 Created and expanded from the core troops of the Emperor's personal bodyguards, the central field armies by 295 AD seem to have been too large to be accounted for as simple bodyguard forces, but were still too small to be able to campaign independently of legionary or vexillation support.Of the four troop types, the "limitanei" (border guards) were once considered to have been of the lowest quality, consisting largely of peasant-soldiers that were both "grossly inferior" to the earlier legions and inferior also to their counterparts in the mobile field armies.However, more recent work establishes that the "limitanei" were regular soldiers.