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 Roman Army Units in the Western Provinces (3): 4th–5th Centuries AD

By Raffaele D'Amato

Including specially commissioned artwork, this book describes and illustrates the completely reorganized Roman Army from the reign of Diocletian to the fall of the Western Empire in AD 476.

After the 50-year chaos of the mid-3rd century AD, the reforming Emperor Diocletian (r. AD 284–305) undertook major administrative reforms to reflect the new realities and improve defensive strategy, a process continued by the first Christian emperor, Constantine I (r. AD 306–37). The old Army organization of legions and auxiliary units was divided between central mobile field armies, and various classes of static frontier and other garrison troops. While this makes unit identification and location a more demanding detective process, some units can still be placed.

Another simultaneous process was the ever-increasing recruitment of ‘allied barbarians’ into the Army, some of whom rose to senior command. By the beginning of the 5th century new civil wars and victorious barbarian incursions led the Western Empire into decades of overlapping residual Roman government and embryonic barbarian kingdoms until the final takeover of Italy and Gaul by Gothic and Frankish kings in AD 476 and 486. The soldiers who defended the Empire during these tumultuous years are explained and depicted in this fully illustrated study, one of a series exploring the Roman Army as it evolved in the Eastern and Western empires.