scharf in Der Dux Moguntiacensis und die Notitia Dignitatum, Berlin 2005, esp. p.221-225
p.223: "Wenn weder das Datum der Teilung noch die anschließende geographische Verteilung der seniores-iuniores mit der durch die Inschrift belegten Realtität übereinstimmen, sind auch Hoffmans Ergänzungen der Namensattribute in der Notitia,..., als hinfällig zu betrachten. Auch alle Thesen über Truppenverlegungen seit 364 können ohne genauere Prüfung nicht mehr aufrecht erhalten werden."

For the origins of seniores-iuniores Scharf is careful: possible could be a partition between Constans and Constantius II. 340 - the seniores beeing originally in the east, iuniores with the younger Constans in the west. Or another possibility, seniores being unrelated to the emperors but just refering to the cader of the divided unit: then that could be connected with Constantius II. efforts to compensate for the losses of Mursa after 351. "Wäre dies der Fall, so würde eine geographische Verteilung von seniores und iuniores auf verschiedene Reichsteile in jeder Variante obsolet." (then any geographical divison of seniores-iuniores would be obsolet

Michael Kulikowski: The Notitia Dignitatum as a Historical Source, in: Historia 49, 2000. p. 371 note 55:
"There are equally grave consequences for Hoffmann's chapters six and seven, on the comitatus through the reign of Julian. From here many units are excluded from consideration on the basis of the seniores-iuniores nomenclature."
already in Kulikowski: The End of Roman Spain, Toronto 1997, p.202:
"The argument assumes that units with the by-name
seniores must be westem in origin. those with the by-name iuniores
eastern. One may thus trace troop movements in the distribution of
unfts with this nomenclature. This assumption is demonstrably
incorrect. The by-names seniores and iuniores do not in fact originate
with a division of the comitatus by Valentinian and Valens in 364. An
archaeology of the troop movements enshrined in the NotVia cannot be conducted on the basis of this assumption. Only units attested
independenfly in outside sources can be claimed with certainty as
belonging at any point to eastern or western armies. If the sentores-
Eunfores criterion is discarded, uni- idenmed as west-east transfers of
388 may in fact have bdonged to the eastern army for many decades
before."
and note 51: "The assumed connection between seniores unîts and the western army cannot stand. The result undermines nearly the whole of Hofmann's work. Almost every conclusion in his chapters eight, nine, and ten,
no matter what immediate logic it ts based on, ultimately turns upon the 364 army division. Nearly every conclusion is thus suspect, though many are not implausible."
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Herculiani seniores: Passio sanctorum Bonosi et Maximiliani, under Julian

I believe that this text was classified as a later one, with the ref. to 'seniores' being anachronistic?

For Herculiani seniores under Julian. see D. Woods. ‘Ammianus Marcellinus and the Deaths of Bonosus and Maximilianus’
Hagiographica 2 (1995), 25-55.

Lancearii seniores: epitaph at Arles, according to O. Seeck not long after the middle of the 4th century.

Which article?

Drew-Bear, Nakolea p.274