Welcome back Potocello!

No, you can't recruit any units at all at this point. You have to be Chancellor (and have permission from the Basileus), a satrap or a Chreopylax (sp?) to do that (and only in the case of Chancellor can you actually add it to the recruitment/building queue, otherwise you have to write it in your SOT).

The "can lead an 8 unit army" thing simply means that if you are appointed to lead an army, you can command up to 8 units, but no more than that. So, for example, you can't command my full Royal Army because it is more than 8 units strong.