This page created 16 July 2014, and last modified: 28 October (Frankfurt fragment image added)

The Sequani is listed as one of the auxilia palatina units in the Magister Peditum's infantry roster; it is assigned to the command of the Comes Illyricum. Its shield pattern in various manuscripts is as shown below:

The pattern is simple, showing a white boss encircled with a red band (although more of an orange-brown in O and P), and an unadorned green main field (faded to yellow in M; Ff gives the shield a rim, albeit of the same green as the main field). However, it is evident that this might be the "wrong" shield pattern; like that of some other western auxilia platina units, it may have been shifted from its proper place (or, to be more exact, the label may have been shifted from its proper place), although which pattern (if any) among those shown properly belongs to the unit is not immediately apparent.

Note that the Munich manuscript has the unit listed as the Seguarii in the Magister Peditum's infantry roster, and as the Sequani in the Illyrian list, while the shield is labelled Seguani; the Paris manuscript has the unit listed as the Equarii in the Magister Peditum's infantry roster, and as the Sequani in the Illyrian list, while the shield is labelled Sequani; the Froben edition has the unit spelled as the Sequani in all three positions; the Frankfurt fragment also has the label as Sequani (I've not been able to see copies of the other manuscripts).

The name Sequani ultimately refers either to what is now the headwaters of the river Seine in France, Roman Sequana, or to the Sequani people who inhabited the region around the modern Jura; it probably derives more directly from the Roman district of Sequania, which had became the Provincia Maxima Sequanorum by the start of 4th century; by the time of the Notitia, the province was much reduced in importance, having been devastated by barbarians in 355, and with the Dux Sequanica being listed as controlling just a single unit of limitanei: the Milites Latavienses. Presumably the Sequani were either raised in the province, or had been stationed there in the relatively recent past when the Notitia was compiled. The Sequani is not the only unit named after the province that is recorded in the Notitia, however, as an ala secunda Valeria Sequanorum is recorded under the neighbouring Dux Raetiae.

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