
The (
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
for 'List of all dignities and administrations both civil and military') is a document of the
Late Roman Empire that details the administrative organization of the
Western and the
Eastern Roman Empire. It is unique as one of very few surviving documents of Roman government, and describes several thousand offices from the imperial court to provincial governments,
diplomatic mission
A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually denotes ...
s, and
army units. It is usually considered to be accurate for the Western Roman Empire in the 420s AD and for the Eastern or Byzantine Empire in the 390s AD. However, the text itself is not dated (nor is its author named), and omissions complicate ascertaining its date from its content.
Copies of the manuscript
There are several extant 15th- and 16th-century copies of the document, plus a colour-illuminated iteration of 1542. All the known, extant copies are derived, either directly or indirectly, from ''Codex Spirensis'', a
codex
The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...
known to have existed in the library of the Chapter of
Speyer Cathedral
Speyer Cathedral, officially ''the Imperial Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption and St Stephen'', in Latin: Domus sanctae Mariae Spirae (German: ''Dom zu Unserer lieben Frau in Speyer'') in Speyer, Germany, is the seat of the Roman Catholic Bish ...
in 1542, but which was lost before 1672 and has not been rediscovered. The ''Codex Spirensis'' was a collection of documents, of which the ''Notitia'' was the final and largest, occupying 164 pages, that brought together several previous documents of which one was of the 9th century. The
heraldry
Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, Imperial, royal and noble ranks, rank and genealo ...
in illuminated manuscript copies of the ''Notitia'' is thought to copy or imitate only that illustrated in the lost ''Codex Spirensis''.
The iteration of 1542 made for
Otto Henry, Elector Palatine, was revised with "illustrations more faithful to the originals added at a later date", and is preserved by the
Bavarian State Library.
The most important copy of the ''Codex'' is that made for
Pietro Donato in 1436 and illuminated by
Peronet Lamy, now in the
Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Contents
For each half of the Empire, the ''Notitia'' enumerates all the major "dignities", i. e., offices, that it could bestow, often with the location and specific ''
officium'' ("staff") enumerated, except for the most junior members, for each. The dignities are ordered by:
*Court officials, including the most senior dignitaries such as
praetorian prefect
The praetorian prefect (; ) was a high office in the Roman Empire. Originating as the commander of the Praetorian Guard, the office gradually acquired extensive legal and administrative functions, with its holders becoming the Emperor's chief ai ...
s;
*
Vicars and
provincial governors, arranged by
praetorian prefecture
The praetorian prefecture (; in Ancient Greek, Greek variously named ) was the largest administrative division of the Late Antiquity, late Roman Empire, above the mid-level Roman diocese, dioceses and the low-level Roman province, provinces. Praeto ...
and
diocese
In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...
; and
*
Martial commanders, ''
Comites Rei Militaris'', and ''
Duces'', providing the full titles and stations of their regiments.
Interpretation
The ''Notitia'' presents four primary problems as a source for the Empire's army:
# The ''Notitia'' depicts the
Roman army
The Roman army () served ancient Rome and the Roman people, enduring through the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 1453), including the Western Roman Empire (collapsed Fall of the W ...
at the end of the 4th century AD. Therefore, its development from the structure of the
Principate
The Principate was the form of imperial government of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the Dominate. The principate was ch ...
is largely conjectural because of the lack of other evidence.
# It was compiled at two different times. The section for the Eastern Empire apparently dates from AD and that for the Western Empire from circa 420 AD. Further, each section is probably not a contemporaneous "snapshot", but relies on data pre-dating it by as many as 20 years. The Eastern section may contain data from as early as 379 AD, the beginning of the reign of Emperor
Theodosius I
Theodosius I ( ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He won two civil wars and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Nicene C ...
. The Western section contains data from as early as AD: for example, it shows units deployed in
Britannia
The image of Britannia () is the national personification of United Kingdom, Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used by the Romans in classical antiquity, the Latin was the name variously appli ...
, which must date from before 410 AD, when the Empire lost the island. In consequence, there is substantial duplication, with the same unit often listed under different commands. It is impossible to ascertain whether these were detachments of the same unit in different places simultaneously, or the same whole unit at different times. Also, it is likely that some units were merely nominal or minimally staffed. According to
Roger Collins, "the was an archaising text written AD, whose unreliability is demonstrated by "the supposed existence of traditional (Roman military) units in Britain and Spain at a time when other evidence shows they were not there."
# The ''Notitia'' has many sections missing and ''lacunae'' within sections. This is doubtless due to accumulated textual losses and copying errors, because it was repeatedly copied over the centuries: the earliest manuscript possessed today dates from the 15th century. The ''Notitia'' cannot therefore provide a comprehensive list of all units that existed.
# The ''Notitia'' does not record the number of personnel. Given that and the paucity of other evidence of unit sizes at that time, the size of individual units and the various commands cannot be ascertained. In turn, this makes it impossible to assess accurately the total size of the army. Depending on the strength of units, the late 4th century AD army may, at one extreme, have equalled the size of the 2nd century AD force, i. e., over 400,000 men; and at the other extreme, it may have been far smaller. For example, the forces deployed in Britain circa 400 AD may have been merely 18,000 against circa 55,000 in the 2nd century AD.
[D. Mattingly, ''An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire'' (2006), p. 239.]
Depictions
The ''Notitia'' contains symbols similar to the diagram which later came to be known as
yin and yang symbol.
[Giovanni Monastra: ', ''Sophia'', Bd. 6, Nr. 2 (2000) ][Isabelle Robinet: "Taiji tu. Diagram of the Great Ultimate", in: Fabrizio Pregadio (ed.): ''The Encyclopedia of Taoism A−Z'', Routledge, Abingdon (Oxfordshire) 2008, , pp. 934−936 (934)][Helmut Nickel: "The Dragon and the Pearl", ''Metropolitan Museum Journal'', Bd. 26 (1991), S. 146, Fn. 5] The infantry units ''armigeri defensores seniores'' ("shield-bearers") and ''Mauri Osismiaci'' had a shield design which corresponds to the dynamic, clockwise version of the symbol, albeit with red dots, instead of dots of the opposite colour.
The emblem of the ''Thebaei'', another Western Roman infantry regiment, featured a pattern of concentric circles comparable to its static version. The Roman patterns predate the earliest
Taoist
Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...
versions by almost seven hundred years,
but there is no evidence for a relation between the two.
See also
*
Laeti
*
Jublains archeological site
*
List of Late Roman provinces
* ''
Notitia Galliarum''
*
Roll of arms
A roll of arms (or armorial) is a collection of coat of arms, coats of arms, usually consisting of rows of painted pictures of shields, each shield accompanied by the name of the person bearing the arms.
The oldest extant armorials date to the m ...
* ''
Tabula Peutingeriana
' (Latin Language, Latin for 'The Peutinger Map'), also known as Peutinger's Tabula, Peutinger tablesJames Strong (theologian) , James Strong and John McClintock (theologian) , John McClintock (1880)"Eleutheropolis" In: ''The Cyclopedia of Bibli ...
''
*
Tetrarchy
The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman emperor Diocletian in 293 AD to govern the ancient Roman Empire by dividing it between two emperors, the ''augusti'', and their junior colleagues and designated successors, the ''caesares''.
I ...
Citations
Sources and references
*, edited by Robert Ireland, in ''British Archaeological Reports'', International Series 63.2.
* ''Westermann Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte'' contains many precise maps.
* Klaus-Peter Johne, 'Notitia dignitatum', in: ''
Der Neue Pauly'' 8 (2000), 1011–1013.
* A. H. M. Jones, ''The Later Roman Empire, 284–602. A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey'', The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. .
External links
The Compilation 'notitia dignitatum' extensive links and resources
Placenames from GIS from Pelagios/Pleiades. 1505 toponyms. 1164 matches.
Manuscripts
*
Bodleian Libraryfull scan of 1436 edition*
Bavarian State LibraryNotitia Dignitatum Clm 10291− full online scan of the 1542 manuscript with its modernised illustrations
Latin, web versions
*
with pictures, from bibliotheca Augustana
Editions
*''
otitia dignitatum; accedunt Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae et laterculi prouinciarum', Latin with notes by
Otto Seeck (1876)
Internet ArchiveMedieval SourcebookPartial English translation by William Fairley, 1899
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Military history of ancient Rome
Government of the Roman Empire
Prose texts in Latin
Coats of arms of the Roman Empire
Comitatenses
Late Roman military
Illuminated manuscripts
Maps of Palestine (region)