The Field Armies of the East Roman Empire 361-630

This book presents a new history of the leadership organization and disposition of the field armies of the east Roman empire between Julian (361363) and Herakleios (ca. 630). To date scholars studying this topic have privileged a poorly understood document the Notitia dignitatum and impose it on the entire period from 395630. This study by contrast gathers all of the available narrative legal papyrological and epigraphic evidence to demonstrate empirically that the Notitia-system emerged only in the 440s and that it was already mutating by the late fifth century before being fundamentally reformed during Justinian''s wars of reconquest. This realization calls for a new revised history of the eastern armies. Every facet of military policy must be reassessed often with broad implications for the period. The volume provides a new military narrative for the period 361630 and appendices revising the prosopography of high-ranking generals and arguing for a later Notitia.