Legionary Officers and NCOs - Late Roman Army (284 - 565 AD)

[Spurius Papirius Cursor]

Just used the Edit button myself! See above.

(You canny Scot! :lol: )

In the present thread, I'd like to focus strictly on the old style legions, both in the limitaneii and in the comitatus.

My present goal is to complete a sequence of teaching materials focusing on "the legion" in Roman military history. After that, I go back and start the same process with the non-legionary components of the Roman army. (Which means I'll happily note side-comments about auxiliary units, but I really don't want to get sidetracked).

The list of officers (well, the whole establishment) is Treadgold's, but it could easily become mine without critical comment by others such as yourself. And I have to be frank about my own limitations - I lack both the breadth and depth of knowledge in this area myself to apply an adequately critical eye to sources. Well...for the moment.

In presenting materials on the legion to my students (15 year-olds) I've tried to make a lot of it visual (visual is powerful). A classic example of such an aid to visualising would be this painting by Peter Connolly in The Roman Army (1975) of an imperial legion.

On the flipside, images seem very authoritative to kids nowadays. Hence, I have to convince myself of three things before presenting materials:

(1) Does the image (and the accompanying text) represent a credible real-life context? (Something like Connolly's painting of an imperial legion as it might have appeared on a parade ground - with everyone magically present and identified - does);
(2) Does the image have the value of both a list and a diagram insofar as it accounts for every member of the establishment who might be present in such a context? (The Connolly painting has this).
(3) Can every member illustrated be attested or, if not, are there compelling arguments to make suggesting their place in the establishment for the present reasonable? (The Connolly painting seems to reflect these conditions).

So, Duncan, your questioning of the Treadgold list now turns into my questions and decision-points. For example, without evidence suggesting that a military vicarius existed, I would not be representing him in teaching materials. Ditto the primicerii.

If "adiutor" and "actuarius" represent roles rather than a ranks, it would be interesting to know what ranks were given these roles in which grade of legion.

If campidoctores turn out to be officers of non-legionary units, I can scratch them.

I'll keep scrabbling around meanwhile but I'm really grateful for any and all feedback - even if it does mean "keep looking".

Before signing off, I'd just like to ask:

Draconarii. I'd gathered there were two, one for each cohort. But that these were secondary "signa". That is, there was a vexillum representing the legion. Is that correct? I'm assuming Eagles and old-style signa disappeared about the same period other distinguishing marks of the erstwhile legions did.

Cheers

Howard/SPC