This page created 5 April 2014, and last modified: 13 December 2014 (Maier reference numbers added)

The Hiberi is the 12th unit of auxilia palatina out of 18 listed (9.35 in Ingo Maier's numbering scheme) under the command of the first Master of the Soldiers in the Imperial Presence (i.e. the Magister Militum Praesentalis I). Its shield pattern (8#10) as shown in various manuscripts, under the matching label (8.k) Hiberi, is as below:

Theshield pattern has a indigo-violet main field (more purple in B, faded to maroon in M, W), a red rim, and a brown lion walking to the left but (mostly) facing the viewer; the direction of the animal is not reversed in B, which, being printed, usually reverses the facings. The pattern is closely related to that of the unit of exactly the same rank under the command of the other Master of the Soldiers in the Imperial Presence (i.e. the Magister Militum Praesentalis II): the Thraces, as the following patterns taken from the Paris manuscript should help to illustrate:

Both units are named after peoples inhabiting mountain ranges that were in ancient times also populated by lions: the Thraces the mountains of northern Greece/southern Bulgaria, and the Hiberi in the Caucasus. Presumably these two units were brigaded together before being split when the two different but parallel eastern Praesental armies were formed.

Inscriptional evidence for the Hiberi apparently comes from the cemetery at Colonia Iulia Concordia (modern Portogruaro in Veneto, Italy), which produced an inscription (CIL 5, 8745) in the form of a gravetone of a centenarius from the N [E]BORUM AU[S]ILIUN PL, which has been interpreted to read the "numeri Iberorum auxilii palatini". See here here for Hoffmann's 1963 analysis (in German).

Only one other unit listed in the Notitia apparently bears an Hiberian name: the Ala prima Hiberorum under the Dux Thebaidos.

Return to the Notitia alphabetical unit list page.
Return to my Notitia index page.