So I have a few questions about the Late Roman Empire, mostly meaning post-Diocletian, but I'll probably asks questions about the era directly before (the Crisis of the Third Century).
1) What were the common styles of dress throughout the 300s? How much did it differ from place to place within either the Eastern or Western Roman Empire?
2) What was the structure of the armies of the Western Roman Empire, as well as the armies operating in the western half of the Empire pre-Diocletian? How were they generally equipped, what kind of armor and weapons did the use, how did their command structure and ranks work?
3) Regarding the
foederati, how were they armed, generally speaking? Of the most prominent foederati, what equipment or command structure did they have?
4) How secretive or public were the various non-Roman pantheon religions during the immediate pre-Christian era? I mean, Sol Invictus seems to have been fairly public, while the
"mystery cults" seem to have been quite, well, mysterious. So how much of a public face did the various religious groups have? Specifically, would any of the "new" religions ever dispute each other in public and/or have generals, senators, or provincial governors openly or secretly in their pocket (pre-Constantine)?
5) This is a bit AH-y, but assuming Rome or Constantinople were not available as capitals, what cities would the East and Western halves of the Empire respectively consider as capitals?
6) How much power did the generals have over the last Western emperors? I get that they could remove an emperor from power and murder them fairly easily, but how much power or influence did the have over the population? Were there ever competing generals? And did the population generally acknowledge that the generals were the ones actually in power, or did they think the emperors were in charge?
7) Lastly, besides Wikipedia, what are some good sources on the Late Roman Empire/Late Antiquity?