06-04-2013, 10:28 AM
Hi Nathan,
You have to define 'Lower Rhine' as well as the period. Until the late 4th c. the limitanei troop would have been commanded by the Dux for the Lower Rhine. We need not look for a command for each province, and therefore it may have been possible that there was one single Dux Germania or something, rather than a dux germania prima and a dux germania secunda. Of course, the Notitia Dignitatum mentions a seprate dux mogontiacensis (as well as a comes tractus argentoratis), clearly indicatingh a situation where a original command structure had been replaced by new, smaller commands. We may (as Scharf advocates) interpret this as a 'repair job' after the great raids of 406-7, which obliterated part of the limes of the Rhenus.
Practically, the border along the Lower Rhine had been moved south, roughly along the line Colgne-Bavay, which was part of Belgica Prima and Belgica Secunda. A dux germania secunda probably never existed because there was hardly a military frontier in that province after the first decade of the 5th century, and perhaps earlier.
Of course the mobile field armies were commanded by the magister peditum/equitum or the later magister militum per Gallias.
You have to define 'Lower Rhine' as well as the period. Until the late 4th c. the limitanei troop would have been commanded by the Dux for the Lower Rhine. We need not look for a command for each province, and therefore it may have been possible that there was one single Dux Germania or something, rather than a dux germania prima and a dux germania secunda. Of course, the Notitia Dignitatum mentions a seprate dux mogontiacensis (as well as a comes tractus argentoratis), clearly indicatingh a situation where a original command structure had been replaced by new, smaller commands. We may (as Scharf advocates) interpret this as a 'repair job' after the great raids of 406-7, which obliterated part of the limes of the Rhenus.
Practically, the border along the Lower Rhine had been moved south, roughly along the line Colgne-Bavay, which was part of Belgica Prima and Belgica Secunda. A dux germania secunda probably never existed because there was hardly a military frontier in that province after the first decade of the 5th century, and perhaps earlier.
Of course the mobile field armies were commanded by the magister peditum/equitum or the later magister militum per Gallias.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
