This page created 14 November 2015, and last modified: 14 November 2015

The first officer listed (154.17 in Ingo Maier's numbering scheme) under the command of the Dux Britanniarum following the subsection headed "along the line of the Wall" (item 154.16, per lineam valli), is the Tribunus cohortis quartae Lingonum, said to be stationed at Segeduno.

The tribune's unit is more fully named the cohors IIII Lingonum equitata, i.e. a part-mounted auxiliary unit; its station, Segeduno (i.e. Segedunum) is the fort at modern Wallsend in Tyneside. As the commanding officer listed in the Notitia is a tribune, which at this date seems to have been of lower rank than a prefect, reversing the situation under the Principate, it may be his forces no longer included a mounted component (part-mounted units seem to have been split into separate mounted and infantry components during the late 3rd and early 4th centuries; although it is not known is this was done exhaustively throughout the empire).

The unit is attested in many inscriptions at the site; e.g. RIB 1299 (where it is very interestingly said to be commanded by a centurion from legio II Augusta), RIB 1300 (under a prefect), and RIB 1301 (also under a prefect). A building inscription from the wall itself (RIB 2014) gives the form C IV LIN as opposed to C IIII LIN.

The Lingones were originally a Gallic tribe, who lent their name to the Roman area around what is now modern Langres in France (the "Civitas Lingonum", attested as being part of the province of Lugdunensis I in the "Notitia Galliarum", a work that is included, together with several other works, in the codices bound together with the manuscripts of our "Notitia Dignitatum"); the unit was presumably originally recruited there. See also the cohors II Lingonum (154.31), also stationed along the wall and commanded by a tribune, and the numerus Longovicanorum, commanded by a prefect under the Dux, but not stationed along the wall.

As with all limitanei units in the Notitia, the shield pattern of the Cohors IIII Lingonum is not illustrated.

1. Ingo Maier; "Appendix 4: Numeration of the new edition of the compilation 'notitia dignitatum' (Cnd)"; last accessed 26 October 2015. See also for here for numbering examples. Return

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