03-09-2014, 10:14 AM
Quote:Why?
A few suggestions, none conclusive either way:
Firstly, the change in titles, from centurio to (centurio) ordinarius and centenarius. Why change the names if the unit size and hierarchy remained the same? What's the difference between the two new titles?
Secondly, Vegetius's note (II,13) that each cohort has its own draco. In earlier times, the centuria had a signum but the cohort had no standard. V claims that 'the ancients... divided the cohorts into centuries and established individual ensigns for each century'. It's unclear (as always with V!) but this might imply that the cohort is no longer divided into centuries (too small?), and so the cohortal draco suffices. All of V's references to centuries relate to the organisation of the 'ancient legion'.
(However, there is an inscription (AE 2006, 1256) to a signifer de numero Divitensium, which indicates signa - and therefore centuriae? - in the numeri... :dizzy: )
Thirdly, changes in barrack size and arrangement in later fortresses. Legion forts like Troesmis, Divita and Lejjun no longer have the traditional 10+ room barrack plan; instead there are often 6-8 rooms. This is similar to earlier developments in auxiliary forts, which also see a reduction of barrack rooms. Nicasie (Twilight of Empire) suggests a reduction in century size, while Collins (Hadrian's Wall and the End of Empire) suggests that the 'century' itself, reduced to 25-48 men, was renamed a familia. Either way, it was perhaps too small to act as a tactical or organisational division of the legion.
Fourthly, there are a couple of early 4th century tombstones where, instead of the traditional centuria name, the cohort number is given instead. M.P. Speidel suggests that this represents a reduced-size cohort acting in the place of the century.
As I say, none of this means that centuries necessarily vanished (some sort of 100-man subunit was apparently still in use in the Byzantine army), and I'd love to see some unequivocal evidence for the continuation of the traditional centurial structure (and the cohort structure in the 'new' units of legiones and auxilia), but we should be wary of assuming that things stayed the same... Our base of evidence for later unit structure is very small and scrappy, often contradictory, and insufficient to construct a definite picture.
Nathan Ross
