Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Zosimus refers to five tagmata totalling 6000 men (5.45.1), i.e., 1200 men each, and then to six tagmata totalling 4000 men (6.8.2), i.e., 666 men each. This leads Ridley to translate the first as 'legions' and the second as 'cohorts'. As I understand it, tagma just means 'a body of soldiers' of unspecified number, so relating it to a particular type of unit in the Roman army may be too specific. It seems that Sozomen may have simply replaced one generic term with another.

Sozomen refers to 6 arithmoi totalling 4000 men in the original text, IIRC.

https://www.academia.edu/13124202/Chapte...Roman_Army