The military unit Cimbriani, Count Boniface and the vandal invasion of North Africa: to the question of the dating of the Notitia Dignitatum’s western list

The article deals with the problem of the dating of the Notitia Dignitatum which is the main source of the Late Roman military organization. On the ground of new epigraphical data, published in 1969, 1983 and 1984, the author proves that Notitia as the finished document was composed and published not earlier than in the second half of the 430s A.D., while all previous historiography insisted on traditional date – 425–430 A.D. The author’s hypothesis allows to revise also the previous vision of Vandals’ capture of the Roman North Africa because the inscriptions connected with the military unit Cimbriani confirm the fact of army forces’ deployment within the Africa Proconsularis until 432, when count Boniface was recalled to Italy. Therefore, the reasons of quick capture of North Africa by the Vandals are not connected with the forces’ proportion, but with qualitative conditions of the army exclusively, which was renewed by the local Moor tribes.