Zodiac and Late Roman Army Organisation

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Adrian,

I'd be very, very careful about stating that the legions during the Late Roman period were less than a theoretical strength of 6000 strong. Onur's paper on those Perge stones may throw a curved ball at those whose belief it is that the legion was about 1200 strong, even Onur is trying to put a spin on it by saying that the stones refer to a 'double legion' as the numbers do not subscribe to the current paradigm.

it may, and it may not. I would love to read that article and the full text of the inscription. Remember, the ‘current paradigm’ is not exactly based on guesswork either (or the zodiac for that matter), but on a number of sources. And of course, as there is no evidence for a unified Roman unit strength applicable to each and every unit, these numbers seem to have varied, and the possibility exists that some individual border legions were left intact where others were split up or newly created with a lower strength. But so far, the evidence for small(er) legions seems pretty secure, the most of what we don’t understand is how small they were, how they arrived at that number or how much smaller the Diocletianic new units were.

It's often claimed that the auxilia units in the Late Roman army were only 500 men strong. If this is so then there is a real problem with this number as Silvanius took 8000 auxilliaries with him on a journey in Gaul according to Ammianus. Now, if these auxilliaries are not mercenary Franks then this would have added upto an astonishing 16 units of auxilia!!! I am more inclined to the idea of the auxilia units being around the 800-1000 man mark at that time, which gives a more credible 8 to 10 units accompanying Silvanius.

Indeed, this is confusing. Is he referring to auxiliaries or to the new elite Auxilia Palatina units? If the former, the word should be ‘foedrati’ or terms like that, because one can’t see those Palatina units as ‘auxiliaries’ anymore. They were, with the Scholae units, the core of the Imperial field armies, after all.

To answer your question, I think that Ammianus (as he was wont to do) used archaising languages and really meant Germanuc federates instead of elite Palatina units.