Late Roman Unit Sizes

[Renatus]

Evan wrote:
Zozimus describes the Palatina units coming from Constantinople totalling 4000 men and would average 666 men a piece, not accounting for variations.

This is taken from an earlier post in this thread and I am curious as to where you got the figure of 4000 men from as Zosimus only gives 6000 men on two accounts.

This is Zos. 6.8.2:

'Just then six cohorts sailed in which had been expected since the time of Stilicho but which had only now arrived from the East in accordance with the alliance; they numbered four thousand.' (Ridley's translation)

The word Ridley translates as 'cohorts' is tagmata. However, elsewhere (Zos. 5.45.1) Zosimus speaks of five tagmata totalling 6000 men. Here, Ridley translates tagmata as 'legions'. It seems possible that Zosimus is not using tagma in a technical sense but as a general word for 'unit'.