Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Late Roman Legion size based on the Perge Inscription
#1
I know this subject has been covered before and I'm wading into 'well churned' waters, but I've recently begun reading up on the Roman Army and Late Antiquity and wanted to see if anyone had thoughts on the following reconstruction of the Perge legion. I'll post links to the previous RAT thread on this subject and to Dr. Fatih Onur's publication on the translated inscription, for anyone reading this that hasn't encountered the subject before:

https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/showth...?tid=19361
https://www.academia.edu/49012668/The_An...nd_Edition

My reconstruction is based on the assumption that this legion, and possibly Late Roman Legions in general from Constantine onwards, were a third the size of the Principate Legions. This is based on the fact that the latter Legions had 6 Tribunes serving under the Legatus alongside 60 centuries commanded by a Centurion (I'm assuming 80 men to a Century, leaving aside the so-called milliary cohorts). The Perge inscription lists 2 Tribunes (Tribunus Numeri and Minor) and 20 Ordinarii or Centurions by comparison, which suggests that these later Legions had numbered 1600 men excluding supernumeraries. 

Using 1600 as a baseline, I was stuck on how to divide up the troops listed on the inscription and especially the 136 Torquati Semissales and 256 Bracchiati Semissales. In RAT thread posted above, Julian de Vries pointed out that 256 is 16 x 16, which can be split into 32 x 8 just as 136 is divisible by 8 into 17 x 8; I split the Torquati and Bracchiati into 8-man Contubernia on this basis, assuming an 80-man Century comprised of 10 Contubernia. The same can be done with the various grades of Augustales and Flaviales, whose combined totals of 120 and 200 respectively can be divided into groups of 6 and 10 for each century, ensuring each century has 2 Contubernia consisting of 3 Augustales and 5 Flaviales. 

The previous groups plus the 59 Munifices listed partially on the inscription add up to 771, which subtracted from 1600 gives us a remainder of 829. The number we're looking for is the first of the three digit amount of Munifices ending in 59, and this can be found by including the 20 Armaturae Semissales in the ranks of the centuries. I accounted for the remaining 9 by adding the Librarii, Mensores and Beneficarii from among the 'double annonae men' to the centuries, my reasoning being that the musicians, standard bearers and praeco would be necessary for signalling and communicating in battle, whereas the other nine seem to fulfill non-combat administrative roles. We thus arrive at 800 Munifices or 859 including those already accounted for.

The resulting make-up of the Centuries is as follows:

Centuries 1-9: 16 Bracchiati, 8 Torquati, 6 Augustales, 10 Flaviales, 1 Armarturae Semissales, 1 of the Librarii, Mensores or Beneficarii, and 38 Munifices.

Centuries 10-12 have the same structure as 1-9, but with a 39th Munifice instead of one of the 'double annonae men.'

Centuries 13-17 only have 8 Bracchiati Semissales, and thus have 47 Munifices instead of 39.

Finally, Centuries 18-20 have no Torquati and have 55 Munifices instead of 47. 

800 Munifices plus the 1245 officers and men listed on the inscription adds up to 2045; tripling this number gets us to 6135, which is slightly higher than the 6100 figure given for the 'ancient legion' by Vegetius in De Re Militari, excluding the 726 cavalry. As for the rest of the Legion's structure, I split the 275 Veredari into 5 Turmae of 55 with 10 Veredari and 45 Veredari Alii each, while each 'maniple' of two centuries has an Optio, Vexillarius, Imaginifer and Signifer. 

This leaves a Legion staff of 2 Tribunes, 8 Cornicines, 4 Tubicines, 2 Buccinatores, 1 Praeco and 73 Clerici et Deputati, the latter of which can be distributed in a way that makes sense with this structure; by assigning 1 to each of the 5 Veredari Turmae, and distributing the rest among the Legion. Five less than 73 is 68, assigning two to each Ordinarius reduces this to 28 and assigning 2 more to each Optio reduces the number to 8, of which 4 could then be assigned to each Tribune. This gives us 1765 officers and men for a legion without cavalry, which can be tripled to 5295 and isn't far off from the 5550, the latter being the size Vegetius attributes to non-milliary centuries multiplied by ten (excluding cavalry).
Reply
#2
(03-09-2024, 04:36 PM)FlaviusB Wrote: 800 Munifices plus the 1245 officers and men listed on the inscription adds up to 2045; tripling this number gets us to 6135... I split the 275 Veredari into 5 Turmae of 55 with 10 Veredari and 45 Veredari Alii each, while each 'maniple' of two centuries has an Optio, Vexillarius, Imaginifer and Signifer. 

73 Clerici et Deputati, the latter of which can be distributed in a way that makes sense with this structure...

Well done for engaging with this question, and for making the numbers work (as far as I can see, anyhow!) - it does become a little maddening after a while... I'm impressed that you figured in the clerici et deputati too; I confess I'd discounted them, as they're supernumeraries with no annonae, and besides I'm not sure if the number 73 is accurate (the inscription itself is so fragmentary at that point I cannot make out what Prof Onur was drawing on!)

Getting the 'veredarii' cavalry (if that's what they were) into a balanced structure is one of the main difficulties with the Perge list. Dividing them into five turmae might work. The problem would be that we do not have five decurion-type officers to command them, or five standard bearers either. And 55 is a very large turma.

All the officer, nco and standard-bearer ranks on the list, meanwhile, are in 10s. That suggests to me that the complete organisation was decimal. However, as you point out, many of the internal numbers break down by 8s and 16s.

My own theory, outlined on the years-old thread you linked, would be a paired 'numerus' of ten infantry and ten cavalry subunits, each commanded by an ordinarius. It's not a perfect system by any means. But I still like it for several reasons. Firstly as both the infantry and cavalry complement appear close to the estimates for late Roman units of their type (c.1200 and c.300 respectively). Secondly because we can see the core of the old principiate 80-man century still preserved in the enlarged 110-man 'mini cohort'. Thirdly because Vegetius says that a century (in his day, perhaps?) was 110 men - an otherwise-inexplicable comment!

So, while I still don't think after all this time that this is the only possible solution to the Perge enigma, it does at least seem a close-ish fit to the limited evidence we have from elsewhere:

   

   
Nathan Ross
Reply
#3
(03-17-2024, 05:29 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote:
(03-09-2024, 04:36 PM)FlaviusB Wrote: 800 Munifices plus the 1245 officers and men listed on the inscription adds up to 2045; tripling this number gets us to 6135... I split the 275 Veredari into 5 Turmae of 55 with 10 Veredari and 45 Veredari Alii each, while each 'maniple' of two centuries has an Optio, Vexillarius, Imaginifer and Signifer. 

73 Clerici et Deputati, the latter of which can be distributed in a way that makes sense with this structure...

Well done for engaging with this question, and for making the numbers work (as far as I can see, anyhow!) - it does become a little maddening after a while... I'm impressed that you figured in the clerici et deputati too; I confess I'd discounted them, as they're supernumeraries with no annonae, and besides I'm not sure if the number 73 is accurate (the inscription itself is so fragmentary at that point I cannot make out what Prof Onur was drawing on!)

Getting the 'veredarii' cavalry (if that's what they were) into a balanced structure is one of the main difficulties with the Perge list. Dividing them into five turmae might work. The problem would be that we do not have five decurion-type officers to command them, or five standard bearers either. And 55 is a very large turma.

All the officer, nco and standard-bearer ranks on the list, meanwhile, are in 10s. That suggests to me that the complete organisation was decimal. However, as you point out, many of the internal numbers break down by 8s and 16s.

My own theory, outlined on the years-old thread you linked, would be a paired 'numerus' of ten infantry and ten cavalry subunits, each commanded by an ordinarius. It's not a perfect system by any means. But I still like it for several reasons. Firstly as both the infantry and cavalry complement appear close to the estimates for late Roman units of their type (c.1200 and c.300 respectively). Secondly because we can see the core of the old principiate 80-man century still preserved in the enlarged 110-man 'mini cohort'. Thirdly because Vegetius says that a century (in his day, perhaps?) was 110 men - an otherwise-inexplicable comment!

So, while I still don't think after all this time that this is the only possible solution to the Perge enigma, it does at least seem a close-ish fit to the limited evidence we have from elsewhere:
My thinking, which you may have read already in the older thread, is that the 45 Veredarii Alii in each Turmae would be divided into 5 files of 9, while the 10 Veredarii could be divided into 5 'file leaders' giving each file 10 men in total and the other 5 are a headquarters. I should also note that 6 of these 55-man Turmae plus a larger headquarters staff would get us close to the 360 number mentioned by Julian in his letter to the Athenians, and the 350 figure implied by Ammianus for Late Roman Cavalry regiments.
Reply
#4
(7 hours ago)FlaviusB Wrote: the 10 Veredarii could be divided into 5 'file leaders' giving each file 10 men in total and the other 5 are a headquarters.

Yes, that might work if we assume that these turmae are integral to the command of the two-century 'maniples', each under two ordinarii. But it seems an overly complex structure. 

Usually we would expect each subunit to have its own dedicated commander, and that commander to be dignified by a particular rank title and paid more in annonae than the men he was leading. Do you see each individual file operating as its own subunit, perhaps, under the Veredarii?
Nathan Ross
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Roman Legion in late Antiquity Tedesco 78 12,632 10-14-2013, 11:26 AM
Last Post: Robert Vermaat
  Needed: Defaced inscription of Stilicho in the Roman Forum sonic 3 1,789 03-31-2009, 03:57 PM
Last Post: SigniferOne
  Size of Late Roman army Jona Lendering 5 1,768 10-09-2006, 01:36 PM
Last Post: Jona Lendering

Forum Jump: