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

[ValentinianVictrix]

I dont think we can entirely dismiss Vegetius out of hand. The Emperor that the appeal was made to was Gratian. He was Emperor of the West at the time of Valen's death and he himself may well have been murdered by his own troops after causing ill-feeling by surrounding himself with Alan's as his bodyguard. These may have acted both as mounted and foot warriors. Only their nobles were noted as wearing body armour. Plus, Gothic infantry in the main did not wear armour and when initially recruited into the Roman army at that time probably fought in their native styles until they were trained and equiped otherwise. It may well be the case that as more and more Goth's, Huns and Alan's began to be recruited there was less of a need to protect them as well as 'native' Romans, after all there appeared to be a never-ending supply of willing barbarian recruits, and who cared if they got stuck full of arrows?

Hi Adrian,
Sorry but I can't follow there.
1) The Alans of the bodyguard would hardly have been dressed as if still on the steppe. The Roman army used foreign troops for centuries but as yet I've got to see any evidence that they were not armed and armoured in the Roman fashion. Plus an unarmoured bodyguard would have been of little use in battle. So even if only Alan nobles in Free Alania wore body armour, that need have no bearing at all on how Alans in the Roman army dressed uo for battle.
2) Maybe some did not care whether barbarian federates were bloodied in battle, but recruits for the Roman army did not go home after the battle, and to have such a view about your own recruits would not only be very short-sighted but also close to suicide for any commander who wanted to win a battle.
3) We know that the Roman army in fact continued to wear armour, which is the best evidence to dismiss this statement of Vegetius.
4) Vegetius had some political axe to grind, which speaks out of his writings. The armour-issue is by no means an isolated incident, and in fact his idealised 'ancient legion' (which to all intents and purposes may never have existed at one time in history) served mainly to rub the nose of his readers in the fact that practise in their day and age was different from the glorious past. And he may well have added a few things (that happened even in history) which his readers could not check, but about which every soldier would have laughed.

I'll respond to each point-

1)I'll grant you that it probably was the fact that the Alan's who acted as Gratian's bodyguard wore armour, although there is some artistic evidence to suggest body armour was not always worn by mounted troops.
2)Theodosius I did not seem to mind the huge number of Gothic foederatii who died under his or his generals command! There appeared at that time at least to be an almost inexhaustible number of willing recruits only too keen to die for the cause of Rome.
3)Not all Roman infantry wore armour, and it may just be the case that Vegetius experience of Roman infantry was of the unarmoured variety, which may have coloured his view point somewhat ('This lot are unarmoured, so I must presume everyone is')
4)Yes, Vegetius was harping back to what he perceived as a 'Golden Age', the the Legiones reigned triumphant and all were crushed underfoot. He probably made things look far worse than they looked to try and impress upon the Emperor he was dedicating the work to reverse the situation and train and equip the army like it was in the old days. Mind you, at what period the 'old days' his 'legio Antiquita' refers to is another topic all of its own!