¹ Bury, J. B., ‘Notitia Dignitatum’, JRS x (1920), 131–54.Google Scholar

² A. H. M.Jones, The Later Roman Empire (1964), Appendix ii, pp. 347-80.

³ Not. Occ, xl, 32-49.

⁴ Procopius, de Bello Vandalico, i, 2.

⁵ E.g. Not. Occ. i, 75-7 and 118-21 (consulares and praesides); xi, 20 and xii, 14 (rationales); xi, 37 and 60 (praepositus and procurator).

⁶ Zosimus vi, 5-6.

⁷ Zosimus vi, 10.

⁸ Not. Occ. i, 35-6 and 48; v, 131-2 and 142; vii, 153-6 and 199–205; xxviii; xxix; xl.

⁹ S. S. Frere, Britannia, A History of Roman Britain, (1967), 229.

¹⁰ Ibid., 234-5.

¹¹ The Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum at Aballaba (Not. Occ. xl, 47). RIB 2042 fixes this unit at the same post at least as early as 258.

¹² Frere, op. cit. (note g), 230.

¹³ If such a breach was actually made in the period after 410 Uxellodunum will be seen to be a most likely site.

¹⁴ The one certain, but partial exception to this was the settlement in parts of Wales of the Scots. But these, although settlers, were still seaborne.

¹⁵ Professor Frere (op. cit. (note 9), p. 355) draws attention to the changed nature of the Wall forts after the Theodosian restoration of 369. Admission of families into these forts, if true, although it would prevent mass desertion of family men in a crisis, must certainly have tended to reduce the efficiency of the troops stationed along the wall.

¹⁶ On the contrary, Maximus even fought against the Picts and defeated them. (Chron. Gall. 452 in MGH, Chron. Min., i, p. 646).

¹⁷ CW ², li (1951), 4-15.

¹⁸ Ibid., 12.

¹⁹ Not. Occ., xl, 58.

²⁰ Not. Occ., vii, 36.

²¹ The year of the birth of Valentinian III. The only way to avoid the implications of this item is gratuitously to assume that one part (the Italian) of Section vii of the Notitia is more up to date by a decade or more than another part (the British) of the same section. This in turn is tantamount to either (1) rejection of the premise that the Notitia Dignitatum represents an official document or (2) acceptance of the premise that the Roman Chancery was so childishly incompetent that it kept long-obsolete material intermixed with current dat a in a non-public, official working document.

²² The various insignia within the Notitia show such volumes. That shown on the insignia of the Primicerius Notariorum (Not. Occ. xvi) is probably the Notitia itself. The 30-year period of use from c. 395 to the mid 420s makes vellum the likely material.

²³ Space would, of course, have been left with such corrections in mind.

²⁴ Even when such re-editing was carried out, corrections to the geographical order of entries (as opposed to their order of precedence) could not have been made without a complete new return from the scene. The clerks who made Sextae a place were ignorant of geography and drew the insignia blindly from their text. Nor would a routine annual return have sufficed: these (e.g., the pridiana) would have gone no further than the magistri militum. The Primicerius Notariorum would have been on the distribution list of only such special returns as corresponded with modern ‘general orders’ announcing the activation or de-activation of units.

²⁵ Niall of the Nine Hostages and Dathi of Ireland as well as Drust MacErp of the Picts were all remembered as raiders and warriors. They reigned respectively: 379-405, 405-28, and 414-54. (Chadwick's alternative dates for Niall and Dathi, Early Scotland p, 135, seem to be 402-28 and 425-48, which also fit.) There was also a major Saxon raid in 410 (MGH Chron. Min. i, p. 654).

²⁶ Not. Occ. xxviii.

²⁷ He actually is preceded by the Comes Britanniarum in the general list of comites in sec. vii but is followed by that officer in the order of sections in the body of the Notitia. This apparent anomaly results from the fact that the Comes Britanniarum existed prior to the start of the campaign of return to Britain (described below) during which campaign the Comes litoris Saxonici was restored to the Army List and the Notitia, thus bringing about the order of listing in sec. vii. Later, when the bulk of the comitatus was with-drawn from Britain (also described below) the section devoted to the Comes Britanniarum had to be withdrawn and revised radically. The subsequent insertion of the new version at the end of the then-current group of comital sections brought about the contrary order in the body of the Notitia.

²⁸ Ammianus Marcellinus xxvii, 8, 1.

²⁹ Zosimus v, 43.

³⁰ If outdated material were kept in the Notitia for future reference some means of distinguishing it as such would have been needed, of which there is no evidence. If it were done for ‘face saving’, the only people to be impressed or deceived by this official but not public document would have been a few clerks.

³¹ If they had not been already deleted—an unlikely possibility in view of the survival of a loyalist Gallic Magister Militum as late as the massacre of May, 408 (Zosimus v, 32).

³² Not. Occ. v, 126-32.

³³ Not. Occ. xxviii, 13-15.

³⁴ Rutupiae, as the main entry port of the expedition would initially have been filled with all manner of troops from the comitatus and would probably have been garrisoned by them. The former garrison of Regulbium, Cohors I Baetasiorum, had survived the crisis and eventually returned to their old post. Their absence in this initial phase of the campaign probably indicates that they were either (1) in garrison elsewhere or (2) attached to the field army of the Comes Britanniarum. There was no need for large numbers of garrisons to remain concentrated in the South East during a major campaign whose objectives lay in the North and West–a fact that favours the second of the foregoing possibilities.

³⁵ These two are definitely out of geographical order with respect to the three preceding posts. They are probably to be distinguished from the next group by their distinctively and uniquely named garrisons, the only two in this command endowed with local geographical epithets. The significance of the local epithet in this case is evidently not long association with the area, but rather a desire on the part of the Romans to distinguish garrisons detailed out of units of the comitatus from those parent units, while still retaining a traditional title. Thus the Praepositus equitum Dalmatarum Branodunensium commanded a garrison drawn from a unit of equites Dalmatae in the comitatus; and the Praepositus equitum stablesianorum Gariannonensium commanded a garrison drawn from a unit of equites stablesiani in the comitatus, perhaps the same one that was still in Britain in the 420s (Not. Occ. vii, 203). The formation of garrisons oilimitanei from the comitatus should not be considered surprising in such a campaign.

³⁶ Not. Occ. xxviii, 16-17. Although the addition of these required re-drawing of the insignia of the Comes litoris Saxonici, the new entries were not placed in geographical order because the clerks, given only a special return announcing the formation of two new garrisons, had no idea what geographical relationship existed between these and the original posts.

³⁷ Not. Occ. xl.

³⁸ So positioned for reasons similar to those cited above (note 27) for the Comes litoris Saxonici.

³⁹ For the winter?

⁴⁰ Mot. Occ. xl, 32-48.

⁴¹ Nothing after the rubric appears in the insignia of the Dux, but this in no way precludes these items being part of a single return. Numerous ducal insignia omit parts of large commands (Raetia, Pannonia I, Pannonia II, Valeria) including some (Dacia ripensis, Moesia I, Moesia II, etc.) in the Eastern Notitia which was newly revised for transmittal to the West.

⁴² Not. Occ. xl, 49.

⁴³ It is usually argued that Uxellodunum is merely out of place in the list of posts per lineam valli. This explanation attempts to show why it is misplaced.

⁴⁴ A Cohors I Hispanorum equitata was a t Maryport in the second century (RIB 814–29) while a Cohors I Aelia Hispanorum milliaria equitata (the same unit mad e milliary?) was at Netherby during the first quarter of the third century (RIB 968, 976-8).

⁴⁵ Not. Occ. xl, 50–2. Alione (Alauna) could be Maryport (S. S. Frere, op. cit. (note 9), p. 230, n. 3) and thus fourth in this group albeit out of order. But it is much more likely that it was Low Borrow Bridge (A. L. F. Rivet in Britannia i (1970), p. 54) and thus first in the next group.

⁴⁶ Historia Britonum, 62, which specifically credits Cunedda the Votadinian with expelling the Scots from north Wales.

⁴⁷ This group included Regulbium (to which the Baetasian cohort returned), Rutupiae, Anderida, and Portus Adurni. Shore defences were thus extended appreciably to the West.

⁴⁸ Professor Frere (op. cit. (note 9), 234) notes that, ‘it does not embrace sufficient of the North nor firmly hold what it does embrace’.

⁴⁹ The descent of this dynasty from Scottish (i.e. Irish) stock is given in the tract on the Expulsion of the Deisi, the relevant parts of which are printed in P. C Bartrum, Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts (1966), p. 4.

⁵⁰ CIIC 358. The stone reads MEMORIA VOTEPORIGIS PROTICTORIS and (in Oghams) VOTEOORIGAS.

⁵¹ The only people in a position to cause and take advantage of the gap in the wall described earlier were the Selgovae (and Novantae?) living north of the wall and ruled by Coel Hen. His descendants are duly found ruling vast areas on both sides of the wall in the post-Roman era.

⁵² The epithet ‘Hen’ signifies ‘the Old’.

⁵³ After examining numerous interlocking genealogies I cannot avoid the conclusion that Coel was born c. 350-55. To earn the epithet ‘Hen’ he must have lived to 420 or later.

⁵⁴ P. C. Bartrum, Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, p. 226 with HG10, GaC2, MGi, JC5. The epithet is sometimes erroneously treated as an additional name.

⁵⁵ The Count's force of 3 infantry and 6 cavalry formations must have totalled about 5000 and, kept concentrated, would have been a potent mobile counterweight to the protectores (Not. Occ. vii, 153-6 and 199-205).

⁵⁶ Britannia iii (1972), 280.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 287.

⁵⁸ S. S. Frere, op. cit. (note 9), 352, 381.

⁵⁹ P. C. Bartrum, op. cit. (note 54), ByS 1-11, 57, 95.

⁶⁰ For a discussion of the meaning of this controversial title see J. E. Lloyd, History of Wales, 99-100, who equates it with dux and comes—incorrectly with respect to the latter I believe. For a view contrary to mine see R. Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein, 453–4, where she places too much reliance on Zosimus's claim that Maximus held no honourable office (was a ducatus ‘honourable’ for an old companion of Theodosius?) and on the restricted extent of the Duke's command in the Notitia (which we have seen to be the result of the historical accident of Rome's last-minute change of policy).

⁶¹ The preceding and succeeding annals (the fall of Rome and the mission of Palladius) are marked 409 and 430 rather than the expected 410 and 431.

⁶² Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (trans. G. N. Garmonsway) sub an. 418.

⁶³ Bede, , de Temporum Ratione lxvi, 472–6.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Many troops may have crossed the channel—thus inspiring memories of a ‘Roman withdrawal’—but the Imperial government remained in power a while longer.

⁶⁵ A similar approach might in fact prove appropriate for other sets of sections, notably the Armorican.

⁶⁶ Note that the situation shown in the Notitia cannot refer to a restoration under Stilicho (c. 398) or under some lieutenant of Theodosius (after 388). These were successful, but the restoration under consideration was clearly abortive and must have remained so into the 420s when the Notitia we have was last in use.