Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius

[Nathan Ross]

Pay roll records, I believe are incomplete or like the Perge document, has missing fragments, which make them deceptive and to be applied with caution.

I don't agree. This document is not an 'effective strength' snapshot like the Dura papyri or Vindolanda tablet - it's an official list, carved into stone, telling us exactly how many men were supposed to be in the legion, and intended to stand for some time.

There are only two missing figures in Onur's reading. One is for the 'clerici et deputati', who were probably supernumerary to the legion strength, and the other is the 'hundreds' figure for the munifices, which can be reconstructed within a narrow field.

If we accept that the ten vexillarii are cavalry subunit standard-bearers (which I think we must), then it's interesting how few ways we can reconstruct the legion organisation. Short of coming up with an entirely different and quite radical organisational structure, we're dividing the available men into tens and twenties. And unless we envisage the infantry ordinarii commanding very large numbers of men, the total legion size cannot, I think, rise much above 1600.

My attempt above is one way, perhaps, of calculating things - there are a number of alternatives available, but they only make small differences to the overall picture. We could, for example, move the 140 Flaviales Alii onto the cavalry strength, giving a nicely traditional-looking 'Hyginian' 80-man infantry ordo - but that leaves us with a 45-man cavalry ordo!

Even at the smallest size for this legion, we appear to be looking at either an infantry subunit, or a cavalry one, or both, somewhat larger than we are used to from the Principiate.

Nevertheless, the similarities with earlier practice are quite striking, not only in the rank titles. As mentioned previously, this 'numerus legionum' does look surprisingly similar to a milliarian cohors equitata, like the XX Palmyrenorum from Dura.

There's also something quite 'Vegetian' about the unit breakdown: infantry ordines of c.95-105-115 (depending on number of munifices) and cavalry ordines of c.30-32 are reminiscent of V's comment (2.14) "As 110 infantrymen are controlled by one centurion under one ensign, so 32 cavalrymen are governed by one decurion under one ensign."

The numbers aren't exactly the same - both 'centurions' and 'decurions' are now called ordinarii, and the infantry units have two ensigns not one - but it is quite amazing that a military unit of this late a date still seems to bear the traces of the organisational structures of centuries past!


(EDIT - using the above structure, a figure of 259 munifices gives us an infantry ordo of exactly 100 infantrymen + 1 signifer, 1 imaginifer, 1 optio, 1 musician and 1 ordinarius. The infantry could be divided into 10 10-man contubernia, each led by one of the Augustales Alii as decanus.

The cavalry complement would remain at 30 men + 1 vexillarius and 1 ordinarius.

I realise this is almost certainly too neat to be true!)