Late Roman Army Grade/Rank List under Anastasius

[Nathan Ross]

This whole business of adding the augustales and flaviales to the ranks might finally makes sense.

Yes, it could well do. The comment that they were 'added to the ordinarii' might make sense too - these men were not common soldiers, but a sort of NCO grade, and absorbed some of the command responsibilities of the ordinarii. That might explain why, as the 'century' got larger, the pay (and prestige?) of the ordinarius was reduced: the old-style centurion was sole commander of his century, but maybe the new-style ordinarius, while keeping the role of tactical leader, delegated a lot of his subunit command role to the Augustales and Flaviales.

I think Milner's idea that the Flaviales were introduced by Constantine or his dynasty (rather than Vespasian, as V believes) seems quite convincing. Although they might have been just renamed, and the role existed before that, perhaps, as part of an enlarged century. I don't think either Augustales or Flaviales are attested before Vegetius's approximate time of writing though (a late 4th century Egyptian papyrus seems to be the earliest appearance of the Flavialis). So 'some time in the 4th century' might be the best we can say!