Late Roman Unit Sizes

[Nathan Ross]

it would seem completely reasonable to interpret 'auxiliaries' as I believe the Romans did throughout our period....as 'auxiliary' to the legions

I suspect that any unit of non-citizen troops could have been referred to as 'auxiliary'. This would be true for the principiate auxiliary cohorts and alae - and would explain why the term fell from use after the 212 constitution.

Ammianus uses the word to refer both to the auxilia palatina of the field army, and to various contingents of barbarian troops (Goths etc). This implies that the auxilia of the later army were indeed originally raised from non-citizens, although their elite status and immunity from certain duties clearly made them attractive to citizen recruits as well, as Ammianus himself points out.

So, always present auxiliary additions to the legion-based troops

But why? Principiate auxiliaries were an integral part of the main army force, and often formed the front line in battle. Similarly the later auxilia were prime field army troops. I see no reason why either should be counted apart from the legions in determining overall army size. We might assume that smaller bodies of barbarian 'federates' were discounted from the total, but there's little hard evidence for this. Galerius's 25,000 men in the Persian campaign of 298 certainly included a large number of Goths.

The number of 200 then 100 is the problem. Is the total 300 or are the 100 part of the 200?

Now you're twisting my melon. illy: