Late Roman Army - seniores and iuniores

[Robert Vermaat]

I think that most of these commentators throw away the child with the bathwater. Even when we agree that Hoffmann is wrong about the first time the divisions into seniores and iuniores occur, I still think that Hoffmann’s conclusion was not based on an all-encompassing idea about geography, but on the army lists that are later in date than the division of 364 (which no-one seems to doubt).
It was, after all the occurrence of iuniores units in the east and seniores units in the West that led Hoffmann to the (in my mind right) conclusion that the Army division led to seniores units being sent to the West and iuniores to the East.
If we look at those lists, we would be coming into the realm of extreme coincidence, when we would assume (contra Hoffmann) that the division of iuniores and seniores units in those lists indeed rests on nothing but chance. But how can we assume that? There are far too many seniores units in the West and far too many iuniores units in the East to say that Hoffmann was totally wrong and all his conclusions and therefore his work are useless.

Now, of course that NEED not mean that earlier seniores units had also been western units, or that subsequently created seniores and iuniores units NEED be placed in the West and East. I do not assume that this was a system before 364, or even after 364, only that during the division of 364, the units divided were divided along the lines of one group (seniores) going West and the other group (iuniores) going east. Why each group received their name I can't tell. maybe it was a division between cadres, or veterans and recruits, I don't know. I think Hoffmann is wrong his his solution based on the two Imperial brothers.
But I think this division was the biggest ever, and not at random.

BUT, we also need to keep in mind that even that may be among the many possibilities that underlie this enigmatic Late Roman army system!

Scharf is rightly cautious, using the word ‘wenn’ (if).
But then he does the same as Hoffmann, choosing a moment of division (Constans-Constantius, 340), but he places the iuniores in the West and the seniores in the East! So how is that any different from Hoffmann? Scharf only chooses a different argument, but for a similar occasion and subsequent geographical division!
His second, non-geographical solution (after Mursa 351) sounds plausible, but we would still have to explain that odd occurrence of by far the most seniores in the West and iuniores in the East.

Kulikowski is needlessly sharp in his criticism.
He states: “[i]The by-names seniores and iuniores do not in fact originate with a division of the comitatus by Valentinian and Valens in 364â€