Roman Legion in late Antiquity

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The Batavi, as Mark mentioned on your other thread, were auxilia palatina, therefore most likely a numerus. If the tribunus batavorum mentioned on an inscription from Brigetio of AD303 commanded the same unit, they may have been one of the earliest of these new auxilia formations.

I mentioned above the vexillations of II Italica Divitensium, which was apparently organised as an old-style legion with ten cohorts. This same formation probably became the later Divitenses Seniores, one of the most senior legiones palatinae on the new model according to the Notitia Dignitatum.

But there are a couple of inscriptions from Thrace mentioning a numerus Divitensium, including one (AE 2006, 1256) for "Flavius Felix signifer de numero Divitensium vixit annos XXX civis Ambianensis". This may be a different body of troops from Divita (Deutz) who somehow found their way to a battle in Thrace, but the man was from Amiens, so the field army legion seems more likely.

Apart from the note that these later numeri contained signifers (and so therefore centuriae?), this might suggest that a legion could also be referred to as a numerus... which might mean that the entire nomenclatura of later army units was very mutable... So Zosimus's tagma could refer to either an auxilium or a legione (if there really was any practical difference between them!), or a numerus of either sort... :unsure:

There are 5 tribunis cohortis without stations given in pannonia prima (i.e. where Brigetio is) in 425 AD in the Notitia Dignitatum.

The Batavi Seniores et Iuniores are listed as Auxilia Palatina under the Praesental Field Army in Italy, then under the command of Flav. Con. Felix in 425.

The listing of a Tribunis Cohortis Batavorum in 303 probably refers to the Cohortis Primae Batavorum from Batavis in Noricum, not the Tribe/Auxilia Palatina unit.

Late Roman nomenclature was probably very mutable, as many officials would have absolutely no clue how the army worked. If Flavius Aetius wrote a treatise on the Roman Army would look very different from if Valentinian III wrote one. (Hence probably in part why Vegetius' treatise was so heavily classicized)