AWA367 - How permanent were institutions like dux or comes?

Ancient Warfare Podcast

The History Network

Society & Culture, Greece, Warfare, Ancient, Rome, History, Military

4.4 • 631 Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of the Ancient Warfare Podcast, Murray answers a question inspired by Finis Britanniae: Were Roman military commands permanent structures, or more ad hoc arrangements that changed with the situation? Drawing comparisons to modern military organisation, Murray examines what the ancient sources tell us about how Roman armies were structured and led in times of shifting security demands.

Join us on Patreon
patreon.com/ancientwarfarepodcast

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Ancient Warfare Answers with me, Murray, your weekly fix of ancient warfare related material for 10 minutes as a break from the real world, where I attempt to answer a question from you, the viewer, listener or reader. You can ask us a question in various ways. You can send us an email. You can comment on a
0:24.1	podcast or YouTube video. You can send us a postcard. And of course, you can back us on Patreon,
0:29.4	Patreon 4 slash Ancient Warfare podcast. There's three different levels of backer, Centurion, Optio,
0:35.5	and Legionary. I got those in the completely wrong order.
0:38.5	Legionary, Optio and Centurion, $1, $5 and $10. Even get a copy of the magazine.
0:44.4	Today's question comes from Yearn. Thank you, Yearn. Hi, AWA team. That's me, Team of One.
0:50.3	Just a few questions to ensure that you do not run out of stuff for podcasts. Thank you,
0:55.2	I'm going to answer one of Eern's questions and then I'll get to the others in future episodes.
1:01.5	While reading Finis Britanniae, well, gosh, Eurne, thank you so much. That's my Finis Britanniae from
1:07.0	Ambley last year, working on a second book for them at the moment. So whilst reading,
1:11.2	Finnish pretending, I love it. I was wondering how permanent institutions like Dukes or Komeys were.
1:18.3	How permanent, oh yes, how permanent institutions like Dukes or Komeys were. Sorry, my emphasis was on
1:24.2	the wrong syllable there. Similar modern day military command seems to be a mix of ad hoc organizations and
1:30.6	semi-permanent ones that last as long as the security situation demands.
1:35.0	What do the sources say?
1:36.9	All right.
1:38.5	Fabulous.
1:39.3	Well, the interesting thing, of course, is that the sources are unreliable at this point in time
1:48.0	from the third century AD onwards.
1:51.0	The word Dukes has been around for a long time.
1:54.0	It's used by Julius Caesar and in the third century it seems to become a military commander in the reforms under the
2:03.5	Tetraki, especially.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The History Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The History Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.