Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius

[Nathan Ross]

the published article is now available in Gephyra 14, 2016

Thanks Francis!

Certainly a very thorough paper, and it's good to have the full texts and translations. I don't think it necessarily adds much to what we already know about Slab C (notitia) in particular - the numbers do not appear to have been revised since the previous publication.

It is interesting to see Professor Onur's notes on the text, however, and especially on the military ranks/grades. He does not attempt a reconstruction of the legion's full composition or structure, which is probably sensible, but a shame nonetheless.

There were a few points in the paper that I would query, or which seem unclear or perhaps suggest differing interpretations to the ones we've discussed so far on this thread. If anyone could offer further comment or clarification I'd be most grateful!


p.159: "The 10 signiferi given in the list in the Perge inscription were each in charge of 10 centuriae of the unit." - Can this be right? It would give the full legion 100 centuriae, which would be difficult with only 20 ordinarii to (presumably) lead them.

p.160 (about Veredarii): "The title is given to two groups in the inscription of Perge, the first being of 50 men, while the second was of 225 men, who were probably candidates for the first group." - Onur agrees that these men were cavalry, but offers no clues as to the odd numbering. If we accept that the 10 vexillarii suggest ten subunits of horsemen, then the only solution I can find is the one I suggested above somewhere: 9 units of 25 veredarii alii and one double unit of 50 veredarii. It's not a very comfortable solution, but I can't see any other way to make the numbers fit, unless we go with Marcel's idea of adding some of the Augustales and Flaviales to the cavalry complement.

p.163: "Unfortunately the numbers related to clerici et deputati are also lost. However, the number ?73 on a fragment... might have belonged to them" - Onur agrees that the clerici were military priests, which seems right. I notice that the old reading of the text has clerici ve deputati, whereas this one is clerici et deputati: 'and' rather than 'or' (I think). Even so, 73+ priests and 'assistants' (or whatever deputati means) seems a very high number for a relatively small legion!

Could it be possible that the "?73" fragment fits elsewhere, or belongs to a different inscription? The last lines of Slab C are very broken up - I'm not sure of the reading for the munifices number either. Can anyone make anything else out here?

   

p.186: "The unit in Perge edict is a legio, either comitatensis or perhaps palatina." - Onur discounts the possibiliy of this being a limitanei formation, although I don't see why this would not be plausible: the magister militum surely having overall control of all military units, not just the field armies?

p.187: "So these numbers actually represent a unit larger than 1200 men" - leaving out the clerici etc, it still appears that the minimum strength of the legion must be 1272 men (with 159 munifices); this could probably be rounded to 1280 with a nominal 8 clerici and/or deputati. This figure would step up at increments of 100 depending on how many munifices there were. However, the ?73 is troubling - if the proposed positioning of the fragment is correct, it could increase the overall size by an unknown margin!