Here what the notitia says:
- the guard of the emperor (the scolae) is under the command of the magister officiorum
- the central field army (exercitus praesentalis - 2 in the east, one in the west) is composed of palatini, comitatenses and pseudocomitatenses and under the command of the magistri militum et equitum
Sorry, my fault beeing imprecise. I should have distinguished between scholae palatinae and vexillationes palatinae. The latter are the cavalry of the central field army. When I wrote "Palatini" above, I meant the scholae palatinae, who are not reporting to the magister militum.
On a campaign, they of course marched all together as also already mentioned above. For example Valens' exercitus at Adrianople contained the scholae palatinae, at least 1 central field army, the poor rest of the thracian army and some vanguard of Gratians army.
But it does not matter. The important point for our discussion is, that in the west you have just one central field army near Ravenna. In the east you got 2 near Constantinople. You also brought up an important point. The magistri militum did not just command their central field army near Constantinople or Ravenna, some regional Comes also reported to them. In the West theoretically every commander reported to the one and only magister. Theoretically, of course. I doubt Bonifazius would agree, that he ever had reported to Stilicho.
So for a more stable roman empire (principate), I would see strong provincial armies, perhaps combined to even stronger regional field armies. In order to enable these commanders to defend their border effectively.
To avoid, that these guys are usurping, you got 2 central field armies. But the commanders of the regional armies would not reporting to the central magistri. The central magistri are just additional armies to defend Italy or to reenforce regional armies, if needed.
Regarding the differences between the 2 senates I already mentioned a book above.
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