The Valentinian Enigma

[Nathan Ross]

Valentinian's early career is notoriously hard to reconstruct

It certainly looks that way! Was he discharged from the army once, or twice? Was he tribune of the Cornuti or the Ioviani, or both (or even the Ioviani Cornuti)? Or was it Valens who commanded the Ioviani, or did Valentinian just invent that story to make his earlier discharge look better?

Ammianus (16.11.6) has him as commander of a cavalry unit when he was (first?) discharged in 357 - this would be the 'Cornuti' mentioned in later sources. The idea that this was the Equites Cornuti, as suggested by Lenski and Hughes, seems pretty reasonable.

Theophanes Confessor - Valentinian, at that time tribune (Τριβοΰνος) of a tagma (τάγματος), in the numerus (νουμέρου) known as the Cornuti

Chronicon Paschale 548. 12 – 549. 11...

Philostorgios - he held the rank of count (κόμηϲ) of the so-called Cornuti

The passage of the Chronicon Paschale apparently says "Valentinian also, who at that time was tribune of a brigade in the so-called cohort of the Cornuti, distinguished himself in confession of Christ." (from Hughes Imperial Brothers p.14, as above)

The 'so called' expression (what would that be in Greek?) seems to link this with the earlier account by Philostorgios; 'known as' in Theophanes could be the same phrase. Are 'brigade' and 'cohort' actually translations of τάγματος and νουμέρου?

If so, it looks like the 9th-century churchman Theophanes has taken his wording from the 7th-century Chronicon Paschale, which in turn used the 5th-century Philostorgius as a source.

In which case it's hard to know what 'a tagma in the numerus' means - it mixes Latin and Greek for a start! Perhaps the compiler of the Chron.Pasch reckoned that the Equites Cornuti were actually the cavalry component of the numerus of Cornuti (on the mixed foot/horse model of the 'Perge Legion' maybe?), and therefore called them a 'tagma'? This might have been the case once, although both were probably independent numeri by Valentinian's day.

But why does Philostorgius call Valentinian a comes at the time? Valentinian was later tribune of the Schola Secunda Scutariorum (Amm 25.10.9) - was it the case that, by the early 5th century, tribunes of the scholae were ranked as comites? Could Philostorgius have mixed up the later title with the earlier one?