The fleets are often neglected in consideration of the military forces of the Roman empire – indeed, some estimates of military strength have ignored them completely.1 Even more egregious is their omission in discussions of the rôle of the army in disseminating Roman citizenship, since the soldiers serving in the fleets benefitted from the same system of regular grants as did auxiliaries. When the fleets are included in inventories of the military, most scholars reckon them at either 30,000 or 40,000 men. In so doing, they are relying explicitly or implicitly on the work of C. G. Starr or M. Reddé, respectively. There has been no discussion of the discrepancy between them. Moreover, those who rely on Reddé tend to overlook the fact that he himself implied a strength of more than 50,000 men. This paper aims to draw attention to the significance of the large divergence between the two estimates and to offer a new one that takes better account of the uncertainties involved. It reviews the evidence adduced by Starr and Reddé but also draws on newer data from the archaeology of fleet bases and military diplomas. I conclude that the combined strength of the fleets was probably c.25,000 men, somewhat smaller than Starr suggested. Yet it is just as important to recognise that the margin of error remains large.

中文翻译：

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罗马舰队的人力

考虑到罗马帝国的军事力量，舰队经常被忽视——事实上，一些军事实力的估计完全忽略了它们。1更令人震惊的是他们在讨论军队在传播罗马公民身份方面的作用时遗漏了，因为在舰队中服役的士兵与辅助人员一样受益于相同的定期补助金制度。当舰队被列入军队库存时，大多数学者估计他们是 30,000 或 40,000 人。在此过程中，他们分别明确或隐含地依赖 CG Starr 或 M. Reddé 的工作。没有讨论他们之间的差异。而且，那些依赖雷德的人往往会忽略一个事实，即他本人暗示了超过50,000人的力量。本文旨在提请注意两个估计之间的巨大差异的重要性，并提供一个更好地考虑所涉及的不确定性的新估计。它回顾了斯塔尔和雷德提出的证据，但也借鉴了舰队基地考古学和军事文凭的最新数据。我得出的结论是，舰队的总兵力可能约为 25,000 人，比斯塔尔建议的要小一些。然而，同样重要的是要认识到误差幅度仍然很大。