03-09-2024, 04:36 PM
I know this subject has been covered before and I'm wading into 'well churned' waters, but I've recently begun reading up on the Roman Army and Late Antiquity and wanted to see if anyone had thoughts on the following reconstruction of the Perge legion. I'll post links to the previous RAT thread on this subject and to Dr. Fatih Onur's publication on the translated inscription, for anyone reading this that hasn't encountered the subject before:
https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/showth...?tid=19361
https://www.academia.edu/49012668/The_An...nd_Edition
My reconstruction is based on the assumption that this legion, and possibly Late Roman Legions in general from Constantine onwards, were a third the size of the Principate Legions. This is based on the fact that the latter Legions had 6 Tribunes serving under the Legatus alongside 60 centuries commanded by a Centurion (I'm assuming 80 men to a Century, leaving aside the so-called milliary cohorts). The Perge inscription lists 2 Tribunes (Tribunus Numeri and Minor) and 20 Ordinarii or Centurions by comparison, which suggests that these later Legions had numbered 1600 men excluding supernumeraries.
Using 1600 as a baseline, I was stuck on how to divide up the troops listed on the inscription and especially the 136 Torquati Semissales and 256 Bracchiati Semissales. In RAT thread posted above, Julian de Vries pointed out that 256 is 16 x 16, which can be split into 32 x 8 just as 136 is divisible by 8 into 17 x 8; I split the Torquati and Bracchiati into 8-man Contubernia on this basis, assuming an 80-man Century comprised of 10 Contubernia. The same can be done with the various grades of Augustales and Flaviales, whose combined totals of 120 and 200 respectively can be divided into groups of 6 and 10 for each century, ensuring each century has 2 Contubernia consisting of 3 Augustales and 5 Flaviales.
The previous groups plus the 59 Munifices listed partially on the inscription add up to 771, which subtracted from 1600 gives us a remainder of 829. The number we're looking for is the first of the three digit amount of Munifices ending in 59, and this can be found by including the 20 Armaturae Semissales in the ranks of the centuries. I accounted for the remaining 9 by adding the Librarii, Mensores and Beneficarii from among the 'double annonae men' to the centuries, my reasoning being that the musicians, standard bearers and praeco would be necessary for signalling and communicating in battle, whereas the other nine seem to fulfill non-combat administrative roles. We thus arrive at 800 Munifices or 859 including those already accounted for.
The resulting make-up of the Centuries is as follows:
Centuries 1-9: 16 Bracchiati, 8 Torquati, 6 Augustales, 10 Flaviales, 1 Armarturae Semissales, 1 of the Librarii, Mensores or Beneficarii, and 38 Munifices.
Centuries 10-12 have the same structure as 1-9, but with a 39th Munifice instead of one of the 'double annonae men.'
Centuries 13-17 only have 8 Bracchiati Semissales, and thus have 47 Munifices instead of 39.
Finally, Centuries 18-20 have no Torquati and have 55 Munifices instead of 47.
800 Munifices plus the 1245 officers and men listed on the inscription adds up to 2045; tripling this number gets us to 6135, which is slightly higher than the 6100 figure given for the 'ancient legion' by Vegetius in De Re Militari, excluding the 726 cavalry. As for the rest of the Legion's structure, I split the 275 Veredari into 5 Turmae of 55 with 10 Veredari and 45 Veredari Alii each, while each 'maniple' of two centuries has an Optio, Vexillarius, Imaginifer and Signifer.
This leaves a Legion staff of 2 Tribunes, 8 Cornicines, 4 Tubicines, 2 Buccinatores, 1 Praeco and 73 Clerici et Deputati, the latter of which can be distributed in a way that makes sense with this structure; by assigning 1 to each of the 5 Veredari Turmae, and distributing the rest among the Legion. Five less than 73 is 68, assigning two to each Ordinarius reduces this to 28 and assigning 2 more to each Optio reduces the number to 8, of which 4 could then be assigned to each Tribune. This gives us 1765 officers and men for a legion without cavalry, which can be tripled to 5295 and isn't far off from the 5550, the latter being the size Vegetius attributes to non-milliary centuries multiplied by ten (excluding cavalry).
https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/showth...?tid=19361
https://www.academia.edu/49012668/The_An...nd_Edition
My reconstruction is based on the assumption that this legion, and possibly Late Roman Legions in general from Constantine onwards, were a third the size of the Principate Legions. This is based on the fact that the latter Legions had 6 Tribunes serving under the Legatus alongside 60 centuries commanded by a Centurion (I'm assuming 80 men to a Century, leaving aside the so-called milliary cohorts). The Perge inscription lists 2 Tribunes (Tribunus Numeri and Minor) and 20 Ordinarii or Centurions by comparison, which suggests that these later Legions had numbered 1600 men excluding supernumeraries.
Using 1600 as a baseline, I was stuck on how to divide up the troops listed on the inscription and especially the 136 Torquati Semissales and 256 Bracchiati Semissales. In RAT thread posted above, Julian de Vries pointed out that 256 is 16 x 16, which can be split into 32 x 8 just as 136 is divisible by 8 into 17 x 8; I split the Torquati and Bracchiati into 8-man Contubernia on this basis, assuming an 80-man Century comprised of 10 Contubernia. The same can be done with the various grades of Augustales and Flaviales, whose combined totals of 120 and 200 respectively can be divided into groups of 6 and 10 for each century, ensuring each century has 2 Contubernia consisting of 3 Augustales and 5 Flaviales.
The previous groups plus the 59 Munifices listed partially on the inscription add up to 771, which subtracted from 1600 gives us a remainder of 829. The number we're looking for is the first of the three digit amount of Munifices ending in 59, and this can be found by including the 20 Armaturae Semissales in the ranks of the centuries. I accounted for the remaining 9 by adding the Librarii, Mensores and Beneficarii from among the 'double annonae men' to the centuries, my reasoning being that the musicians, standard bearers and praeco would be necessary for signalling and communicating in battle, whereas the other nine seem to fulfill non-combat administrative roles. We thus arrive at 800 Munifices or 859 including those already accounted for.
The resulting make-up of the Centuries is as follows:
Centuries 1-9: 16 Bracchiati, 8 Torquati, 6 Augustales, 10 Flaviales, 1 Armarturae Semissales, 1 of the Librarii, Mensores or Beneficarii, and 38 Munifices.
Centuries 10-12 have the same structure as 1-9, but with a 39th Munifice instead of one of the 'double annonae men.'
Centuries 13-17 only have 8 Bracchiati Semissales, and thus have 47 Munifices instead of 39.
Finally, Centuries 18-20 have no Torquati and have 55 Munifices instead of 47.
800 Munifices plus the 1245 officers and men listed on the inscription adds up to 2045; tripling this number gets us to 6135, which is slightly higher than the 6100 figure given for the 'ancient legion' by Vegetius in De Re Militari, excluding the 726 cavalry. As for the rest of the Legion's structure, I split the 275 Veredari into 5 Turmae of 55 with 10 Veredari and 45 Veredari Alii each, while each 'maniple' of two centuries has an Optio, Vexillarius, Imaginifer and Signifer.
This leaves a Legion staff of 2 Tribunes, 8 Cornicines, 4 Tubicines, 2 Buccinatores, 1 Praeco and 73 Clerici et Deputati, the latter of which can be distributed in a way that makes sense with this structure; by assigning 1 to each of the 5 Veredari Turmae, and distributing the rest among the Legion. Five less than 73 is 68, assigning two to each Ordinarius reduces this to 28 and assigning 2 more to each Optio reduces the number to 8, of which 4 could then be assigned to each Tribune. This gives us 1765 officers and men for a legion without cavalry, which can be tripled to 5295 and isn't far off from the 5550, the latter being the size Vegetius attributes to non-milliary centuries multiplied by ten (excluding cavalry).
