Late Roman Unit Sizes

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Sorry. I'm used to being looked down upon and the way your wording came across seemed sarcastic, even on the internet.

[Renatus]

Surely though Michael the Lanciarii and the Mattiarii were heavy infantry because both Ammianus and the Notitia lists them as Legiones? I have seen their units names translated by others as 'The Spear-bearers' and 'The Mattock wielders'. I think most people know believe that the unit titles actually have nothing at all to do with the weapons, armour, clothing or fighting-styles implied by the unit names. They are more a nick-name if anything.

That might be so, if the legions of the Late Roman army were the same as those of the Republic and the Principate - but were they? Remember Vegetius' complaint that the legions of his day were legions in name only. Of course, there are a variety of ways in which a legion of the period could have acquired its title and nick-name is one of them; Petulantes comes to mind. Nevertheless, nick-names were nothing new; think, for example, of Fulminata, Ferrata and Rapax. I see nothing wrong with legions taking their names from the weapons in which they had particular expertise. In fact, specialist legions make a lot of sense in a time when the Empire faced multiple enemies. Detachments could be drawn from them and added to an army for a particular campaign, yet still leaving others available for action elsewhere, if required.

[Longovicium]

Apology accepted, of course.

[antiochus]

Michael wrote:
I think so, yes. That is the sense in which I read Vegetius' use of the term. I would be careful about categorising the Mattiarii as light infantry, although their association with the Lanciarii suggests as much.

Throughout this discussion I have been trying to avoid the infantry being organised into maniples and centuries because of the lack of acceptance of these units by members. But the organisation I have which now matches the empirical data in the primary sources and inscriptions, does show two light infantry units would be ideal. It’s like the old days of the velites and the leves, or the rorarii and the hastati. My research is showing nothing much has changed except the names (and the size of the legion).

Michael wrote:
I do not run with your idea of the Lanciarii fighting at close-quarters like the old hastati. Depictions of lanciarii on tombstones show them holding a clutch of javelins, which suggests to me that their role was to stand back and put down a barrage of missiles over the heads of the line infantry.

Ok, this would make sense as the organisation I have shows the ratio of light armed infantry to heavy armed in the legion has been reduced. It is now more akin to the velites ratio in the middle republic. The ratio of light infantry to heavy infantry I have in the Late Roman army can be increased by assigning auxiliary units to the legion. So what I have is two lines of heavy armed infantry with each line of heavy armed supported by a line of light armed infantry. As a side note Michael, the deployment and size of the Late Roman legion matches the size and fighting manner of the pre-maniple legion. This makes sense as the Servian constitution has come full circle.

Michael wrote:
Scutati seems much more descriptive of troops fighting in the line.

Great, that’s how I shall approach it. I will categorise the light armed legionaries as Lanciarii and the heavy armed legionaries as Scutati.

Adrian wrote:
Surely though Michael the Lanciarii and the Mattiarii were heavy infantry because both Ammianus and the Notitia lists them as Legiones?

I don’t believe the title legions should automatically associate them as being heavy armed infantry. They are troops belonging to a legion.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Again, AFAIK Scutati is a Byzantine term for Comitatenses: it does not have any specific meaning in regard to Late Roman infantry.

Throughout this discussion I have been trying to avoid the infantry being organised into maniples and centuries because of the lack of acceptance of these units by members.

I've always accepted the maniple hypothesis for the Late Roman Army because it solves the Ducenarius issue. However, I only agree with Maniples in newer units from 350 onwards (which are mostly Palatina).

[Renatus]

Walter Hamilton's 1986 Penguin translation uses the correct scutarii, although still talks about the 'first division' of the unit!

Hamilton is referring to schola scutariorum prima but I have recently had to consider how to translate schola when it relates to a grouping of soldiers of equal rank or expertise within an ordinary unit. The best that I could come up with was 'mess' in the sense of, e.g., 'Sergeants' Mess'. Has anyone got any better ideas?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I always thought it was school like school of fish.

[Macedon]

Walter Hamilton's 1986 Penguin translation uses the correct scutarii, although still talks about the 'first division' of the unit!

Hamilton is referring to schola scutariorum prima but I have recently had to consider how to translate schola when it relates to a grouping of soldiers of equal rank or expertise within an ordinary unit. The best that I could come up with was 'mess' in the sense of, e.g., 'Sergeants' Mess'. Has anyone got any better ideas?

Schole in Greek means two relevant things.

A. a place where people spend their time or the spending of time itself and

B. a place of schooling. (Yes, school is a Greek word coming from the word schole...).

I cannot say for sure whether it is a Greek loanword in Latin, I guess Jass could help out here, but it awfully looks like that.

In Greek we would not translate it because it makes perfect sense as it stands, but I guess that in English I would render it something like an Order, as in knightly military orders, a unit with a purpose, receiving special training.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Yes except it would have been called Ordo or Ordine in Latin if it was to mean Order. Hence the Equites Ordines

[Macedon]

That does not mean that the word "Schole" can be translated like that in English, though. It sure cannot be translated as "school" and anything that has to do with "unit" might be too generic...

[Macedon]

By the way, people, do NOT trust Malalas.... I am having a very hard time for days now double checking everything he writes as he makes suspiciously many mistakes (so many that I am starting to suspect he does it on purpose...), mixes up names, times, events... a real mess...

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Preaching to the *Jordanes* Choir. :lol:

[antiochus]

Claudian, (The War against Gildo 1 415-423) writes that:

'Stilicho made ready for war the most famous strengths in Mars (in the army), selecting there from special maniples from selected youth: he further prepared the fleet in the harbours of Etruria. Alcides himself commands the Herculean cohort; the king of the gods leads the Jovian. The Nervian cohort follows and the Felix, well deserving its name, the legion, too, named after Augustus, called the Unconquered, and the brave Leones (Lions) with the witness shield.”

From what I have been reading different authors interpret this force to consist of either five units, six units or seven units. Why is there so much difficulty?

The Panopolis Papyrus 2 mentions the following: Lancearii of legio II Traiana at Ptolemias, Lancearii of legio II Diocletiana at Panopolis.

The evidence continues to mount for the Lancearii being legionaries or being an integral part of a legion.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

It's 7: Herculani, Iovani, Augustei, Nervii, Invicti, Felices,and Leones. 2 Legio Palatinae and 5 Auxilia Palatina Numeri

[Nathan Ross]

either five units, six units or seven units. Why is there so much difficulty?

As Evan says, it's seven. I haven't seen anyone credibly suggesting otherwise - where did the alternative figures come from?

The evidence continues to mount for the Lancearii being legionaries or being an integral part of a legion.

Legions did contain lanciarii, from the early third century at least. The Lanciari of the ND were legionaries too, and as I've said there were lanciarii in the imperial comitatus of the tetrarchic period.

However, the legions mentioned in the Panopolis papyri (cAD300) were old-style frontier formations, still apparently using the Severan model, so not surprisingly they seem to feature integral lanciarii and equites. Whether this same model endured even much further into the 4th century is unknown, but it can't be used to work out the structure of later Roman legions more generally, still less those of the imperial field armies.

Luke Ueda-Sarson, meanwhile, has a page about lanciarii here that you might find interesting.