Whatever became of the Roman Army in the West

[geala]

The numbers are from the small book "Die Germanen" by Herwig Wolfram, C.H. Beck, 9th edition, 2009, pg. 90f.. He states that the annual income of the eastern part of the empire was about 270.000 pound of gold (with 45.000 pound expense for the military) compared to just 20.000 pound of gold total income of the west. He also says that the usual costs of 30000 soldiers a year were near 12.500 pound of gold. And he says (here my citation from memory in the last post was wrong) that these 12.500 pound equal the annual income of just three rich senators from their manors (the conclusion about the critical proportion between public and private wealth seems to come from Alexander Demandt). Wolfram gives no exact year for the numbers (except mid 5th c.) and no source from where it comes. That's the reason for my question.

(And I wrote "latifundiae", after 9 years Latin in school ..., where is the next mousehole? :roll: )