[gothic-l] Gothic Cavalry Strength

[Tim O'Neill]

On Sunday, March 24, 2002 12:53 AM, Bertil Haggman [SMTP:mvk575b at tninet.se] wrote:
>
> Tim,
>
> Could you give some figures that relates infantry to
> cavalry during the late stage of the West Roman empire?

Philippe Contamine gives estimates of the proportions of
cavalry and infantry in both the Limitanei and the Comitatenses
of the Eastern and Western Imperial Armies circa 380 AD.
The total cavalry comes in at 186,500 (30%) and total infantry
is 411,500 (68%).

Simon MacDowell's very recent book on Adrianople devotes
some space to the probable composition of Valens army
and lists the units which are most likely to have been present.
Of these there are 13 which were almost certainly involved in
the the battle, of which 8 were cavalry units.  There are a further
26 units which are likely to have been involved of which 10
were cavalry units.

> The figures provide are, I am afraid, not correct.

Given the scanty information about almost any aspect of this
battle I can't see how you can say any numbers are 'not
correct'.  We can only speculate about the numbers involved
and any figure is based on guesses.  So no number given is
going to be 'correct' in any sense of the word.

> The ratio was 40,000 infantry and perhaps, only
> perhaps, 10,000 cavalry. On the Gothic, Hunnic, Alan side
> there were 50,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry.

Where are you getting these figures?  Macdowell agrees with
Burns and most other modern analysts of this battle in that
Valens probably fielded a force of 20-25,000 troops and
Fritigern's army was either a similar size or slightly smaller.
The Gothic allies are estimated to have made up the 4-7000
man cavalry arm of the Tervingian force (which was substantially
infantry) and the Roman cavalry force was likely to have been
somewhat larger.

Tim O'Neill


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