The Origins of the Limitanei

[Nathan Ross]

NTh 4.1, given in AD438

Can you post the text please?

Here it is: Theodosian Code & Novels, p.490

it appears in several other places; C. Th. 7.1.18, 7.4.14, for instance. The word did not appear in 7.13.7

Sorry, my mistake in the original post - the reference to the AD325 ruling should have been 7.20.4 - 13.7 is some other reference to comitatenses, I think! Note that the 325 ruling lists comitatenses and ripenses as being separate from alares et cohortales - so clearly ripenses cannot be taken as an exact synonym of the later limitanei.

7.1.18 dates to AD400, and refers to comitatensibus ac palatinis numeris and pseudocomitatensibus legionibus seu de ripariensibus castricianis.

7.4.14 is from AD365 and again has riparienses milites.

However, 12.1.56 (dated AD363) mentions militiae limitaneae, which A.D. Lee believes to be the earliest mention of limitanei - it looks to me perhaps like an intermediate term, although I haven't found an English version of this bit of the Code.

8.4.17 draws a distinction between comitatensibus militibus and limitaneis, and dates to c.389

7.4.30 (dated 409) does actually refer to limitanei militis.

So it looks like the word limitanei might have come into use in the later 4th century, perhaps as a collective term to describe various frontier troops previously referred to as ripenses, burgarii etc, although these latter terms also continued in use.

What it does not look like is a sudden and official division of the entire army into comitatenses and limitanei some time around Constantine's reign (which is how it's often presented, I think!)