... восточная часть "Нотиции" дает нам прямое и недвусмысленное указание, что 5 вышеназванных подразделений были легионами:
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/notitia2.html
Вот что пишет самый главный корифей (E.W. Marsden. Greek and Roman Artillery: Historical Development. Oxford, 1969, pp. 195-97):
In the fourth century the ordinary legions, so called, though they had nothing in common with the legions of the early empire, possessed no artillery whatsoever. Constantine, or whoever was responsible for this reform, obviously had little choice in the matter, though it seems a retrograde step. In connection with the siege of Amida (A.D. 359) Ammianus makes some frank remarks about two Magnentian legions recently brought to the east from Gaul, which were supposed to be assisting the besieged. [1] They were completely useless in siege-warfare in general and, in particular, no help whatsoever in dealing with defensive machinery and defensive works (‘cum neque in machinis neque in operum constructione iuvarent’). The Magnentian legions were probably not exceptions to the rule in the fourth century.
Special legions of
ballistarii had to be raised from men who did understand machinery and were capable of operating and maintaining pieces of artillery. If these legions comprised 1,000 men, like the infantry legions of the same epoch, and if Vegetius is approximately right, as he may well be, in saying that eleven men formed the detachment working each arrow-shooting
ballista, then a unit of
ballistarii constituted an artillery regiment with about fifty pieces of ordnance. [2]
A few items preserved in the
Notitia Dignitatum provide some idea, incomplete and not, of course, all valid for the entire fourth century, of the distribution of the artillery legions. Each mobile field army included one or two. The commander of the eastern field army (
magister militum per Orientem) could call upon the
ballistarii seniores, [3] who were a
legio comitatensis, and upon the
ballistarii Theodosiani, [4] a
legio pseudocomitatensis. Similarly, the commander in Thrace controlled the
ballistarii Dafnenses and the
ballistarii iuniores, both
legiones comitatenses. [5] One unit,
ballistarii Theodosiani iuniores, a
legio pseudocomitatensis, was available to the commander in Illyricum. [6] Perhaps the original Constantinian establishment allotted two artillery legions, one called
ballistarii seniores, the other
ballistarii iuniores, to each mobile reserve army. [7] Because they were intended to support mobile forces, all these artillery units would be equipped primarily, if not exclusively, with
carroballistae.
In Gaul the
Notitia records the presence of one legion of
ballistarii, a </i>legio pseudocomitatensis</i>, under the
magister equitum per Gallias. [8] It is possibly this unit which Julian, newly appointed Caesar with special responsibility for the Gallic area (A.D. 356), picked up at Augustodunum (Autun) and used as his bodyguard through enemy-infested countryside on his way to Autessiodurum (Auxerre). [9] We find also in the
Notitia mention of a prefect of artillery (
praefectus militum ballistariorum) stationed at Bodobrica and under the
Dux Moguntiacensis. [10] Although only one instance is confirmed, it may be that many frontier commanders (
duces) had an artillery legion under their control. If so, frontier artillery units will have been equipped with a greater variety of engines —
manuballistae (small arrow-firers which one man could operate, and very similar indeed to Heron’s
cheiroballistra), heavier static
ballistae something like Anonymus’ fulminalis, [11] as well as the mobile
carroballista.
1. Amm. xix. 5. 2.
2. From the period of the special artillery legions we have two inscriptions relating to
ballistarii. The first (in </i>Syria</i>, 14, 1933, 167) simply records Χαλκίδιος βαλλ[ι]στάριος, without, of course, specifying a legion. The other was set up by Σίθρος … αρχιβαλι[στάριος] … whose post corresponds clearly to that of
magister ballistarius in the old type of legion (see above, p. 192);
Revue Biblique, 41 (1932), 400.
3.
Not. Dig. Or. vii. 8 = 48.
4. Ibid. 21 = 57. The name suggests that this unit was formed in the last quarter of the fourth century under Theodosius I. But it may have replaced an earlier artillery legion which had been depleted or destroyed.
5. Ibid. viii. 14 = 46; 15 = 47.
6. Ibid. ix. 47; see above, n. 4.
7. We are strongly reminded of an inscription from Old Paphos set up (in the latter half of the second century B.C.) by mercenary Lycian, possibly Ptolemaic, artillerymen (W. H. Buckler in
JHS 55, 1935, 75 ff. and Launey, 833 and 1061-2). The expert gunners were divided into two units, το τάγμα των πρεσβυτέρον αφετων and το τάγμα των νεωτέρον, the distinction, it seems, being clue to the greater experience of the former in catapult shooting. It is possible that the artillery units in the late Roman imperial army were similarly called
seniores and
iuniores according to their experience.
8.
Not. Dig. Oc. vii. 97.
9. Amm. xvi. 2. 5.
10.
Not. Dig. Oc. xli. 23.
11. Anon,
de reb. bell. 18.
Вот, например, статья Зубаря:
http://stratum.ant.md/4_00/articles/zubari/zubari01.htm
)