The Augustan Army ; the continuation of the manipel organization

[Nathan Ross]

"... javelin-men, and light-armed troops, common soldiers, and companies... ferentarii, ac levis armaturœ, et miles gregarius, et manipuli ..."

It's interesting that Jerome uses similar terminology to Vegetius here. ferentarii et levis armatura appears in Vegetius II.15, Ferentarii... hoc est levis armatura in II.18. II.13 has Contubernium autem manipulus vocabatur, and II.14 begins Quemadmodum inter pedites centuria uel manipulus appellatur. Veg doesn't mention milites gregarii though.

This could mean that all this was just common military terminology of the period, or that Jerome had read Vegetius (!)... I still wonder whether the veredarii of the Perge tablets are actually the ferentarii of Vegetius and Jerome.

Odd that Jerome seems to list manipuli as if it's a rank or grade, rather than an organisational subunit (Veg reckons it's the same as contubernium, which wouldn't make much sense in Jerome's context either...) But the churchman Jerome, living at that point in a monastery in Palestine, may have had little idea of the real organisation of the contemporary Roman army and perhaps was just throwing together a collection of well-known military words.