Comitatenses

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (July 2008)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

This article is part of the series on: Military of ancient Rome (portal) 753 BC – AD 476
Structural history
Roman army (unit types and ranks, legions, auxiliaries, generals)
Roman navy (fleets, admirals)
Campaign history
Lists of wars and battles
Decorations and punishments
Technological history
Military engineering (castra, siege engines, arches, roads)
Personal equipment
Political history
Strategy and tactics
Infantry tactics
Frontiers and fortifications (limes, Hadrian's Wall)
This box: view • talk • edit

Comitatenses is the Latin plural of comitatensis, originally the adjective derived from comitatus ('company, party, suite'; in this military context it came to the novel meaning of 'the field army'), itself rooting in Comes ('companion', but hence specific historical meanings, military and civilian).

However, historically it became the accepted (substantivated) name for those Roman imperial troops (legions and auxiliary) which were not merely garrisoned at a limes (fortified border, on the Rhine and Danube in Europe and near Persia and the desert tribes elsewhere) — the limitanei or ripenses, i.e. 'along the shores' — but more mobile line troops; furthermore there were second line troops, named pseudocomitatenses, former limitanei attached to the comitatus; palatini, elite ("palace") units typically assigned to magistri militum; and the scholae palatinae of actual palace guards, notably under the magister officiorum, a major court official of the Late Empire.^{[citation needed]}

List of comitatenses units

Among the comitatenses units listed by Notitia Dignitatum there are:

under Magister Peditum

• 1. Undecimani.
  2. Secundani Italiciani (Legio II Italica, Africa);
  3. Tertiani Italica (Legio III Italica, Illyricum);
  4. Tertia Herculea, Illyricum;
  5. Secunda Britannica, Gallias;
  6. Tertia Iulia Alpina, Italia;
  7. Prima Flavia Pacis, Africa;
  8. Secunda Flavia Virtutis, Africa;
  9. Tertia Flavia Salutis, Africa;
  10. Secunda Flavia Constantiniana, Africa Tingitania;
  11. Tertioaugustani (Legio III Augusta);

under the Magister Militum per Orientem

• 1. Quinta Macedonica (Legio V Macedonica);
  2. Septima gemina (Legio VII Gemina);
  3. Decima gemina (Legio X Gemina);
  4. Prima Flavia Constantia;
  5. Secunda Flavia Constantia Thebaeorum;
  6. Secunda Felix Valentis Thebaeorum;
  7. Prima Flavia Theodosiana;

under the Magister Militum per Thracias

• 1. Prima Maximiana Thebaeorum;
  2. Tertia Diocletiana Thebaeorum;
  3. Tertiodecimani (Legio XIII Gemina?);
  4. Quartodecimani (Legio XIV Gemina Martia Victrix?);
  5. Prima Flavia gemina;
  6. Secunda Flavia gemina.

External links

• Comitatus (A Late & Post-Roman Romano-British Historical reenactment & Living history group portraying the Legio Praesidiensis, a comitatensis unit listed in the Notitia Dignitatum under the Gallic command, but based in Britain during the late 4th century.)

Military of ancient Rome portal

This article about a specific military unit is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e