Both duke and count were distinguished when in armor by a golden cincticulus, the general’s waistband, as opposed to the scarlet cincticulus of legion legates of old. The duke and count received generous salaries as well as allowances that provided each with 190 personal servants and 158 personal horses. In place of the two praetorian prefects, Constantine introduced the posts of master of infantry and master of horse as the empire’s supreme military commanders. The post of praetorian prefect was retained, but in a civil administrative role, with several stationed throughout the empire as financial auditors reporting directly to their emperor. [Gibb., XVII]
Many fourth-and fifth-century Roman commanders had foreign blood, among them the counts Silvanus and Lutto, both Franks; Magnentius, a German; Ursicinus, who was probably an Alemanni German; and Stilicho, one of whose parents was a Vandal. The father of Count Bragatio, Master of Horse under Constantius II, was a Frank. Mallobaudes, who was a tribune with the armaturae, a heavy-armored element of the Roman household cavalry in the fourth century, was a Frank by birth, and went on to become king of the Franks. Victor, Master of Horse under the emperor Valens, was a Sarmatian.
XXVI. AUXILIARIES
The auxiliary was a foreign soldier who did not originally hold Roman citizenship. Most provinces and a number of allied states supplied men to fill auxiliary units of the Roman army. Some auxiliary units lived and fought alongside particular legions; others operated independently. In the AD 60s, for example, eight cohorts of Batavian light infantry were partnered with the 14th Gemina Legion.
At least two wings of auxiliary cavalry would also march with a specific legion, so that a legion, with its auxiliary support, would typically take the field with around 5,200 legionaries and a similar number of auxiliaries, creating a fighting force of 10,000 men. In the first century, it was assumed that a legion would always march with its regular auxiliary support units—Tacitus, referring to reinforcements received by Domitius Corbulo in the East in AD 54, described the arrival of “a legion from Germany with its auxiliary cavalry and light infantry.” [Tac., A, XIII, 35]
Independent auxiliary units provided the only military presence in so-called “unarmed” provinces—Mauretania in North Africa, for instance, was for many years only garrisoned by auxiliaries.
Although often armed in a similar manner to legionaries, auxiliaries wore breeches, sported light ringmail armor, and were referred to as “light infantry.” Specialist units such as archers, and slingers firing stones and lead shot, were always auxiliaries. Syria provided the best bowmen, while Crete and Spain’s Balearic Isles were famous for their slingers. Each legion had a small cavalry component of 128 men, as scouts and couriers, but auxiliaries made up all the Roman army’s independent cavalry units. Germans, and in particular Batavians, were the most valued cavalry.
Auxiliary
Light Infantry Soldier
Early second century (taken from Trajan’s column).
The auxiliary was paid just one third of the salary of the legionary; 300 sesterces a year until the reign of Commodus, when it increased to 400 sesterces. [Starr, V. I] The auxiliary also served for longer—twenty-five years, as opposed to the legionary’s sixteen-and later twenty-year enlistment (plus Evocati service). Once discharged, auxiliaries could not be recalled. They did not receive a retirement bonus, but both auxiliaries and seamen received an enlistment bonus, the viaticum, on joining the service, of 300 sesterces. [Ibid.]
From Britain to Switzerland, and from the Balkans to North Africa, tribes were responsible for supplying recruits for their particular ethnic auxiliary units, although there were occasional exceptions. Tiberius decreed that new recruits to the Thracian Horse would come from outside Thrace, much to the aggravation of the proud men of the existing Thracian Horse.
Copies of every individual patent of citizenship issued to discharged auxiliary soldiers were kept at the Capitoline Hill complex at Rome in the Temple of the Good Faith of the Roman People to its Friends. The auxiliary prized his certificate of citizenship; some had themselves depicted on their tombstones holding it. In AD 212, Commodus made Roman citizenship universal, eliminating citizenship as an incentive for auxiliary service.
A typical auxiliary who served his twenty-five years and gained his citizenship was Gemellus from Pannonia, who joined up in AD 97 during the reign of Nerva, and was granted his citizenship on July 17, AD 122 in the reign of Hadrian. Just as a legionary could be transferred between the legions with promotion, auxiliaries moved between different units. When Gemellus received his honorable discharge, he was a decurion with the 1st Pannonian Cohort. His career had seen him work his way from 7th cohort to 1st, serving in units from the Balkans, France, Holland, Spain, Switzerland and Greece, including a stint with the 7th Thracian Cohort in Britain.
Even after they obtained their citizenship, auxiliaries frequently signed up for a new enlistment. Lucius Vitellius Tancinus, a cavalry trooper of the Vettonian Wing, born at Caurium in Spain, joined the army at the age of 20, served his twenty-five-year enlistment in Britain, obtained his citizenship, then signed on for another term. A year later, at the age of 46, he died, probably seeking a cure for whatever ailed him at the Temple of Aquae Sulis in Bath, the waters of which had legendary healing powers.
During most of the imperial era, auxiliary units were commanded by prefects, always members of the Equestrian Order, and frequently young gentlemen of Rome. But in some cases, auxiliary units were commanded by nobles from their own tribe. These ethnic prefects were rarely permitted to rise above prefect rank.
A BRITISH AUXILIARY EARNS EARLY RETIREMENT
The reward for brave service for Rome
On August 10, AD 110, Novanticus, a foot soldier born and raised in the town of Ratae, modern-day Leicester in England, was standing at assembly in a Roman army camp at Darnithethis in recently conquered Dacia. Novanticus was a Celtic Briton. He and some 1,000 other young Celts had joined the Roman army in the spring of AD 98, enrolled by the recently enthroned emperor Trajan in a new auxiliary light infantry unit honored with the emperor’s family name: the Cohors I Brittonum Ulpia, or 1st Brittonum Ulpian Cohort.
Three years later, the 1st Brittonum had been one of many units in the 100,000-man Roman army that had invaded Dacia. Novanticus and his British comrades had fought so fiercely and so bravely in the bitterly contested battles in the mountains and passes of Dacia, that, four years after the country had been conquered, the emperor granted all the surviving members of the unit honorable discharges, thirteen years before their twenty-five-year enlistments were due to expire.
At assembly, Novanticus presented himself before his commanding officer and was handed a set of bronze sheets just large enough to fit in one hand. This was the Briton’s discharge certificate, a copy of which would go to Rome to be displayed with hundreds of thousands of others. With discharge, Novanticus received the prize of Roman citizenship. With citizenship, he could take a multipart Roman name. Novanticus chose a name that honored the emperor he had loyally served for the past twelve years.
“To the foot soldier Marcus Ulpius Novanticus, son of Adcobrovatus, of Ratae,” the commander read, “for loyal and faithful service in the Dacian campaigns, before the completion of military service.” [Discharge certificate of Marcus Ulpius Novanticus, British Museum]
Marcus Ulpius Novanticus would return home to Britain to enjoy the fruits of his military service and raise a family. Nearly 2,000 years later, his bronze discharge certificate would emerge from the British earth to tell of his part in the Roman war machine.
XXVII. THE USE OF MULTIPART NAMES BY ROMAN AUXILIARIES AND SAILORS
Until AD 212, when Commodus introduced universal Roman citizenship, auxiliaries, marines and seamen in the Roman navy were not Roman citizens. Non-citizens, so-called peregrines, traditionally only used a single name—Genialus, for example. A Latin multipart name such as Gaius Julius Genialus was the preserve of those with the Latin franchise. Accordingly, students of Roman history, from the
famous nineteenth-century German scholar Theodor Mommsen onwards, came to assume that anyone recorded with a multipart name had to be a Roman citizen. But, as Professor Chester Starr and others point out, non-citizens serving in the Roman military not infrequently used Latin names, and consequently the legal status of a Roman soldier or sailor cannot always be ascertained from their name. [Starr, V. I]
Among other examples, Starr, quoting three other eminent scholars, cites the cases of Isidorus and Neon, two non-citizen Egyptian recruits to the 1st Cohort Lusitanorum Praetoria who immediately changed their names to Julius Martialis and Lucius Julius Apollinaris on enrolling. Octavius Valens, an Alexandrine recruit to the same unit, could not have possessed Latin rights either, despite using a Latin name. [Ibid.]
Claudius attempted to stamp out this practice, forbidding peregrines to adopt Roman family names. But under later emperors the practice revived, and, as Starr notes, auxiliaries came to take on Latin names “at their pleasure.” [Ibid.] Until the reign of Nero, auxiliaries recruited into the German Guard (the imperial bodyguard) took Greek or Latin names, or cobbled Latin names to their native names on joining. [Speid., 4] During Nero’s reign, numerous serving members of the German Guard bore tri-part names which included their native name and “Tiberius Claudius.” [Ibid.] This was in honor of Nero’s predecessor Claudius, in whose reign these men would have joined the unit.
In the reign of Trajan, auxiliary troopers of the Augustan Singularian Horse, the household cavalry, routinely added the names Marcus Ulpius to their own immediately on joining. This would always mark them as men who served the emperor. Likewise, in the reign of Hadrian, when recruits joined this same unit, many took the names of that emperor, Publius Aelius. [Ibid.]
By the second century, the practice of non-citizens using multipart Latin names was not only commonplace but was accepted at the highest levels, as is made clear by a c. AD 106 letter of Pliny the Younger to Trajan, in which he wrote, “I pray you further to grant full Roman citizenship to Lucius Satrius Abascantus, Publius Caesius Phosphorus and Pancharia Soteris.” [Pliny, X, II]
Latin names were in extensive use by men serving in second-century auxiliary units despite the fact they had yet to gain Roman citizenship. This is plain to see in an AD 117 report from the 1st Lusitanorum Cohort in Egypt. The report details the receipt of new recruits from the province of Asia and their distribution to various centuries within this auxiliary cohort. The names of the standard-bearers of those auxiliary centuries are all either double-or triple-barreled. [Tom., DRA]
The few surviving records of complete careers of centurions and decurions who served in auxiliary units reveal that those men were Roman citizens, having started out as legionaries before being promoted and transferred to auxiliary units. Yet a ration report from the cavalry wing stationed at Luguvalium in Britain, in the late first or early second century, refers to most of the decurions who commanded the sixteen troops of cavalry at the fort by single name. But all these were nicknames, among them: Agilis (Nimble), Docilis (Docile), Gentilis (Kinsman), Mansuetus (Gentle), Martialis (Warlike), Peculiaris (Special Friend), and Sollemnis (Solemn).
An example of a peregrine who adopted a multipart Latin name as soon as he joined the Roman navy is second-century Egyptian seaman Apion, who wrote home to his family in Egypt to tell them that he had arrived safely at the fleet base at Misenum on Italy’s west coast and joined the crew of the warship Athenonike. Almost as an aside, he finished his letter with, “My name is now Antonius Maximus.” [Starr, V, I]
XXVIII. NUMERI
From the second century, units made up of foreign troops called numeri—literally “numbers”—served with the Roman army as frontier guards, supplied by northern neighbors including the Sarmatians and Germans. Numeri was a generic title for a unit that was not of standard size or structure. No information exists about them. More than twenty numeri units served in Britain alone. [Hold., RAB, Indices]
XXIX. MARINES AND SAILORS
Marines served with the two principal Roman battle fleets, at Misenum near Naples, and at Ravenna on the northeast coast, on the Adriatic, as well as with the lesser fleets around the empire. Marine cohorts also acted as firefighters at major ports such as Ostia and Misenum.
Always non-citizens, and frequently former slaves, marines and sailors were considered inferior to both the legionary and the auxiliary. The marine, the miles classicus, was paid less than the legionary and served longer, for twenty-six years. Seamen operating the oars and sails of Rome’s warships served under identical conditions to marines, and also received weapons training, to allow them to repel boarders and to act as boarders. Both marines and seamen were organized into centuries, under centurions, aboard their vessels. A libernium, the smallest Roman war galley, typically had a crew of 160 seamen and forty marines.
Marines were trained to operate catapults that fired burning missiles from their ships. They were also involved in close-quarters combat, throwing javelins at enemy ships alongside, often from elevated wooden towers erected on deck. And they formed boarding parties to take enemy ships.
II
THE LEGIONS
“Heaven certainly inspired the Romans with the organization of the legion, so superior does it seem to human invention.”
VEGETIUS, De Re Militari, FOURTH CENTURY AD
The Roman legion was more than just a collection of armed men. Each was an institution, with a distinct identity, and a history, sometimes of fame, sometimes of shame. The original imperial legions were not numerous—just twenty-five at the death of the first emperor, Augustus, and thirty a century later under Trajan. Many remained in existence for over 400 years. Although, by the time Rome’s fall loomed, many of her once feared and revered legions had disappeared or been relegated to border guard duties. Some legions were consistently reliable, some overcame humiliating defeats to claim glory, while others seemed fated to lead lackluster careers. These are the legions which made Rome great.
I. LEGION ORGANIZATION
“The peculiar strength of the Romans always consisted of the excellent organization of their legions,” said Vegetius. [Vege., II] He was writing in the late fourth century, when the military organization introduced by Augustus more than 400 years before had been so degraded over time as to make the legions of Vegetius’ day pale imitations of the imperial originals.
From 30 BC, Augustus took the 6,000-man republican legion, with its ten cohorts of 600 men, and turned it into a unit with nine cohorts of 480 men, and a so-called “double strength” 1st cohort of 800 men charged with the protection of the legion’s commander and eagle standard. To this, Augustus added a legion cavalry squadron of 128 men, making a legion, on paper, amount to 5,248 men, including 59 centurions, plus three senior officers, its legate, its broadstripe tribune and its camp-prefect. Added to this were five thin-stripe tribune officer cadets.
Cohorts 2 to 10 were broken down into three maniples, each of 160 men, with every maniple made up of two centuries, each now of 80 men as opposed to the 100-man century of the republican legion. The 1st cohort comprised five maniples, or ten centuries.
The smallest sub-unit in the imperial legion was the contubernium, or squad, of eight men. These eight men shared the same tent, cooked together, ate together, fought and died together. In 1963, Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks, a renowned British corps commander during World War II, was to remark that in an average group of ten fighting men, two are leaders, seven follow, and one doesn’t want to be there. [Horr., SSW] A similar generalization could probably have applied to the men of a legionary contubernium.
Tacitus spoke of “the military custom by which a soldier chooses his comrade” in his day, indicating that legionaries were encouraged to choose a comrade from their squad who would watch their back in battle and who, if the worse came to the worst, would bury them and ensure that the terms of their will were followed. [Tac., H, I, 18]
II. LAWRENCE KEPPIE’S LEGION NUMBER FORMULA
Explaining the
origins of the 5th to 10th Legions
From Livy, we know that in the second century BC, Rome had the 5th, 7th and 8th legions stationed in Spain. We find the 5th and 8th there in 185 BC and the 5th and 7th there in 181 BC. A little earlier, the 11th, 12th and 13th legions had been campaigning in Cisalpine Gaul. [Livy, XXXIX, 30, 12]
Modern legion scholar Dr. Lawrence Keppie suggests that, following the series of legion numbers 1 to 4, which were reserved for the consuls, the Senate of the Republic traditionally allocated the legion numbers from west to east across the empire, with legions 5 to 10 in Spain, 11, 12, and 13 in Cisalpine Gaul, and with higher numbers sent to the East, with the 18th Legion, for example, stationed in Cilicia. [Kepp., MRA, 2] Much circumstantial evidence supports this formula.
On the basis of the Keppie formula, it is highly likely that when Julius Caesar took up the post of governor of Baetica, or Further Spain, in 61 BC, the 5th, 7th and 8th legions were still based in Rome’s then two Spanish provinces, along with a 6th and a 9th. Plutarch says that there were already two legions based in Baetica that spring, when Caesar arrived in Corduba, the provincial capital, and immediately raised a new legion in the province. [Plut., Caesar] Following the Keppie formula, it is clear that this new unit would have been the latest incarnation of the 10th Legion. Caesar would not raise the 11th and 12th, in Cisalpine Gaul, until two years later.
Caesar himself wrote that in 58 BC he was served in Gaul by “four veteran legions”—as events were to show, these were the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th. [Caes., GW, I, 24] It is probable that he had asked the Senate to give him the three that had served under him in Baetica two years earlier, plus another Spanish-based legion. Caesar says that the Senate soon returned the legion complement in Spain to six. [Caes., CW, I, 85] The Keppie formula suggests that the 5th and 6th legions were left behind in Spain when the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th joined Caesar for his Gallic campaigns.
Legions of Rome Page 5
