Zodiac and Late Roman Army Organisation

[D B Campbell]

Isidore’s legion of 6600 men is not an isolated figure. One of the references to the Theban legion also numbers 6600 men. Roth in his paper on the size of the Imperial legion quotes a fragment of Suetonius claiming a legion numbered 5600 men. The common denominator is all of these examples is the number 600.

5,600 doesn't divide by 600.

I’ve already in this posting shown that Isidore’s claim of a 6000 man legion numbering 12 cohorts of 500 men is correct.

I can't see where you've proved Isidore's figures. Please enlighten me.

Isidore’s statement a legion numbered 60 centuries and 30 maniples is quite feasible.

Quite feasible isn't the same as "true".

Now, to back this up, I’m sorry but I have to use the zodiac.

I must confess that I simply cannot fathom your zodiac-and-stadia explanations. Perhaps a diagram of some sort would help?

And let’s not forget Ammianus has the army forming up in cohorts, maniples and centuries.

That's not strictly true. Ammianus uses these three terms without explaining their relationship to one another. Nor does he always list them in the "correct" order. Nor does he restrict the term manipulus to the Romans; the Persians are grouped in maniples, too. It may be that Ammianus thought that a "handful" of men could legitimately be called a manipulus. (Vegetius equates the maniple with the old contubernium, suggesting that he made the same assumption.)

Isidore’s number of 200 squadrons is a copyist mistake for 20 squadrons.

There is no indication of a mistake here in the textual tradition. There are no manuscript variations. In any case, why would a copyist write ducentas when he meant viginti? Renatus has given a far more plausible explanation (that 200 x 30 = 6,000).

In conclusion, Isidore’s 6000 man legion represents the infantry and Isidore’s 6600 men includes the cavalry, as does the Theban legion of 6600 men.

Are you aware of the problems of using the Theban legion to support your argument? (i.e. the source is even less trustworthy than Isidore.)

Isidore claims a century numbered 100 men, a maniple 200 men and a cavalry squadron 30 men. Does this look like someone who as one poster claims has “to extract these figures from various sources and to divide them into his 6000-strong legion to produce the numbers in Etymol.”

Yes. I couldn't have put it better myself.