Unit Sizes in the Late Roman Army

Description

The Roman Army is one of the best-documented institutions of the ancient world, but there remain areas of its structure and operations where the modern scholar is tantalisingly under-informed. The sizes of the various units composing the Army of the fourth and early fifth centuries AD is such an area. The early Empire has produced a small body of explicit evidence in the form of unit and sub-unit registers, but such direct evidence has not survived for periods beyond the early years of the third century. Many modern studies therefore incorporate bold and sweeping assertions about unit sizes in the Later Roman Army and, based on such generalisations, proceed to further broad statements about the Late Army in general and even about Late Antiquity as a whole. This book offers an evaluation of these interpretations of the available evidence, and thus an examination of the validity of those generalisations.