Zodiac and Late Roman Army Organisation

[Renatus]

Robert wrote: Interesting. When Isidore fits your theory, you declare him trustworthy. When Vegetius doesn't, you suggest he's not?

I have never stated Vegetius is untrustworthy. I find it pointless making judgements about ancient historians. I was asking Renatus’ about his stance on Vegetius.

Renatus wrote: Well, you were the one who cited him in support of your theory.

I was just seeking your outlook on Vegetius. Nothing sinister intended. For the record I have no problem with Vegetius. I did once but that has been sorted out. I have no interest in labelling a source trustworthy or not. I am more interested in how they arrived at their figures.

The question of the merits and demerits of Vegetius would justify a thread of its own which would probably generate as much passion and dispute as this one. However, I will give my personal assessment.

I hold Vegetius in some regard and believe him to be an honest reporter of his sources. Of course, this immediately raises the question of the reliability of those sources but we will have to pass on that, as we can only surmise as to which of his named or unnamed sources provided any particular piece of information. Vegetius himself claims that he has put nothing of himself into his compilation but has only gathered and put in order scattered items of knowledge (Veg. 1.8.12). Strictly speaking, this applies only to Book 1, which he wrote independently of the others, and he may have allowed himself greater latitude in his later books. However, on the whole, I believe that he applied similar criteria throughout - except, that is, for Book 2. Book 2, in which he attempts to describe the ancient legion, including the numbers that are relevant to this discussion, is something of a shambles and he tries to absolve himself from responsibility by pleading the difficulty of the subject (Veg. 2.4.4). In my view, the explanation lies, first, in the limitations suffered by all ancient scholars that, lacking the modern advantages of speedy communications and networks of like-minded individuals sharing the fruits of their researches, they were confined to the material available in the localities in which they lived and worked. Secondly, he was hampered by the belief that the legion was an immutable body, largely unchanged since its inception, and that such changes as there had been were recent. Consequently, faced with differing descriptions of the legion at different stages in its development, he attempted to reconcile the irreconcilable and produced an impossible combination of elements from the Republic, the Principate and a period close to his own time. Amongst this muddle, is his attempt to reconstruct the numbers of the infantry and cavalry sections of his ancient legion (Veg. 2.6). This has all the appearance of a mathematical construct based on limited information. Underlying it is a belief in the 6000-man legion or, rather, a legion of at least that number which could be enlarged, if necessary (Veg. 2.2.3; 2.6.10). Even this is not established as, according to him, the legion actually numbered 6100 infantry plus 726 cavalry. Individual snippets of information may be accurate but, as a whole, it does not hang together, as Vegetius himself recognised (Veg. 2.4.4). In short, although I consider that, viewed in its entirety, Vegetius' work contains much of practical value (as demonstrated by its popularity amongst military men from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment and beyond), when it comes to his description of the ancient legion and the numbers that go with it, he is wholly unreliable. I would not want to base any theory upon it.