Legion Staff Officers

[Lothia]

Ave Civitas,

I have stumbled again and need some direction.

I am, at this point in my novel, concerned with the administrative staff of a legion.

I believe (and please correct me if I am wrong) when legions were 6,000 they had 6 tribunes assigned to them to assist the legate.

One of the tribunes was a tribunus laticlavius who acted as his XO (assistant commander). The legate also had five other tribunes of lesser rank (equestrian).

My Six questions are:

1. Beside the Tribunus Laticlavius having a specific duty, did the tribuni angusticlavii also have set responsibilities (chief of staff, intelligence, training, logistics, etc?)

2. When Diocletian and Constantine I restructured the legions to 1,000 man units and created independent cohorts, were the number of tribunes assigned to each legion also reduced?

3. If they were reduced, what was the new number?

Additionally,

I have looked at the ND and saw that the various offices had administrative staff, but nothing that would make me recognize them as offices that would accompany a Dux on a campaign.

Campaigns were, I would imagine, commanded by one of the available Dux from what ever area the campaign was launched.

4. What type of staff did the Dux have with him?

Lastly,

Some Auxiliary units, like the Auxilium primorum Daciscorum, seem to be real auxiliary units manned by tribesmen. But according to the ND, some were Pseudocomitatenses.

5. Were these really auxiliary units (of non-Roman soldiers) or were these regular army?

6. What was their command structure?

Though I promised myself many times that I would never, never, buy more books, If someone can point me in the direction of some source that will answer these to me I gladly eat crow, buy the book, and would appreciate your advice.

I thank you again for all your aid in this opus of mine.

Lothia.

[Carlton Bach]

I can't point you to a book, but there is a text by Breeze in the ANRW (H. Temporini ed.: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt) II, 1, pp. 435-451 on 'The career structure below the Centurionate' that makes a good starting point for your purposes. Because I would strongly suggest looking at the officiales of the legion rather than its commanders for what we today consider 'staff'.

I am not sure I would liken the laticlave tribune to an Executive Officer in the modern sense (if anything, that role is probably better exemplified by the prefect of the camp). Also, the subordination of the angusticlave tribunes to the laticlave is more likely one of rank than of functional chain of command. The way I read them, they were not so much staff officers as leaders-in-training, men of rank learning the trade of command under the tutelage of experienced men of their kind. (Note - this applies only to the Principate. It appears that during the third century, military units increasingly became led by career military men in the nebulously defined position of 'praepositus' rather than political career men). What we would consider staff work would have been carried out by the officium of the legate and his centurions, men trained in administrative work and much more familiar with the legion they often called home for their entire enlistment. There would have been a cornicularius (head of the officium) and several commentrarienses (function unclear, but probably relatively senior), actarii and librarii (probably senior and junior filing and administrative clerks), beneficiarii (messengers and generally men for detached duty) and possibly speculatores (there is some disagreement in this regard - in wartime, a 'speculator' is a scout, but it is sometiomes assumed that in peacetime these men acted as something like messengers and bailiffs). Other terms that may be associated are tabularii (the secretariat was referred to as 'tabularium' and thus this may refer to all soldiers working there rather than a specific rank or function), canalicularii (which may be a kind of scribe or a civil engineer), and scribae (which, again, generally means 'scribe', but may have had a more specific meaning in the Principate legion, perhaps designating a junior administrative clerk), interpretes (interpreters - maybe), polliones (sometimes thought to have been language instructors or senior clerks drafting documents and letters, by others associated with the remount service), mensores (possibly managing the grain stores, though possibly, too, civil engineers) and frumentarii (who may still have been in charge of the legion's grain supply, though they certainly had other functions at the time and may well have been entirely dedicated to intelligence work). There is some evidence that optiones and decurions, ranks normally associated with tactical command, also show up in officia, but their function is not quite clear AFAIK. AS you can see, the evidence tends to get fuzzy round the edges, but the Principate legion had a very well developed system of administrative staff, and they knew perfectly well what everyone did even if we don't.

In addition, I don't know how long a legate had lictors, but AFAIK they were still assigned in the Principate era. Provincial promagistrates certainly had them. In addition, men of this rank would be accompanied by friends (the cohors amicorum, 'cohort' here used in the nonmilitary sense of 'group'), freedmen and slaves. The Romans had a fuzzier conception of 'chain of command' than modern militaries and it is not hard to envision these relaying instructions or bringing in data for their legate. (Technically, lictors were associated with the judicial function of a Roman magistrate while his amici, freedmen and slaves were there in a purely personal role, but his auctoritas radiated out to them - bear in mind the imperial freedmen of the Julio-Claudian age, too, were technically purely private household servants).

I am not that well informed about later ages, but IIRC while there was still a rank of 'tribune', it was now an independent command rank. A large part of the administrative functions that had been carried out by legionary soldiers during the Principate were transferred to a salaried civil service (which, interestingly, continued Roman military tradition, including a lengthy 'enlistment term', the wearing of the military belt, and was fictitiously carried on the books of the (defunct) Legions I and II Adiutrix. I rather suspect this organically grew from the soldier-administrators in the course of the third century. Military commanders had a staff of 'apparitores', probably a kind of ggeneral-purpose secretaries, who are frequently mentioned in the Theodosiamn Code, usually to spell out what they could do and how they ranked vis-a-vis each other. AS the precedence of an apparitor depended on the rank of his officer, I don't think we still have the complex rank structures of Principate era officia.

[Lothia]

Ave Carlton Bach,

Thank you for your speedy and informative reply.

I believe you have given me enough information about the legions that I can procede with my writing and not make learned people like yourself cringe when you read it.

I will repost my question about the auxiliary units.

Again, thank you very much for your aid.

Tom,