11-09-2016, 07:23 PM
(11-09-2016, 12:52 PM)Marcel Frederik Schwarze Wrote: All the new numeri deployed by Justinian... were set up as numeri only without additional term like legio, cohors, auxilia.
Does it seem likely that by the 5th-6th century the distinctions between the units had been largely erased? Older units may have hung on to their titles as 'legions' or 'auxilia' for tradition and esprit de corps, despite the lack of practical difference, while newer ones lacked them entirely?
(11-09-2016, 12:52 PM)Marcel Frederik Schwarze Wrote: Proc. de bellis 5,23,3: οἱ Ῥῆγες ἐνταῦθα, πεζικὸν τέλος, ἐφύλασσον καὶ Οὐρσικῖνος, ὃς αὐτῶν ἦρχε
just named Reges (Regii, an aux. palatinum)
Doesn't the ND lists the Regii as a comitatenses legion? Speidel suggested that they (as auxilia) were based on the retinue of King 'Crocus', who apparently joined Constantius I in AD306. It seems maybe more likely that they were related to the numero Regiorum Emesenorum Iudaeorum that appear at Concordia (CIL 05, 08764), in which case perhaps their unusual 'eastern' origin may have caused an early blurring of the distinction between auxilia and legion?
I suspect we could think of the auxilia palatina as being something like the 'foreign legions' of France and Spain - elite units, raised initially from foreigners but increasingly composed of non-foreigners. Although we should remember Ammianus's description (31.13.8) of the Batavi at Adrianople as adventicio (foreign).
Nathan Ross