Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius

[Nathan Ross]

My only comment would be that I would expect one rank of senior-ish soldiers to act as file closers.

Yes, that would make sense. But I can't see a group of 10 (or 12, or 9) NCOs or senior men that could fill that role. Keeping the Augustales as file leaders seems sensible, as they would presumably have to be senior to all the other men in the file.

It did occur to me that the six senior Flaviales could each be attached to a double file of 16 men. Or that the three senior Augustales Alii could in turn join a quadruple file of 32... But how that would work I don't know.

Then I notice that the numbers of the semissales both divide by 8... although not (of course) by 10... and at that point the numbers are swimming before my eyes!

But I'd be interested to see if anyone could work out quite such a close concordance of the numbers in the lists using a figure greater than 159 munifices.