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Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius
(06-24-2017, 09:40 AM)Longovicium Wrote: Oh that's weird - I posted a long reply

Mysterious - but it looks like it's returned!


(06-23-2017, 07:09 PM)Longovicium Wrote: Your outline has acted as a provocation

Glad to hear it. That's the idea really. Perhaps a forum like this is the best place for these kind of hypotheses: serious historians are maybe less willing to indulge in baseless speculations! - and the wisdom of crowds (or however many of us want to get involved, anyway) might yield some interesting results. Plus it's fun, of course...



(06-23-2017, 07:09 PM)Longovicium Wrote: the question of the Veredarii.

Hmm, yes. I'd be very happy if somehow the veredarii could be made to disappear or turn into infantry... I tried to assume that for a while, but Marcel persuaded me otherwise (mostly in this post). It does seem that all the references to the word indicate either mounted couriers or some sort of light cavalry. It could be, as I suggested above, that this Perge unit was rather 'special', and had a particular organisation with regard to cavalry, which might, as you say, be one of the reasons for the existence of this detailed organisational schema.

My interest at the moment is rather in the internal structure of the infantry subunits ('ordines') - although that would doubtless change if we had to integrate the supposed-horsemen back into the numbers of infantry!



(06-23-2017, 07:09 PM)Longovicium Wrote: why are we assuming that the grades are spread uniformly through the centuries?

I think we have to assume that, actually - the numbering of Augustales and Flaviales seems far too regular to be otherwise: the combinations of two, three and six, and seven and fourteen look too deliberate not to work together in some way. If we're looking at a file of eight men (and the eightfold division of the two groups of semissales would suggest it) then the numbers would also have to link together into groups of eight somehow - or eight plus a file leader and closer, maybe.


(06-23-2017, 07:09 PM)Longovicium Wrote: perhaps that inner file on the right flank would be better distributed as the rear rank.

Yes, my diagram above surely needs all sorts of amendment! I did reconsider that the two files of seven Flaviales Alii would be better positioned on each flank, with the file of senior Flaviales in the centre backing up the signifer, one of the two senior Augustales and the Ordinarius (maybe). But we could juggle them around in various ways.

The file-closers are a problem. Putting one set of seven Flaviales Alii back there would still leave three awkward gaps. Having the six senior Flaviales backing up alternating files would work, but would throw the rest of the arrangement. And if we took the ten Augustales Alii out of the front rank and used them as file closers, they'd be senior to at least some of the men leading the files... It's a conundrum!

(I suppose the file closers could be drawn from the semissales - we have plenty of them - rather than being senior grades.)


I do like the proposal above, partly as it keeps our 'legion' fairly small, and close to the estimated size for a late military unit (c.1200 - although without those troublesome cavalry there's only 972...) Also because the infantry subunit looks so much like the old 80-man century with two added files, which suggests a sort of evolution rather than a completely new set-up.

But I know it's far from perfect, and could well be completely wrong. What we need now is for somebody to figure out a differently-sized legion structure that gets the internal numbers working as well, or better.
Nathan Ross
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RE: Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius - by Nathan Ross - 06-25-2017, 12:38 AM

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