Late Roman Army during the 5th century

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Adrian,

The charge that Ammianus was 'classicising' when using terms such as 'Auxilliaries', 'Cohorts', 'Maniples', 'Gladius' etc can be countered by the fact that he also uses contemporary terms along side them such as 'Spiculum' for spears and 'Veruta' for javelins. And of course it may just well be the case that the older terms were still in regular use, at least by the 'older generation' such as Ammianus would have been when he wrote his history.

First of all, ‘cohorts’ is not an archaic term and I don’t think anyone mentioned it.
Second, it’s not a ‘charge’ either. It’s a fact. Nor is it meant to be negative, it’s how many authors worked. It’s only meant to warn modern readers not to take the text of a particular author as being literal proof for the existence of an item or a unit or whatever. Which is what every modern reader must realize when using every ancient manuscript. It’s meant as a negative comment towards Ammianus, who is a great sources. Yes, indeed he used ‘contemporary’ terms too, which is logical as he had first-hand experience. The ‘old’ terms he used not to falsify his account but to create a ‘learned’ image.

As to my point about auxilliaries, there appears to have been two types, the auxilia units raised since Diocletian as 'Auxilia Palatina', which also served alongside other auxilia units called 'comitatensis' and 'pseudocomitatensis', which were probably the older auxilia units serving on the frontiers. The second type were troops hired for the occasion such as the 'Skythians' I mentioned plus Sarmatians and other tribes hired or approached during the 4th Century. These appear only to have served for a specific campaign and generally returned home afterwards. That's not to say that more permanent auxilia units could not be raised from them as the Notitia shows that there were units of both Cavalry and Auxilia raised from the Taifali, there was a auxila unit raised from the Heruli that was brigaded with the Batavi auxilia unit to the extent they both shared the same standards.

Well, that’s the whole point.
The ‘Auxilia’ units from the 4th c. onwards are, as you wrote, indeed totally different from the auxilia units of the Principate. That system, where non-citizens served for decades in the regular army until death or discharge did not exist anymore. You can’t refer to troops mentioned by you as the ‘second type of auxilia’, being mercenaries and other short-timers such as Laeti and Foederati, as ‘auxilia’. They were no longer referred to as such, and it’s creating confusion when we would refer them as if they operated under the same system as the old legions vs. auxilia system. They did not.

No, the comitatenses and pseudocomitatenses are NOT “probably the older auxilia units serving on the frontiers”. The comitatenses are the newly raised units of the field army, the pseudocomitatenses are limitanei units promoted into that class later. The limitanei consisted of what remained of both border legions as well as former independent auxilia units of all types. But the limitanei had for about a century been supplied with the same local recruits, signifying the end of the old system.

I fail to see you interpretation of taifali and Batavi as proof of the continuation of the old system. Both units are clearly newly raised regiments belonging to the new model army, not old-style units. There no longer are ‘permanent auxilia units’. There are permanent units ‘named’ Auxilia, but that’s a different thing altogether. The Batavi were once auxilia, but a) all of them had become citizens during Caracalla’s reign at the latest.

We just cannot take these names literally and pin them down as the origin of the unit. We get in trouble with long-gone tribes (Marcomanni, celtae, Sabini, latini, whatever) or impossible names (Defensores, Scutati) etc. if they were to be taken literally. I'm sure there may be a connection to something in the past of such a unit, but that past may or may not be very distant.