This page created 2 August 2014, and last modified: 26 September 2014 (Jones commentary added)

The first of the pseudocomitatenses units in the Magister Peditum's infantry roster is listed as the Legio Prima Alpina; it is assigned his Italian command under the name Iulia Alpina. Its shield pattern in various manuscripts, under the label Alpini, is as shown below:

The pattern is has a white rim, a green main field (faded to yellow in M), and a mammal of some description in the bottom half of the field facing left (right in B, which being printed, reverses all the shield facings). The animal could be a wolf (especially in O, where it is depicted in grey, as it is in P, but here the body looks more bear-ish), or a dog (M, B); in W it looks, if anything, like an unexpectedly thin-legged brown hippopotamus!

The name Iulia Alpina would appear to refer to the Julian Alps, and this unit is clearly the first of a series of three legions with the same thematic name; there is also a Secunda Iulia Alpina, another pseudocomitatenses legion, serving under the Comes Illyricum; and a Tertia Iulia Alpina, a comitatenses legion, but also serving in the Magister Peditum's Italian command (Jones, p 99 of his 3rd volume, instead thought it referred to one of Constantine I's sons: Julius Crispus, Julis Constantius, or Julius Constantine). These units obviously once belonged to the now-defunct command of the Comes Italiae; their shield patterns are shown together below, using the patterns taken from the Paris manuscript show:

Legio III Iulia Alpina, being a comitatenses unit, seems to have been given a "different" pattern from the other two; it may be the patterns shown for the First and Second are their "original" ones from when they were under the command of the Comes Italiae.

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