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Laeti, the plural form of laetus, is a Latin word used in the late Roman empire, from the 4th century onwards, to denote communities of barbari (= foreigners, people from outside the empire) permitted to settle inside the empire on condition that they provide recruits for the Roman military. The word was derived from the Germanic languages and can be translated as "serf" or "half-free colonist". An alternative term used for laeti was gentiles (= "natives").

Status

Laeti were groups of migrants drawn from the warlike tribes that existed on the empire's borders, and which had fought the Romans intermittently for the entire duration of the empire since its foundation by Augustus in the first century. In the West, these tribes were primarily Germans, living beyond the Rhine, or Sarmatians, Iranic mounted nomads from the Eurasian steppe that had occupied the Hungarian plain facing the Roman province of Pannonia (E. Hungary) across the Danube. In the East, laeti were drawn from, among others, Caucasian Iberians from Georgia, Armenians, and Arabs.

Reproductively self-sufficient groups of laeti (i.e. including women and children) would be granted land to settle in the empire by the imperial government.. They would form distinct military cantons, under the supervision of a Roman praefectus laetorum, who would control either individual communities e.g. praefectus gentilium Sarmatarum Novariae = prefect of the Sarmatian community at Novara N Italy; or all communities of a particular tribe in a particular region e.g. praefectus gentilium Sarmatarum Calabriae at Apuliae = prefect of Sarmatians in Calabria and Apulia, regions in southern Italy.

In return for their privileges of admission to the empire and land grants, the laeti were under an obligation to supply recruits to the Roman auxiliary forces. The treaty granting a laeti community land might specify a fixed number of recruits required each year. Alternatively, all laeti males of military age (16 years and above) may have been liable to compulsory service in the military.

It appears that, in the 3rd or early 4th century at least, laeti were normally drafted into existing military units, and only rarely formed their own. However, the ala I Sarmatarum and numerus Hnaufridi attested in 3rd century Britain may have been units formed of laeti. In the later 4th century, the Notitia Dignitatum lists a large number of regiments with barbarian names. These appear to have been regular units, and not foederati (allied warbands of barbari), and therefore may have been recruited from laeti.

Notitia Dignitatum

Most of our information on laeti is contained in the Notitia Dignitatum, a document drawn up at the turn of the 4th/5th centuries. The document is a list of official posts in the Roman empire, both civil and military. It must be treated with caution. Many sections are missing or contain lacunae, so the Notitia does not account for all posts and commands in existence at the time of compilation. Furthermore, the compilation of the Notitia 's two parts was separated by about 30 years c395 for the Eastern section and c428 for the West and may include deployments from as early as 379. Therefore not all posts mentioned were in existence at the same time, and not all posts that were in existence are shown.

The surviving Notitia only mentions laeti settlements in Italy and Gaul - and even the two lists extant (in Title XLII) are incomplete. But we know from other evidence that laeti settlements existed in other provinces. Furthermore, the lists clearly contain errors. The list of praefecti laetorum in Gaul contains prefects for the Lingones, Nervii and Batavi: but these tribes had been inside the empire since its inception under Augustus. By the time the Notitia was compiled, they had provided recruits for the auxiliary regiments for four centuries, and had been Roman citizens for nearly 200 years. They could not, therefore, have been laeti.

Title XLII contains two lists of laeti prefects, all under the command of the magister militum praesentalis a parte peditum- supreme commander of the pedites praesentales (imperial escort infantry).

(1) a list of praefecti laetorum in Gaul:

Removing the names of the "fake" laeti mentioned above, and replacing them with "unknown", the following list results:

• (unknown) et Suevi at Baiocas and Constantia, Lugdunensis II
• Suevi: Ceromannos and another, unknown location in Lugdunensis III
• Francs: Redonas, Lugdunensis III
• Teutoniciani: Carnunta, Lugdunensis IV
• Suevi: Arumbernos, Aquitanica I
• Taifali: Poitiers, Aquitanica
• (unknown): dispersed over Belgica I
• Acti: Epuso, Belgica I
• (unknown): Fanomantis, Belgica II
• (unknown) of Nemetacum, Belgica II
• (unknown) Contraginnenses: Noviomagus, Belgica II
• unspecified gentiles: Remo and Silvamectum, Belgica II
• Lagenses: near the Tungri, Germania II

• (substantial section missing)

(2) a list of praefecti gentilium Sarmatarum (prefects of Sarmatian gentiles) in Italy and Gaul. This concerns only Sarmatians (with just one mention of Taifali) in the following locations:

In ITALY:

• Apulia et Calabria (the region today known as Puglia, the "heel" of the Italian "boot")
• Brutii et Lucania (the regions today known as Calabria and Basilicata, southern Italy)
• Forum Fulviense
• Opittergum (Oderzo, NE Italy)
• Patavium (Padova, NE Italy)
• (placename missing)
• Cremona (Cremona, N Italy)
• Taurini (Torino, NW Italy)
• Aquae sive Tertona (Tortona NW Italy)
• Novaria (Novara, NW Italy)
• Vercellae (Vercelli, NW Italy)
• Regio Samnites (Sannio, southern Italy)
• Bononia in Aemilia (Bologna, N central Italy)
• Quadratae et Eporizium (Gorizia?, NE Italy)
• (in Liguria) Pollentia (Pollenzo, NW Italy)

In GAUL:

• Pictavi (Poitiers west central France): N.B. Taifali also mentioned here
• a Chora Parisios usque (Paris region)
• inter Remos et Tambianos Belgica II (Champagne region)
• per tractum Rodunensem et Alaunorum (Rennes area? NW France) : N.B. Alauni (Alans) were probably also present here
• Lingones (Langres, NE France)
• Au... (name unintelligible)

• (entire folio - two pages - missing)

(3) The Notitia also mentions (Title XXXIV) a tribunus gentis Marcomannorum under the command of the dux Pannoniae et Norici. These Marcomanni (a Germanic tribe whose territory roughly coincided with the modern Czech Republic and Sovakia) were probably laeti also.

Impact

The Notitia lists of laeti settlements, incomplete as they are, show their considerable proliferation over the fourth century. This, together with the large numbers of military units with barbarian names, gave rise to the "barbarisation" theory of the fall of the Roman empire. This view ultimately originates from Edward Gibbon's magnum opus, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. According to this view, a critical factor in the disintegration of the western Roman empire in the 5th century was the Romans' ever-increasing reliance on barbarian recruits to man (and lead) their armies, while they themselves became soft and averse to military service. The barbarian recruits had no fundamental loyalty to Rome and repeatedly betrayed Rome's interests.

This theory is today largely discredited. There is no evidence that barbarian officers or men were any less reliable than their Roman counterparts. Instead, the evidence points to the conclusion that laeti were a crucial source of first-rate recruits to late Roman army.

Notes

1. A. Goldsworthy Roman Warfare (2000) 215
2. Walde, A. and Hofmann, J.B., Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bd. 1. A - L. 4. Aufl. (1965)
3. Goldsworthy op cit 215
4. Notitia Dignitatum West Title XLII
5. Goldsworthy Complete Roman Army (2003) 208
6. A. Goldsworthy Complete Roman Army 208
7. www.roman-britain.org List of auxiliary units
8. Notitia Dignitatum East Titles
9. The Medieval Sourcebook: Notitia Dignitatum
10. D. Mattingly An imperial possession: Britain in the Roman empire (2006) 238
11. Most likely the medieval copyists of the Notitia confused the name of a geographical region (e.g. Nerviorum - the territory of the Nervii) with the name of a laeti people. The Notitia we have today is an 11th-century manuscript. It is clear that during the many times it must have been copied over the seven centuries since the original, a large number of page losses, omissions and textual errors accumulated
12. Goldsworthy Complete Roman Army 208

External links

• Notitia dignitatum
• Pauly-Wissowa (not yet exploited)

• Military of ancient Rome