The Notitia Dignitatum helps locate different kinds of Roman units and shows how forces under regional commanders were distributed among provinces and cities. Its evidence needs care because the list was updated unevenly and even its latest form predates Justinian by roughly a century. The review then points to units Justinian created after successful campaigns, including formations drawn from Berbers, Persians, Isaurians, and Vandals. Several served far from their places of origin, illustrating how conquest, recruitment, and strategic redeployment changed the inherited military establishment.
Notable Point · 8:17-9:27
Reading the Notitia Dignitatum against Justinian's changing army
An older official list reveals the army's inherited framework, but Justinian's new units and their distant deployments show why it cannot be read as a fixed sixth-century order of battle.