RECRUITING AND DISTRIBUTION
In making a levy for the auxiliary regiments, the imperial government
was under no obligation to be at pains to legalize its position. In
an ancient state it was assumed, as a matter of course, that the
government had the power to call upon every citizen, if need arose, to
take his place in the fighting line. Even the privileged _cives Romani_
were never freed under the Empire from the legal obligation to military
service, however much they may have been spared in practice, so that
there can have been little doubt about the position of _peregrini_.
Only in the case of the _civitates foederatae_ was the government
theoretically required to limit its demands to the number of men
stipulated in the original _foedus_.
So much for the position in theory; in practice, of course it was not
to the interests of the government to raise troops without considering
the susceptibilities of its subjects, more particularly since the
inhabitants of those districts which would furnish the best soldiers
would also prove the most dangerous rebels if the demands made upon
them exceeded their endurance. One instance of the conciliatory policy
followed by the early Empire has already been noted; the exemption of
the Batavians from all burdens but military service flattered their
pride and enlisted their clan-spirit effectually on the side of the
Romans. Evidence of a similar policy is apparent in the selection of
the ethnical titles borne by the majority of the auxiliary regiments.
In spite of the obvious convenience of such a step it was unusual for
all the auxilia raised in one province to form a single series with
a uniform designation. Wherever the clan-spirit existed, the name of
the clan was accepted as the official title of the contingent which it
furnished to the imperial forces.[158] In Tarraconensis, for example,
while the more civilized part of the province was represented by the
alae and cohortes Hispanorum, several of the wild tribes of the north
and west, such as the Aravaci, Vardulli, and Vascones gave their name
to the regiments which they supplied.[159] The Gallic levies reveal a
similar policy; while the contingents of the comparatively peaceful
Lugdunensis seem to be covered by the general title of Galli, a list
of the levies of Belgica contains the name of almost every tribe in
that warlike province.[160] Indeed it is probable that during the first
years of the Empire many of these tribal contingents fought, like the
Batavians, as allies rather than as subjects of Rome, and knew little
of Roman training or discipline.
In the East the historic position of the great city-states of Syria
received similar recognition. Among the numerous regiments of archers
contributed by this province we can distinguish the contingents of
Ascalon, Tyre, Antioch, and Apamea, as well as corps from Chalcis,
Damascus, Hemesa, and Samaria, who represented the incorporated armies
of the old client states.
The incidence of the levy upon different provinces can best be judged
by a statistical table giving the number of regiments raised in each.
This is not easy to construct owing to the confusion caused by the
duplication of numbering, and the consequent danger of counting the
same corps twice over, or of reckoning two corps as one. There were,
for example, in Pannonia two cohorts, each bearing the title ‘I
Alpinorum’, which can fortunately be distinguished from one another
because they are both mentioned in the same diploma, but there are
scores of similar cases which can only be decided as yet on a balance
of probabilities. This extremely inconvenient system seems to be due
to two causes. In the first place, when new regiments were raised some
time after the original levy they seem to have begun a fresh series
instead of being included in the old ones. This process can be followed
most clearly in the case of regiments raised after 70, which were
distinguished by a title derived from the name of the reigning emperor.
Thus we have cohorts I and II Flavia Brittonum, I Ulpia Brittonum,
I Aelia Brittonum, and I Aurelia Brittonum.[161] Secondly, it seems
probable that when newly-raised regiments were drafted into different
provinces they were numbered in a different series in each province.
This suggestion is supported by the fact that where a regiment bearing
a high number is found, it generally appears that the rest of the
series was originally stationed in the same province, whereas isolated
cohorts generally have a low number. For example, the greater part of
the Gallic levies were originally stationed on the Rhine. Consequently,
we find few duplicate numbers and several series which run up to four
or even higher. The Thracian regiments, on the other hand, on account
of their special utility as archers, were distributed very widely
throughout the Empire during the first century, and of the twenty-seven
corps known to us, seventeen are numbered I or II, and are distributed
over eight provinces.
Apart from this difficulty the following list contains in any case more
regiments than ever existed at any one time. Fresh regiments must have
been raised to fill the gaps caused by such disasters as the defeat
of Varus and the rebellion of Boudicca, but in only a few cases can
we distinguish the earlier from the later levies. It is only possible
to put in a separate class those regiments which bear a title derived
from the Flavians or later emperors, and were probably raised after 70.
Still, if these limitations are borne in mind, the following table may
serve to show approximately the quota which each province contributed:
A. Raised before 70. B. Raised after 70.
_Recruiting area._ _Alae._ _Cohorts._ _Alae._ _Cohorts._
Britain 2 10[162] 0 6
Belgica 5 45 1 11[163]
Lugdunensis 25[164] 24[165] 0 0
Aquitania 0 7 0 0
Narbonensis 2[166] 0 0 0
Alpes[167] 1 12 0 0
Raetia 0 18 0 1
Noricum 1 1 0 0
Pannonia 5 17 3 1
Dalmatia 0 7 0 4[168]
Moesia 1 3[169] 1 2[170]
Dacia 0 0 1 6
Thrace 9 20 0 2
Macedonia 0 3[171] 0 0
Galatia 1[172] 0 0 6[173]
Cilicia 0 3 0 1
Cyprus 0 4 0 0
Crete 0 1 0 0
Cyrenaica 0 4 0 0
Syria 3[174] 15[175] 1 12
Palestine[176] 2 10 0 0
Arabia 0 0 1 6
Egypt 0 2 0 0
Africa 2 5 3 6
Mauretania 0 0 0 3[177]
Tarraconensis 11 49[178] 1 4
Lusitania 0 9 0 0
Corsica and Sardinia 0 4 0 2
The first point to notice in this list is the smallness of the
contingent from the senatorial provinces. So small is it that Mommsen
desired to see here evidence of a constitutional principle.[179] The
auxilia were ‘gewissermassen eine Hausmacht des Kaisers’ and as such
raised only in the provinces governed by his _legati_. Such instances
as were then known of regiments raised in senatorial provinces were,
he thought, susceptible of explanation. The alae Vocontiorum, for
instance, represented a _civitas foederata_ which was not, strictly
speaking, a part of the senatorial province of Narbonensis. It does
not, however, seem possible to maintain this theory. The Cohors I
Cretum[180] is a certain case of a regiment from a senatorial province,
nor can it be really doubted that contingents were also drawn from
Cyprus[181] and Cyrene.[182] Indeed, it is difficult to see what
legal or political obstacle should prevent Augustus and his successors
from utilizing the military material available in the senatorial
provinces. Even if Mommsen is right in believing that conscription,
as opposed to the enrolment of volunteers, could only take place in a
senatorial province with the authority of the Senate (and this theory
is questioned by both Gardthausen and Liebenam),[183] there is no
reason why levies should not have been made for the auxilia under these
conditions when they certainly were made for the legions.[184] In no
case did any military power remain in the hands of the Senate, since
the recruits would immediately be marched away to garrison imperial
provinces. As a matter of fact, the reason for the smallness of the
senatorial contingent seems to have been a practical one. Few auxilia
were raised from Narbonensis and Baetica, because the greater part of
the inhabitants of these provinces had received the franchise and were
consequently eligible for service in the legions. Achaia, Asia, and to
a certain extent Macedonia, were treated as being on the same footing,
partly because Greeks did actually serve in the Eastern legions, partly
because of the Philhellenic policy of the imperial government, which
would not deny to the Greek states, although they were technically
unenfranchised, the privileges enjoyed by the enfranchised urban
communities of the West. Also no doubt the Greek of the period was not
rated highly as a fighting man. On the other hand, from Cyrenaica,
Crete, Cyprus, parts of Macedonia, and Africa[185] useful troops could
be and were obtained. The way in which the system worked is shown by
the case of Noricum, which, although an imperial province, included
many enfranchised communities and contributed recruits to the Rhine
legions in the middle of the first century.[186] Its contribution of
auxilia in consequence is limited to one ala and one cohort, as against
the eighteen regiments furnished by the neighbouring province of Raetia.
In contrast to Narbonensis, it was upon the remaining three Gallic
provinces that the levy fell most heavily. From this district came more
than a quarter of the auxiliary infantry[187] in the pre-Flavian period
and nearly half the cavalry. The Gallic troopers indeed maintained for
a century the reputation which they had won under Caesar’s command,
and Strabo,[188] writing in the reign of Augustus, places them above
all other cavalry in the imperial army. Arrian,[189] too, notes their
reputation and the number of Celtic words in the cavalry drill-book,
although in his day their position had been taken by the Pannonians,
already prominent in the campaign of 69.[190] Spain sent the largest
contingent after the Gallic provinces, and also contributed a few
words to the drill-book,[191] but we hear nothing of the quality of
the Spanish troops and they soon lost their early importance. The
predominance of the auxilia of Spain and Gaul in the pre-Flavian period
is, however, a clear indication of the determination of Augustus to
base the Empire on its Western provinces. Archers alone, and these in
comparatively small numbers, were drawn from the East,[192] which was
still regarded as the home of dangerous and un-Roman ideals.
Lastly, a word must be said about a group of regiments which do not
appear in the above lists and are too numerous to be passed over.
These are the cohorts which bear the titles _voluntariorum civium
Romanorum_, _ingenuorum c. R._, _Italica c. R._, and _campestris_.[193]
Collectively these regiments constitute the _cohortes civium
Romanorum_ to the soldiers of which Augustus left by his will a
donative equal to that of the legionaries.[194] From various passages
in the literary authorities it appears that they represent the
result of two levies made by Augustus in Italy, the first during the
Pannonian rising, and the second after the defeat of Varus.[195] When
free-born citizens could not be found in sufficient numbers the levy
was extended to freedmen.[196] This is corroborated by the evidence
of the inscriptions, since the title _ingenuorum_ clearly implies the
existence of regiments whose members could not make this boast.[197]
Originally, as the provisions of the will of Augustus show, these
cohorts occupied a peculiar position, and were practically on a level
with the legionaries, in consequence of which their commanders bear
the title of _tribunus_.[198] The presence, however, of the Cohors VIII
Voluntariorum on the Dalmatian diploma of 93 shows that unenfranchised
recruits had been accepted even during the pre-Flavian period, and in
the following century only their title distinguishes these regiments
from the ordinary auxilia.
The evidence hitherto considered has mainly served to illustrate
the original distribution of the burden of military service and the
respective quotas furnished by the different provinces to the auxilia
at the time of their organization. To trace the further workings of
this system it is necessary to examine the principles on which the
auxiliary regiments were distributed among the military areas and
to trace the relations between this distribution and the method of
recruiting.
A casual glance at the military diplomata, which give a fair idea of
the composition of the more important provincial garrisons between
the reign of Vespasian and that of Commodus, suggests that it was the
settled policy of the imperial government to destroy the possibility
of national cohesion and local sympathies among the regiments raised
from their subjects by distributing the contingents of each recruiting
district over as wide an area as possible, and making every frontier
army corps a mosaic of different nationalities. It will be shown
later that this theory, which has been frequently adopted by modern
writers, will not stand before a closer scrutiny of the evidence as an
explanation of the state of things existing in the second century; it
can also be shown that such a principle of distribution was not the
original policy inaugurated by Augustus.
Our earliest evidence relates to the composition of the garrison of
the Danubian provinces, and the account of the great rising which
took place here in the year A.D. 6 by the contemporary observer
Velleius makes it clear that the strength of the rebels lay in the
training which many had received in the Roman army. His reference to
the military knowledge of the leaders and the discipline of the rank
and file indicates that regular auxiliary regiments, raised locally
and stationed near their homes, had mutinied in sympathy with their
fellow tribesmen.[199] Concerning the state of things on the Rhine
frontier we have more detailed information which points to the same
conclusion. The account in the _Annals_ of the campaigns of Germanicus
mentions cohorts of Raeti, Vindelici, and Gauls in addition to the
_tumultuariae catervae_ of the local militia.[200] Later in the century
we find an Ala Treverorum engaged in putting down a revolt of their own
countrymen in 21,[201] an Ala Canninefatium engaged in the disastrous
expedition of L. Apronius against the Frisii in 28,[202] and Vangiones
and Nemetes helping to repulse a raid of the Chatti in 50.[203]
Finally, when we turn to the narrative contained in the _Histories_
of the events of the disastrous year 69, we find abundant evidence
that at this date three-fourths of the Rhenish auxilia were drawn
from Gaul proper or the Teutonic tribes of Belgica. The only regiments
mentioned by Tacitus which are not of local origin are (1) Thracians,
who appear on every frontier owing to their special qualifications as
archers;[204] (2) Spaniards, who may have entered the province in 43
with Legio IV Macedonica, which was transferred from Spain to the Rhine
to replace the troops sent to Britain, and (3) Britons, who probably
began to arrive from the newly conquered areas a few years later.[205]
Epigraphical evidence adds to the list a few regiments from the
Danubian provinces and some corps of oriental archers.[206]
In other provinces the same policy can be traced, although the evidence
is less abundant. In Africa, for example, the deserter Tacfarinas seems
to have served in his own province,[207] and in Palestine we find
Samaritan regiments garrisoning Caesarea.[208] On the whole there is
sufficient evidence to show that although each of the great frontier
armies contained imported elements, in particular the ubiquitous
Thracian and oriental archers, the original policy of the imperial
government was to draw the auxilia in each case from the nearest
recruiting-areas.
Both the advantages and the defects of this system are sufficiently
obvious. It saved trouble, a reason which had already commended it to
the administrators of the Republic, and it avoided the dangerous and
widespread discontent which, as the case of the Thracians shows, would
have followed any wholesale attempt to remove the newly organized
regiments to distant provinces.[209] Lastly, the men would be fighting
on ground which they knew against an enemy with whose methods of
fighting they would already be acquainted. On the other hand, there
was of course the obvious danger that in a border war which assumed
the character of a national struggle the local auxilia might desert to
their own countrymen and use the training which they had acquired in
the Roman service to increase the strength of the hostile resistance.
As a set-off to this danger the Romans reckoned with some justice
that tribal enmity was usually stronger than national feeling, and
in fact there were many tribal chiefs like Flavus, the brother of
Arminius, who were well content with the rewards and distinctions
which recompensed their fidelity.[210] Events, however, made it clear
that this confidence was misplaced. A time was to come when the border
tribes would identify themselves readily with the cause of imperial
defence, but the influences which were to bring about this result were
often slow in their operation, and the first century saw on almost
every frontier a more or less serious outbreak of national feeling,
in which the auxilia often participated. Yet even the most serious of
these revolts, that of Civilis in 69, showed how the new leaven was
working. The political conceptions of the mutineers were borrowed from
their conquerors, not from their ancestors, and in the darkest hour of
the revolt a Gallic cavalry regiment, the Ala Picentiana, was the first
to return to its fidelity.[211]
The first district in which the Augustan policy broke down was the
Danubian provinces, and a glance at the names of the regiments
stationed here in the pre-Flavian period shows that the lesson of the
great rebellion was not thrown away upon the imperial authorities.
In Pannonia a diploma of the year 60[212] shows us the following
seven cohorts, I and II Alpinorum, I Asturum et Callaecorum, I and II
Hispanorum, I Lusitanorum, and V Lucensium et Callaecorum, forming part
of the garrison of the province, and we may add the Ala Aravacorum
on the strength of an early inscription.[213] In Dalmatia early
inscriptions give the following cohorts:
I Campanorum Voluntariorum civium Romanorum. iii. 8438.
VIII Voluntariorum civium Romanorum. iii. 1742.[214]
III Alpinorum. iii. 8491, 8495, 14632.
I Lucensium. iii. 8486, 8492, 8494, 9834. All these must date before
80, when the regiment appears in Pannonia.
This list might perhaps be lengthened, but it is sufficient for our
purpose. It is clear that after the rebellion Augustus imported
into the disturbed area a number of regiments from other provinces,
particularly from Spain, where the large garrison maintained during
the earlier part of his reign could now safely be reduced. The
Pannonian and Dalmatian regiments, on the other hand, were transferred
elsewhere—several of them, as we have seen, to the Rhine, where they
served to replace the troops who shared the fate of the legions of
Varus.[215]
The same sequence of events took place on the Rhine in the years 69 and
70. The temporary success of Civilis was largely due to the wholesale
defection to his standard of the Gallic and Teutonic regiments then
stationed on the Rhine frontier. After the suppression of the rebellion
in the summer of 70 a number of these regiments were disbanded or
sent elsewhere,[216] and their place was taken by the auxilia who had
accompanied the new legions sent into the province by Vespasian. Of the
29 regiments which appear in the Rhine in the second century only 11
bear titles indicating a local origin, and some of these had probably
not belonged to the pre-Flavian garrison but had only returned to their
native country in 70 after a long stay in other provinces. It has
been noticed, for example, that of the two veterans of the Cohors I
Aquitanorum, to whom the diplomata of 82 (D. xiv) and 90 (D. xxi) were
granted, one is a Thracian, the other a Galatian; further, that one of
these diplomata was found near the site of the later town of Nicopolis
ad Istrum, where the owner had presumably settled after his discharge.
This suggests that the regiment had been stationed in Moesia and only
returned to its native province in 70 with the Moesian legion VIII
Augusta.
It is on these two frontiers, the Rhine and the Danube, that the
transfer of troops can most easily be traced, because of the importance
of the military events which caused it to take place. In other parts
of the Empire other tendencies were at work during the first century
which produced the same result in less noticeable fashion. One need
only mention the steady drift of troops from the Danube to the East
in the reign of Nero,[217] and from the Rhine to the Danube a little
later,[218] and it is easily intelligible that the second-century army
list shows few traces of the original policy of Augustus.
If, then, it were correct to assume that the title of an auxiliary
regiment is always a correct index of its composition, it would
certainly be justifiable to comment on the extraordinary mixture
of nationalities in the frontier garrisons of the second century.
Fortunately, however, the frequent mention of the origin of individual
soldiers on diplomata and sepulchral inscriptions[219] gives us the
means of checking this assumption and of working upon a surer basis
of fact. The following lists give the inscriptions of this type from
Pannonia arranged in two groups according to their date, the year
70 being taken as the dividing line; that is to say, the soldiers
mentioned in the first group were _enrolled_ before that date.
Some inscriptions which could not be dated with any certainty have
necessarily been omitted, also others where there was reason to believe
that the soldier mentioned was enrolled when his regiment was in a
different province.[220] To the second group, which illustrates the
recruiting system from the Flavian period onwards, a list of similar
inscriptions from Dacia has been added. In each case the title of the
regiment is followed by the nationality or place of origin of the
soldier, stated in the form given on the inscription, and by the name
of the province from which he was drawn. For reasons which will appear
later the evidence concerning the oriental regiments is omitted.
I. SOLDIERS RECRUITED BEFORE 70 AND STATIONED IN PANNONIA.
Ala II Hispanorum Hispanus Spain iii. 3271.
et Aravacorum[221]
Ala II Hispanorum Sueltrius Narbonensis iii. 3286.
et Aravacorum[221]
Ala Frontoniana Andautonia Pannonia iii. 3679.
Tungrorum[222]
Cohors II Hispanorum Cornacas Pannonia D. ci
(before 60).
Cohors II Hispanorum Varcianus Pannonia D. ii (60).
Cohors I Lusitanorum Iasus Pannonia D. xvii (85).
Cohors I Montanorum Bessus Thrace D. xiii (80).
Cohors I Montanorum Dalmatia Dalmatia D. xvi (84).
II. SOLDIERS RECRUITED AFTER 70.
_II. A. Pannonia Superior._
Ala I Ulpia Contariorum Helvetius Germania D. xlvii (133).
Ala I Ulpia Contariorum Bessus Thrace iii. 4378.
Ala I Ulpia Contariorum Siscia Pannonia iii. 13441.
Ala I Hispanorum Azalus Pannonia D. c (150).
Aravacorum
Ala Pannoniorum Apulum Dacia iii. 4372.
Ala I Thracum Boius Pannonia vi. 3308.
Victrix[223]
Cohors II Alpinorum Azalus Pannonia D. lxv (154).
Cohors I Britannica Dobunnus Britain D. xcviii (105).
Cohors V Lucensium Castris Pannonia D. lix (138-46).
et Callaecorum
Cohors V Lucensium Azalus Pannonia D. lxi (149).
et Callaecorum
Cohors I Ulpia Azalus Pannonia D. lx (148).
Pannoniorum
We may add here a recently discovered inscription from Samaria:
I(ovi) O(ptimo) M(aximo) mil(ites) v[e]xil(larii) coh(ortium)
P(annoniae) sup(erioris) cives Sisc(iani) Varcian(i) et Latobici sacrum
fecerunt. _A. E._ 1909. 235. 1910. p. 6.
The vexillation had presumably taken part in suppressing one of the
Jewish rebellions in the first half of the second century.
_II. B. Pannonia Inferior._
Ala I Thracum Veterana Eraviscus Pannonia D. lxxiv (167).
Sagittariorum
Cohors I Alpinorum Eraviscus Pannonia D. lxviii
(154-60).
Cohors I Thracum[224] Andautonia Pannonia iii. 4316.
_II. C. Dacia._
Ala I Gallorum et Bessus Thrace D. lxvii (158).
Bosporanorum
Ala I Hispanorum Dacus Dacia vi. 3238.
Campagonum[225]
Ala I Tungrorum Thrace iii. 799.
Frontoniana[226]
Vexillatio equitum Sebasto- Pontus D. xlvi (129).
Illyricorum[227] politanus
Ala I Illyricorum Dacus Dacia vi. 3234.
Cohors I Ulpia Britto Britain D. lxx
Brittonum (145-61).
Cohors III Campestris Scupi Moesia iii. 7289.
Superior
Cohors I Vindelicorum Caesarea Palestine(?) D. lxvi (157?).
The facts disclosed by these inscriptions are very significant. In the
first list, as is natural, we find traces of the troops transferred
into Pannonia from other provinces after the great rebellion. It is
more important, however, to notice that before the end of the reign
of Tiberius natives of the province were already being accepted for
service in these imported regiments.[228] In fact there is nothing here
to suggest that any attempt was made to preserve the national character
of these Spanish and Alpine corps by obtaining fresh drafts from the
districts in which they were originally raised. Those recruits who do
not come from Pannonia itself are drawn merely from the neighbouring
provinces of Dalmatia and Thrace.
But it would perhaps be misleading to infer from this evidence alone
that local recruiting was universally adopted in the first century,
although it was certainly common. It is possible that in the Flavian
period, when the memory of the rebellion of Civilis was still fresh,
some attempt was made to check a national cohesion by combining drafts
from different provinces in the same regiment. This at least is
suggested by the nationalities of twenty-one soldiers of an auxiliary
regiment which are recorded on a sepulchral inscription at Tropaeum
Traiani in Moesia Inferior.[229] This monument was erected in memory
of men killed in action during one of the Dacian campaigns either of
Domitian or Trajan, so that its evidence applies to the recruiting of
the Flavian period. Twelve of these men came from the Lower Rhine, two
from Lugdunensis, and three from Spain, while Raetia, Noricum, Britain,
and Africa supply one each.[230] In Pannonia, too, some Spanish
soldiers appear rather mysteriously in an Ala Pannoniorum on two
inscriptions which can hardly be later than the beginning of the second
century.[231] There are even traces of a similar policy having been
pursued in the recruiting for the legions during the same period. In a
list of seventy-six soldiers who were apparently enrolled in Legio III
Augusta towards the end of the first century, we find men from seven
different provinces.[232] In any case, however, no attempt seems to
have been made to preserve any connexion between an auxiliary regiment
and the tribe from which its title was derived.
When we come to the second century there is no more room for doubt;
for all cohorts and alae on the Pannonian frontier, leaving out of
account, as before, the oriental regiments, local recruiting has become
practically universal. Seventy per cent. of the recruits come from the
two Pannonian provinces, the majority from the Azali and the Eravisci,
tribes which never gave their name to an auxiliary regiment. Even
the Thracian regiments, which might have maintained their original
character without much difficulty, form no exception to the rule. In
Dacia the exceptionally large auxiliary garrison[233] could not be
supported entirely by local levies, but the deficiency was mostly made
up in the nearest available recruiting-grounds of Moesia and Thrace.
A few examples may be adduced from other provinces to show that the
methods employed on the Danube frontier were not exceptional. In
Germania Superior three soldiers of the Alae I and II Flaviae Geminae
describe themselves as Baetasius, Elvetius, and Secuanus, and the
Raetian diploma of the year 107 was granted to a Boian who had served
in the Ala I Hispanorum Auriana.[234] In Africa a soldier of the
Cohors VII Lusitanorum gives ‘castris’ as his place of origin, as do
the majority of the veterans discharged during the second century from
the African legion III Augusta.[235] Concerning the Eastern provinces
we have very little evidence, but it may be noted that of the large
number of regiments raised by Trajan in this part of the Empire the
majority remained stationed in the East throughout the following
century, and there is no reason to suppose that they were not kept up
by local levies.[236]
The recruiting of the legions during the second century seems to have
followed the same lines. The high proportion of men of Legio III
Augusta in Africa who give ‘castris’ as their birthplace has already
been noted. Similarly of 39 soldiers discharged from Legio II Traiana
at Alexandria in 194, 22 come from the ‘castra’, 8 from the Greek
towns in Egypt, and only 9 were not born in the province.[237] Of
133 soldiers discharged in the following year from Legio VII Claudia
stationed at Viminacium, 104 come from Upper or Lower Moesia, and
of the remainder all but one come from the Danubian provinces.[238]
Further evidence on the recruiting-area of the auxilia during this
period can be obtained from another source, the inscriptions of the
Equites Singulares Imperatoris. This corps, which seems to have been
raised towards the end of the first century, possibly by Domitian,[239]
formed thenceforward a part of the imperial guard, and was stationed
at Rome. It was recruited mainly from the same area as the auxiliary
alae, and a certain number of the men were selected from them.[240] On
a hundred epitaphs of members of this corps who recorded their place of
origin, the provinces are represented in the following proportions:[241]
Britain 2
Germania Inferior 1
Germania Superior 2
Belgica 1
Raetia 10
Noricum 9
Pannonia 30[242]
Dalmatia 1
Thrace 11
Moesia 4[242]
Dacia 7
Syria 4
Africa 2
Mauretania 3
The list shows that this _corps d’élite_ was not representative of
all the cavalry of the Empire; the proportion of orientals is far too
low. It was still upon the Western provinces that the emperors of the
second century relied, and from these, therefore, that the guard was
recruited. As regards these provinces, the composition of the Equites
Singulares reflects fairly accurately the relative importance of each
as a recruiting-ground for the auxiliary cavalry of this period, and
the change which has taken place in the military situation since the
days of Augustus is at once apparent. The Galli[243] and Hispani, who
were then the flower of the imperial cavalry, and continued to give
their names to nearly half the cavalry regiments in the service, have
entirely vanished. Speaking generally, in fact, the inland provinces
no longer contribute, and the recruiting-areas have contracted to the
purely frontier districts. The relative importance of these, too, has
altered since the beginning of the first century. The tribes on the
Lower Rhine are still well represented, but the contingent of the
German provinces is entirely surpassed by that of Pannonia. If we
assume that the honour of serving in the Guards was bestowed upon the
natives of each province in proportion to the size of the contingent
which they supplied to the cavalry of the line, this increased
importance of the Pannonians follows naturally upon the universal
adoption of local recruiting for the frontier armies; since not only
had the balance of military power now definitely shifted from the Rhine
to the Danube,[244] but local conditions required an exceptionally high
proportion of mounted men.[245]
The preceding survey of the evidence has purposely omitted that
dealing with the oriental regiments, which seemed, on account of its
exceptional character, to merit a special discussion. In Pannonia
and Dacia we find three such regiments, the Ala I Augusta Ituraeorum
and the Cohors I Hemesenorum in Pannonia Inferior, and the Cohors I
Augusta Ituraeorum, stationed in Pannonia during the first century, and
transferred to Dacia at the time of the creation of the province.[246]
Thanks to the recent work of Hungarian archaeologists, the second
of these corps, the Cohors I Hemesenorum Miliaria Equitata Civium
Romanorum Sagittariorum, to give it its full title, is perhaps better
known to us than any other auxiliary regiment.[247] Probably enrolled
in the Roman army at the beginning of the second century, at the time
of the annexation of the small client kingdom from which its name
was derived, this regiment had been transferred to Pannonia by the
beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius, and certainly remained in the
province until 240.[248] Throughout this period it seems to have been
stationed at Intercisa, where upwards of fifty inscriptions, chiefly
sepulchral, have now been discovered, the majority of the latter
belonging, as the frequent use of the name Aurelius shows, to the end
of the second and the beginning of the third century. Of the five
soldiers whose birthplace is mentioned on their tombstones, three came
from Hemesa itself, one from Samosata, and one from Arethusa,[249] and
the owner of a diploma which dates from between 138 and 146 came from
Syria.[250] It is clear, then, that during its whole stay in Pannonia
this regiment was not recruited, like the majority of the auxilia,
from the neighbouring district, but was constantly in receipt of fresh
drafts from the province in which it was originally raised. As further
proof of the tenacity with which this connexion was maintained, we
find that at the end of the reign of Severus the soldiers dedicated
a temple to their _deus patrius_ Sol Aelagabalus.[251] An examination
of the evidence dealing with the other oriental regiments leads to
the same result. Soldiers discharged in 98 and 110 from the Cohors
I Augusta Ituraeorum and the Ala of the same name, give Cyrrhus in
Syria and Ituraea as their places of origin, and another Ituraean
is mentioned on a sepulchral inscription of the latter regiment in
Pannonia.[252] Oriental regiments, and in particular oriental archers,
appear also on other provinces[253], and although there is a lack of
dated evidence we can hardly doubt that a rule which was maintained
along the whole Danube frontier also held good elsewhere.[254]
The reason for the adoption of these exceptional methods in the
recruiting of the oriental auxilia was probably the purely military one
that good archers were born in Syria, and could not be made elsewhere,
but the consequent presence in every frontier army of an oriental
element, holding firmly to its own customs and religious beliefs, was
a fact of more than military significance. In particular it must be
remembered that the enfranchised children of these oriental auxiliaries
were qualified and readily accepted for service in the legions. In the
inscriptions of the Cohors I Hemesenorum we have abundant evidence
of this process, which gave oriental ideas an opportunity for wider
penetration.[255]
The British regiments, too, show a tendency to keep up national
recruiting, although the evidence on this point is still scanty.[256]
In this case the explanation is probably to be found in the intractable
nature of the tribes of North Britain, which made it appear undesirable
to use the contingents which they supplied near at home. Certainly
all the British regiments seem to have been sent abroad, and only one
soldier of British origin is found in the province.[257] It would
appear, in fact, that the army of Britain was maintained largely
by drafts from the Rhine area, but the evidence at present is an
insufficient basis for any general conclusions. In Dacia, too, as
was natural, the auxilia raised immediately after the conquest were
transferred elsewhere. Here, however, there does not seem to have been
the same objection to local recruiting for the troops stationed in the
province, and the practice was certainly, as has been shown, in force
during the second century.
_The Numeri._
It is clear, then, that in the second century the cohorts and alae of
the Augustan system, with certain definite and limited exceptions, were
recruited locally from the provinces in which they were stationed,
without any general attempt to justify the ethnical titles which they
still bore. At the same moment, however, as this principle seems
definitely established, there begin to appear on inscriptions certain
regiments of a new type which stand outside the prevailing system.
These regiments are given the name _numerus_, which does not seem to
have had any very precise meaning, and for which it is difficult to
find an English equivalent. They also bore tribal titles, a list of
which is given below, together with the names of the provinces in which
_numeri_ of each tribe occur.[258]
_Brittones._ At least ten _numeri_ in Germania Superior. The earliest
inscriptions date from the reign of Pius, and the theory is generally
accepted that these Brittones were newly conquered tribesmen from the
district lying between the two frontier walls, deported after the
campaigns of Lollius Urbicus. These _numeri_ also bear secondary titles
derived from the names of the districts in which they were stationed,
e.g. Murrenses, clearly connected with the river Murr.[259]
_Germani._ Dacia.[260]
_Palmyreni._ Africa,[261] Dacia,[262] and probably Britain.[263]
_Mauri._ Dacia (as a vexillatio from Mauretania Caesariensis).[264]
Frequently also in the two Mauretanias.
_Raeti Gaesati_ (i.e. Raetians armed with the _gaesum_, a kind of
heavy spear). Britain.[265]
_Syri._ Dacia,[266] Mauretania,[267] Moesia Inferior,[268] and possibly
Britain.[269]
The titles show that these _numeri_ are closely connected with the five
_nationes_, Cantabri, Gaesati,[270] Palmyreni, Daci, and Brittones, who
form part of the army described by Hyginus, and are distinguished from
the cohorts and alae of the regular auxilia. In fact the term _numerus_
is not invariably found on inscriptions, and for a corps which simply
described itself as ‘Syri sagittarii,’[271] _natio_ may easily have
seemed a convenient term. It is also clear from Hyginus that what
distinguished the _numeri_ from the older formations was their looser
organization and more barbarous character, and their titles show that
they were drawn from the outermost borders of the Empire, or the most
uncivilized districts within it.
Evidence about the character of these troops is scanty; being the
least civilized part of the army they were not very prone to indulge
in inscriptions. We do not even know the size of a _numerus_,
or, indeed, if these regiments had any definite size at all. The
_nationes_ of Hyginus range from 500 to 900,[272] but the low rank of
the _praepositus numeri_ below the _praefectus cohortis_,[273] and
the smallness of the accommodation arranged for these regiments in
German forts, suggest 200 to 300 as a more probable figure. Smaller
they can hardly have been, since they are divided into centuries and
_turmae_.[274]
As regards recruiting, the Palmyrenes, at any rate, obtained fresh
drafts, not from the province in which they were stationed, but from
their native home. The numerus Palmyrenorum, which was stationed at
El-Kantara in Africa, has left inscriptions covering the whole period
from the middle of the second to the middle of the third century, which
show clearly what pains were taken to preserve the original character
of the regiment.[275] Similar inscriptions of a numerus Palmyrenorum
in Dacia give evidence of the same principle.[276] Unfortunately, we
cannot tell whether this was the case with all the _numeri_, or whether
the Palmyreni occupied in this respect the same peculiar position as
the oriental regiments among the regular auxilia.[277]
But whatever the later practice, the original intention of the imperial
government in raising this new class of troops seems to be clear. The
local recruiting of the regular auxilia presupposes a rapid progress of
‘Romanization’ among the provincials and the disappearance of all such
national feeling as had caused the mutiny of the German and Pannonian
auxilia in the first century. From the military point of view,
however, this advance in culture, although it facilitated the raising
of recruits, was by no means an unmixed blessing. The old levies of
wild tribesmen, schooled by centuries of local warfare, who strove to
preserve in the Roman service their local reputation, had qualities
which were lacking to the regiments of civilized Latin-speaking
provincials, in which national methods of fighting[278] had been
replaced by a uniform training and clan feeling by _esprit de corps_.
It was to provide a leaven of the old spirit that the _numeri_ were
raised from the wildest of the border tribes, and not only encouraged
to fight after the manner of their fathers, but even permitted to
continue the use of their native tongues.[279]
The first experiment of this kind was made by Trajan, when he brought
over Lusius Quietus and his _Mauri gentiles_ for the Dacian war,[280]
but it was probably Hadrian who made the _numeri_ a regular part of
the military system. It is in his reign that they first appear on
inscriptions, and it is to the _numeri_ that we must refer the passage
in Arrian’s _Tactica_, in which the emperor is praised for encouraging
his troops to keep up their national methods of fighting, and even
their national war-cries.[281] The tribes to whom he refers are Κελτοί
(by which Germans are probably meant),[282] Dacians, and Raetians. For
the first and third there is epigraphical evidence, and the last two
appear also among the _nationes_ of Hyginus. It appears, then, that
Hadrian was not, as is sometimes stated, the originator of the system
of local recruiting; rather he found it already in existence, and
sought to correct its defects by utilizing again in the service of the
Empire the clan spirit of uncivilized tribes, which had often proved so
useful in the past.
_The Praefecti._
The previous discussion of the methods by which the auxilia were
recruited has dealt only with the private soldiers, and, as a natural
corollary, with such officers as were promoted from the ranks. To
the position of _praefectus_, however, the private soldier could
not normally aspire, and he attained it, if at all, only under
exceptionally favourable circumstances.[283] Normally, the commanding
officers of the auxiliary regiments were drawn from an entirely
different social stratum to the men, and although the method of their
appointment varied and the area from which they were drawn shifted
its boundaries at different periods, these changes did not follow the
same lines as those which we have been tracing in connexion with the
recruiting of the rank and file.
The auxiliary commands are familiar to all students of the Roman Empire
from inscriptions of men who went through the equestrian career,
the first stage of which was formed by the posts of _praefectus
cohortis_, _tribunus legionis_, and _praefectus alae_. It has, however,
been pointed out by von Domaszewski[284] that this system was not
established until the middle of the first century. Under Augustus
and Tiberius, not only was the relative rank of these posts still
undetermined, but they were filled in many cases not by young men
beginning the equestrian _cursus_, but by veteran centurions from the
legions, especially the _primipili_. We have noticed this system in the
army of Caesar, so that here, as elsewhere, Augustus was continuing a
republican practice. The following inscriptions,[285] which are both of
early date, give typical careers of this character.
1. C. Pompullius C. f. Hor(atia) prim(us) pil(us), trib(unus)
mil(itum), praef(ectus) eq(uitum).
2. M. Vergilio M. f. Ter(etina) Gallo Lusio prim(o) pil(o)
leg(ionis) XI, praef(ecto) coh(ortis) Ubiorum peditum et equitum,
donato hastis puris duabus et coronis aureis ab Divo Augusto et Ti:
Caesare Augusto, &c.
This system is heartily commended by von Domaszewski, on the ground
that the auxilia were thus commanded by more skilful officers, and
were more under Roman (i.e. Italian) control than was the case in the
second century.[286] The assertion, however, seems far too sweeping,
since by no means all the auxiliary regiments were commanded by men
of this class; there were, on the contrary, many _praefecti_ at
this period who came neither from Italy nor even the more Romanized
provinces. The _Histories_ of Tacitus show clearly that at the end of
the pre-Flavian period a number of auxiliary regiments, particularly
those drawn from the more independent border tribes, were commanded
by their own chiefs. This practice had not sprung up during the reign
of Nero, but was a natural consequence of the development of these
corps from contingents supplied by states nominally ‘in alliance’
with Rome.[287] The eight Batavian cohorts who play such an important
rôle in the rebellion of 69 were so commanded,[288] as well as an
ala of the same tribe.[289] Iulius Civilis himself was a _praefectus
cohortis_,[290] and two Treveri, Alpinius Montanus and Iulius
Classicus, commanded a cohort and ala respectively.[291] All these
officers, as their names show, had doubtless received the franchise,
but they were employed in their capacity as tribal chiefs, not as
Roman citizens, and are to be distinguished from the _praefecti_, who
were drawn at this period from the Romanized districts of Spain and
from Gallia Narbonensis. It is chiefly as commanders of cohorts that
officers of this type appear, since many of the alae dated back, as we
have seen, to the period of the civil wars, and had long lost their
original character as tribal regiments. This explains the fact that
among Italian officers of this period, the title _praefectus alae_
or _praefectus equitum_ appears far more frequently than _praefectus
cohortis_, although the cohorts were of course more numerous than the
alae.
During the first half of the first century, therefore, we have a system
which differs widely from that revealed by the equestrian _cursus
honorum_. The establishment of the equestrian monopoly of the auxiliary
commands was, in fact, only completed by a series of reforms carried
out during the period which began with the administrative activity of
Claudius, and ended with the reorganization of the army by Vespasian
after the disastrous Civil War of 69.
The first of these changes was that the _praefecti_ ceased to be drawn
as before from among the veteran centurions of the legions. Early in
the reign of Claudius the post of _praefectus alae_ disappeared from
the career of the _primipili_, who were promoted henceforward to the
tribunate of one of the cohorts of Household Troops at Rome.[292]
Centurions of lower rank were still advanced to the command of cohorts
both in this and the succeeding periods, but such cases are very
rare.[293] A trace of the old connexion between the legionary officers
and the _militia equestris_ still survives, however, in the regular use
of a centurion as _praepositus cohortis_—that is to say, as temporary
commander in case of the death or absence of a _praefectus_.[294] The
_numeri_, too, were often placed in charge of an ex-centurion bearing
this title, an arrangement which was probably called for by the
intractable character of these barbarian irregulars.[295]
The employment of tribal chiefs as _praefecti_ also became less
frequent, as the auxiliary regiments, transferred from one province to
another, and recruited from different nationalities, gradually lost
their original character. The mutinous officers of the Rhine army, who
were doubtless cashiered by Vespasian, were probably the last examples
of _praefecti_ drawn from this class.
Lastly, the respective rank of the different posts in the _militia
equestris_ was finally determined; and the order _praefectus
cohortis_—_tribunus legionis_—_praefectus alae_ is hardly ever varied
after 70, except that the tribunate of a _cohors miliaria_ sometimes
appears in the second place.[296]
The result of these changes was that henceforward the auxiliary
officers were practically all of one type, men of equestrian rank
entering upon what was now the accustomed _cursus honorum_ of their
class. That this system was not universally adopted at an earlier date
is not surprising. The equestrian _praefecti_ were young men directly
appointed by the emperor, without any previous military training;
before the auxilia could be entrusted to their charge a certain advance
in civilization and tractability had to be made by the provincials,
and the veteran centurions and tribal chiefs of the Augustan system
were more fitted to deal with the men who composed the auxiliary
levies during the first hundred years of the Empire. As it was, these
regiments contained in the second century far fewer representatives
of the governing class than the native corps in our own Indian army.
With the exception of the _praefectus_, who himself was not necessarily
an Italian, the officers—that is, the centurions and decurions—were
practically all, as we have seen, promoted from the ranks. But to the
Roman Empire, in which rulers and ruled, never separated by any deep
racial or religious gulf, were gradually made closer akin by the bond
of a common civilization, our rule in India affords in this respect no
real parallel.
The majority of these _praefecti_ were, at the beginning of this
period, of Italian origin, taken from the leading families of the
country towns, the class which formed, under the rule of the Flavian
emperors who were themselves sprung from it, the backbone of the
Roman bureaucracy. The Romanization of the Western provinces led to
an increasing proportion of men from the provincial _municipia_ being
admitted into the imperial service, but until the reign of Marcus the
Italian element still predominated. The _praefecti_ mentioned on five
diplomata from Pannonia Superior and two from Dacia dated 133, 138,
136-46, 148, 149, 157, and 145-61 were natives of Sassina, Bovianum,
Faventia, Suessa, Rome, Hispellum, and Picenum.[297]
The accession of Septimius Severus possibly accelerated the speed at
which the provincial element was increasing, but there is not, as has
been suggested by von Domaszewski, any sign of a violent and wholesale
exclusion of Italians from this branch of the service. This point may
be illustrated by the following inscriptions of Italian _praefecti_,
which can be dated after 193:
VIII 9359. Caesarea. M. Popilius Nepos domo Roma, a _praefectus_
of the Ala Gemina Sebastenorum in Mauretania Caesariensis. The
inscription honours a procurator who is dated by Cagnat to 201-9.
_A. E._ 1908. 206. Puteoli. T. Caesius Anthianus, a native of this
town, was _praefectus_ of the Cohors II Augusta Thracum at the
beginning of the third century.
The earliest provincial _praefecti_ came from the thoroughly Romanized
districts of Spain and Gallia Narbonensis, natives of which appear even
in the pre-Flavian period. These were followed in the course of the
second century by representatives of nearly all the Western provinces;
Africa in particular sent _praefecti_ from its many flourishing towns
to almost every frontier during the latter half of the second century,
and the accession of the African Septimius Severus at its close
possibly gave his fellow countrymen a specially favoured position in
the succeeding period.
Only in Britain and Gallia Lugdunensis do the Celtic chiefs seem to
have made no attempt to maintain in the second century the military
position held by their fathers in the first. It is hardly likely that
their absence from the lists of _praefecti_[298] is due to deliberate
exclusion on the part of the imperial government. It was more probably
a voluntary abstinence, due largely to the fact that these military
commands were now regarded merely as an introduction to the civil
service, not as a career in themselves. The Celtic nobles were not
uninfluenced by the tendencies of the age. But although they might
speak and read Latin with ease, decorate their homes with the material
products of Roman civilization, and employ Greek rhetoricians to tutor
their children, these country gentlemen living in the midst of their
estates preserved a very different outlook to that of the leading
townsmen of the municipalities of Africa or even Narbonensis. The Celt
retained his martial qualities down to the last days of the Empire in
the West, but seems to have found little that was congenial to him in
the prospect of forming part of that great administrative machine, in
the perfection of which almost every other province in the Empire took
its share.[299]
The Eastern provinces of the Empire occupy, as usual, a somewhat
exceptional position. As in the West, these provinces began to
contribute _praefecti_ in some numbers towards the end of the first
century. A certain C. Julius Demosthenes of Oinoanda went through the
‘_militia equestris_’ in the reign of Trajan, and his son, Julius
Antonius, followed in his footsteps in the succeeding generation.[300]
To a citizen of Caria, L. Aburnius of Alabanda, probably, as his name
shows, the descendant of one of the families of veterans settled
by Augustus in the south of Asia Minor,[301] the wars of Trajan
presented opportunity for a military career of considerable variety
and distinction. This officer was successively _praefectus fabrum_,
_tribunus legionis III Augustae_, _praefectus cohortis III Augustae
Thracum equitatae_, _praefectus cohortis III Thracum Syriacae
equitatae_, _praepositus_[302] _cohortis I Ulpiae Petraeorum_,
_praepositus annonae_[302] on the Euphrates during the Parthian War,
_tribunus legionis VI Ferratae_, during his tenure of which post he was
decorated by Trajan, and _praefectus alae I Ulpiae singularium_.[303]
These cases are not isolated, and it is clear that a military career
was open to the Greeks and the more or less Hellenized orientals who
constituted the equestrian class in the Eastern provinces. But while
the _praefecti_ from the Western provinces were sent indiscriminately
to every frontier, the majority of those drawn from the East seem,
during the first two centuries, to have been confined to service
with the Eastern commands. Aburnius, for example, only left the
East once for service with the Legio III Augusta in Africa, and his
son’s career seems to have been similarly localized.[304] We should
perhaps add Moesia Inferior to the list of provinces in which Eastern
_praefecti_ appear frequently during the second century, since those
mentioned on the diplomata for 134 and 138 came from Palmyra and
Side respectively.[305] But Moesia Inferior was reckoned in other
respects as coming within the Hellenic sphere of influence. These
restrictions are probably due to the low estimate which was placed
throughout the first two centuries on the military qualities of Greeks
and orientals, in spite of the value of the latter as archers.[306]
But we may also see evidence of the unbridgeable gulf which still
existed between the two halves of the Empire, and of the reluctance of
the Hellene to embark upon a career in what he considered to be the
barbarous provinces of the West. It is only with the advent of the
semi-orientalized dynasty of the Severi that _praefecti_ drawn from the
Eastern provinces appear in any numbers on the Western frontiers.
In all this the course of events is what one would naturally expect.
The spread of uniform culture throughout the Western provinces of the
Empire, the prosperity of the ubiquitous municipalities which were
its material expression, and the general extension of the franchise
which accompanied this development, involved a steady increase in the
class qualified and eager for the equestrian career. The admission
of these provincial _equites_ to the posts for which they were
qualified followed automatically without special encouragement from any
particular emperor,[307] and the diverse origins of the _praefecti_ at
the beginning of the third century are one of the best proofs that can
be adduced of the prosperity and civilization of the provinces at this
period. It is impossible to follow von Domaszewski in concluding from
the evidence that at this date the inhabitants of Italy and the more
civilized areas in the provinces were deliberately excluded from the
_militia equestris_, and that the auxiliary regiments were given into
the hands of barbarians.[308] The army was indeed beginning to suffer
from the introduction of a barbarian element, but it is not among the
officers of the auxilia that this element is most noticeable. The
following list of _praefecti_, who can be dated to the first half of
the third century, does not bear out the accusation:
vii. 344. Britain.[309] Aemilius Crispinus natus in provincia Africa de
Tusdro (dated 242).
viii. 2766. Britain. P. Furius Rusticus. Lambaesis. Severus or later.
Britannia Inferior is mentioned.
xiii. 6658. Germania Superior. Sentius Gemellus. Berytus. Date probably
249.
xiii. 7441. Germania Superior. Flavius Antiochanus. Caesarea. Date 191
or 211.
I. G. R. R. i. 10. Raetia. T. Porcius Porcianus. Massilia. 3rd century.
iii. 1193. Dacia. C. Julius Corinthianus. Theveste. _circa_ 200.
C. I. Gr. 3497. Dacia. T. Claudius Alfenus. Asia. _circa_ 200-210.
These men cannot fairly be called barbarians. Massilia of course speaks
for itself, but in Theveste, Thysdrus, and Lambaesis Roman culture
was no new thing at the beginning of the third century. The same may
be said of Caesarea, if the capital of Mauretania be meant. Berytus,
too, was a colony famous for its Roman character, and Asia was not a
province notorious for its barbarism. The increased oriental element,
which is certainly noticeable among the auxilia of this period,
although not to the same extent as in other branches of the service, is
a more significant fact. But however undesirable one may consider the
influence of oriental religions and ideals to have been, the conflict
cannot be called one between civilization and barbarism. The real
matter at issue is the wisdom of the imperial government in utilizing
the material which the spread of culture and prosperity provided, and
substituting for the old hegemony of Italy a governing class drawn from
all parts of the Empire. It is true that this policy was a failure, and
that the Empire organized on this basis did not succeed in erecting
defences strong enough to resist the external pressure brought to
bear upon them in the third and fourth centuries. But if it was a
failure it was not necessarily a mistake.[310] It is more than doubtful
whether a narrower policy which rigidly maintained the supremacy of the
Italians and denied to the majority of the provincials all share in the
administration would have been more successful: it is certain that,
had the progress of civilization lacked the stimulus which the hope
of political power supplied, the after-effects of the Roman Empire in
Europe would have been less.
Footnotes:
[158] The distinction was not necessarily connected with the position
of _civitas foederata_ in the technical sense. Several important
_civitates foederatae_, such as the Aedui and Remi in Gaul, did not, so
far as we know, give their name to regiments, and many of the tribes
which did were not _civitates foederatae_.
[159] In Asturia, however, the administrative conventus formed the
recruiting districts; hence the regiments of Astures, Bracaraugustani,
and Lucenses. Mommsen, _Conscriptionsordnung_, p. 47.
[160] We find regiments of Batavi, Canninefates, Cugerni, Frisii,
Lingones, Menapii, Morini, Nemetes, Nervii, Sunuci, Sugambri, Tungri,
Ubii, Usipi, and Vangiones. In the other Gallic provinces the only
tribal names which occur are the Bituriges and Aquitani from Aquitania
and the Vocontii from Narbonensis.
[161] A Cohors II Augustia Nervia Pacensis Brittonum is mentioned on a
Pannonian diploma for 114 (D. xxxix) and the name of Cohors I of the
series should probably be restored on the Dacian diploma dated 145-61
(D. lxx). This title is unintelligible; it does not seem possible to
connect it with the Emperor Nerva.
[162] For further information as to the evidence on which this table is
based see Appendix II.
[163] Including one ala and four cohorts of Batavians who replace the
regiments which mutinied under Civilis.
[164] Including all the alae with titles derived from proper names but
no racial title. Inscriptions show that they were mostly recruited in
Gaul, but some should perhaps be given to Belgica.
[165] Including all the cohorts which bear the general title Galli.
[166] The Ala Vocontiorum which appears in Britain is to be
distinguished from the regiment of the same name in Egypt.
[167] The cohorts of Alpini, Montani, and Ligures, which represent the
contingents of all the little Alpine provinces.
[168] Four _cohortes miliariae_ which appear late in the second century
and were probably raised at the time of the Marcomannian War.
[169] The regiments of Bosporani. Some of the auxilia of Moesia are
perhaps included among the regiments of Thracians.
[170] The Ala Vespasiana Dardanorum and the cohorts I and II Aurelia
Dardanorum.
[171] A cohors Macedonum E. (_A. E._ 1909. 58), and two regiments of
Cyrrhestici.
[172] The mysterious Ala VII Phrygum. When this regiment was only
known by one inscription (vi. 1838) the number was naturally emended.
It has, however, been confirmed by the diploma for 139 and a Greek
inscription (_A. E._ 1899. 177). The explanation is still uncertain. It
is incredible that Phrygia really contributed seven alae, six of which
have mysteriously vanished.
[173] Three cohorts of Paphlagonians and three of Galatians raised by
Trajan.
[174] Including two alae Parthorum.
[175] Including the three ‘cohortes sagittariorum’.
[176] Including the Ituraean regiments.
[177] There is no reason why these regiments should not have been
raised between 40 and 70, but they do not appear on inscriptions until
much later.
[178] Some of the cohorts of Hispani may of course have come from
Baetica.
[179] _Conscriptionsordnung_, p. 56.
[180] It appears on diplomata of 93 and 103. D. ciii and _A. E._ 1912.
128.
[181] A cohors IV Cypria is mentioned on the Dacian diploma of 110
(xxxvii), and a cohors Cypria appears in the Crimea.
[182] We find on inscriptions Cohors I Cyrenaica, II Augusta Cyrenaica,
III Cyrenaica sagittariorum, and III Augusta Cyrenaica. (See Cichorius
in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. _cohors_). The difficulty is that _Cyrenaica_
is sometimes used as a purely descriptive title to indicate previous
residence in the province. It is thus borne by the Cohors II Hispanorum
scutata and the Cohors I Lusitanorum. Arrian, however, had Κυρηναῖοι,
both cavalry and ὁπλῖται, in the army under his command in Cappadocia
in Hadrian’s reign, so that in some cases at any rate Cyrenaica =
Cyrenaeorum, just as Gallica is sometimes used for Gallorum. A levy in
Cyrenaica is mentioned by Tacitus (_Ann._ xiv. 18), but he does not say
whether legionaries or auxiliaries were required.
[183] Gardthausen, _Augustus_, p. 631. Liebenam in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v.
_dilectus_.
[184] The crucial passage is of course Tac. _Ann._ xvi. 13 ‘eodem
anno dilectus per Galliam Narbonensem Africamque et Asiam habiti sunt
supplendis Illyrici legionibus’, which appears to come from the _acta
senatus_. But the evidence for imperial control is very strong, and
the Senate may merely have been consulted as a matter of courtesy.
Tiberius used to bring military questions before the Senate in the same
way—‘de legendo vel exauctorando milite ac legionum et auxiliorum
descriptione’, Suet. _Tib._ 30—without giving up his prerogative.
[185] Later, of course, the franchise became as widely spread in Africa
as in Spain. In the first half of the first century, however, this
was not yet the case, and the example of Tacfarinas (‘natione Numida,
in castris Romanis auxiliaria stipendia meritus’, Tac. _Ann._ ii. 52)
shows that auxilia were recruited in this province while it was still
completely under senatorial control.
[186] xiii. 6860, 6864. Dio, lxxiv. 2, brackets Italy, Spain,
Macedonia, and Noricum together, as the ‘civilized’ provinces from
which the Praetorians were recruited before the reforms of Severus.
[187] If the _cohortes voluntariorum_ be excluded from the reckoning.
[188] Strabo, p. 196 κρείττους δ’ ἱππόται ἢ πεζοί, καὶ ἔστι Ῥωμαίοις
τῆς ἱππείας ἀρίστη παρὰ τούτων.
[189] _Tactica_, 33.
[190] See the boastful words of the Gascon Antonius Primus. Tac.
_Hist._ iii. 2 ‘Duae tunc Pannonicae ac Moesicae alae perrupere hostem:
nunc sedecim alarum coniuncta signa pulsu sonituque et nube ipsa
operient ac superfundent oblitos proeliorum equites equosque’. Cf. also
Tac. _Ann._ xv. 10 ‘alaris Pannonios, robur equitatus’.
[191] Arrian, loc. cit.
[192] The list shows that the majority of the oriental regiments were
not raised until after 70.
[193] Two cohorts numbered III and VII bear this title, for which
I can find no explanation. To be distinguished from these is the
Cohors I Campanorum voluntaria (vi. 3520), which was stationed first
in Dalmatia, then in Pannonia. Apparently it really was originally a
regiment of Campanians, since a soldier gives Suessa as his birthplace
(iii. 14246¹). The statement of Cichorius that the Dalmatian Cohors
I Campanorum is identical with the Pannonian Cohors I Campestris is
misleading. On no Pannonian inscription does the title occur otherwise
than in the abbreviated form ‘Camp.’ On the other hand, the Roman
inscription cited above speaks plainly of the _coh(ortis) primae
voluntariae Campanorum in Pannonia Inferiore_.
[194] Tac. _Ann._ i. 8.
[195] Dio, lv. 31, lvi. 23; Velleius, ii. 111; Suet. _Aug._ 25. Similar
regiments may have been raised at a later date, e.g. the cohorts I and
II Italica c. R., which seem to form a fresh series and appear only
in the East. Can they represent the remainder of the 4,000 oriental
freedmen whom Tiberius enrolled to put down the brigands in Sardinia
(Tac. _Ann._ ii. 85)? If any survived, the Eastern provinces would have
been the natural place to send them to.
[196] Cf. the previous passages with Macrobius, _Sat._ i. 11, 32
‘Caesar Augustus in Germania et Illyrico cohortes libertinorum
complures legit, quas voluntarias appellavit’.
[197] There were at least thirty-two cohortes voluntariorum, among
which VI is the highest number borne by a _cohors ingenuorum_ (xiii.
8314, 8315). At about this point the supply of free-born recruits
probably gave out, since cohors VIII does not bear this designation.
[198] Seeck suggests that, as the Western legions were recruited mainly
in Italy at the beginning of the first century, these cohorts represent
the contribution of the enfranchised communities in the provinces.
_Rheinisches Museum_, xlviii. 611. This, however, is not only opposed
to the literary evidence, but inscriptions also show us soldiers of
Italian origin. Cf. iii. 9782 (Cemenelium) and _A. E._ 1909. 130
(Placentia).
[199] The original mutineers in Dalmatia seem to have been militia
rather than regulars, cf. Dio, lv. 29 καί τινα καὶ σφεῖς δύναμιν πέμψαι
κελευσθέντες, συνῆλθόν τε ἐπὶ τούτῳ καὶ τὴν ἡλικίαν σφῶν ἀνθοῦσαν
εἶδον, but the phraseology of Velleius (ii. 110) leaves little doubt
that regular auxiliaries were also implicated.
[200] Tac. _Ann._ ii. 17.
[201] Ib. iii. 42.
[202] Ib. iv. 73.
[203] Ib. xii. 27.
[204] ‘Immissa cohorte Thraecum,’ Tac. _Hist._ i. 68.
[205] ‘Praemissis Gallorum Lusitanorumque et Britannorum cohortibus,’
Ib. i. 70. The regiments referred to are probably the Cohors III
Britannorum and the Cohorts VI and VII Lusitanorum which appear in
Raetia at a later date. Cf. D. lxxiii, _I. G. R. R._ iii. 56.
[206] Early inscriptions mention Cohorts VII and VIII Breucorum
(xiii. 7801, 8313, 8693), IV Delmatarum (Ib. 7507, 7508, 7509), I
Pannoniorum (Ib. 7510, 7511, 7582), I Ituraeorum (Ib. 7040, 7041, 7042,
7043), I Sagittariorum (Ib. 7512, 7513, 7514), and Silauciensium (Ib.
8593). The last title is unintelligible, and possibly corrupt. The
soldier mentioned is a certain Tib. Iulius Sdebdas from Tyre, so the
regiment clearly came from the East, and its title should perhaps read
Seleuciensium—i.e. from Seleucia.
[207] Tac. _Ann._ ii. 52.
[208] Josephus, _Ant._ xx, 6, 1. _Bell. Iud._ ii. 12, 5. The small
garrisons maintained in the _provinciae inermes_ seem also to have
been of local origin; cf. the _Ligurum cohors, vetus loci auxilium_
stationed in the Alpes Maritimae, Tac. _Hist._ ii. 14. See also D. xx
and xxvi for the composition of the garrison of Sardinia.
[209] Tac. _Ann._ iv. 46. See above, p. 19.
[210] ‘Flavus aucta stipendia, torquem et coronam aliaque militaria
dona memorat,’ Tac. _Ann._ ii. 9.
[211] ‘Non tulit ala Picentiana gaudium insultantis vulgi, spretisque
Sancti promissis aut minis Mogontiacum abeunt,’ Tac. _Hist._ iv. 62. I
follow the diplomata in using the form Picentiana—not Picentina, which
Tacitus preferred.
[212] D. ii.
[213] iii. 3271.
[214] This supports the statement of Macrobius, already cited, that
some of the cohorts _voluntariae_ were stationed in Illyricum.
[215] The list given above probably does not contain all the regiments
originally sent to the Rhine. A large proportion of the auxilia
stationed in Britain are of Danubian origin, and these troops are
more likely to have come from Germany, than, as has been sometimes
suggested, with Legio IX Hispana from Pannonia.
[216] It seems that all the eight Batavian cohorts which supported
Civilis were dismissed, and that the Cohorts I and II Batavorum, which
we meet on second-century inscriptions, were new creations. The Alae
Petriana and Sebosiana and two cohorts of Tungrians, which had formed
part of the Rhine army in 69, appear later in Britain. But they had
left the Rhine to take part in the civil war in Italy, and were not
guilty of complicity in the mutiny.
[217] Legio IV Scythica remained permanently in Syria; V Macedonia and
XV Apollinaris were in the East from 62 and 63 respectively to 70.
Auxiliary regiments probably accompanied these legions, and some in all
likelihood remained with the first named.
[218] It is true that although five legions (I Adiutrix, X Gemina, XI
Claudia, XIV Gemina, and XXI Rapax) were transferred from the Rhine to
the Danube between 70 and 107 the list of auxilia does not alter so
much as might be expected. Still the transference of some regiments can
be traced, e.g. the Ala Claudia Nova and the Cohors V Hispanorum were
sent to Moesia Inferior between 74 and 82 and remained there. Cf. D.
xi, xiv, and ciii.
[219] In 1884 Mommsen collected the existing evidence in _Eph. Ep._ v.
pp. 159-249, and stated his conclusions in the _Conscriptionsordnung_.
Later epigraphical discoveries, while clearing up many points of
detail, have left his main argument unaffected, and it forms the basis
of the following discussion.
[220] e.g. a certain T. Flavius Draccus of the Ala I F(lavia)
D(omitiana) Brit(annica) M(iliaria) c(ivium) R(omanorum) describes
himself as a _civis Sequanus_ (iii. 15197). Now the title D(omitiana)
shows that the inscription must have been erected between 81 and 96,
and Draccus, who had served 22 years, was enrolled, therefore, between
60 and 74. But his regiment, which formed part of the Vitellian army in
69 (Tac. _Hist._ iii. 41), must have been in Germany or Britain before
that date. Probably it was sent in 70 to Germania Inferior, won its
title, like other regiments of that province, for loyalty at the time
of the rebellion of Saturninus in 89, and was transferred to Pannonia
shortly afterwards.
[221] The regiment was in Moesia Inferior by 99 (D. xxxi) and remained
there. The Pannonian inscriptions therefore probably belong to the
pre-Flavian period, as the soldiers had served 30 and 17 years
respectively.
[222] This soldier, T. Flavius Bonius, was apparently given the
franchise by one of the Flavian emperors, but might then have been
serving some time.
[223] _Allectus_ into the Equites Singulares Imperatoris. A date is
indicated by his name Ulpius Titius.
[224] The soldier bears the name Aurelius, and the style of the
monument suggests a third-century date. See below, p. 128, n. 4.
[225] _Allectus_ into the Equites Singulares at Rome.
[226] The soldier has the Thracian name of Mucapor.
[227] Probably a _corps d’élite_ formed originally for the Dacian War
and placed afterwards on a permanent footing. In the reign of Antoninus
Pius it seems to have been given the title of Ala Illyricorum.
[228] The Pannonian to whom D. ii belonged cannot have been enrolled
later than 35, and owner of D. ci was probably enrolled earlier still.
[229] iii. 14214.
[230] Unfortunately the name of the cohort to which the men belonged
has been lost. The names of some men of the Cohors II Batavorum are
preserved, but without their nationalities.
[231] iii. 2016, 4227. The regiment may of course have been sent to
Spain and have returned only after a long absence, say with Legio VII
Gemina in 69 (Tac. _Hist._ ii. 11).
[232] viii. 18084. The majority come from the Eastern provinces.
[233] There is evidence for a garrison of at least 25,000 men in the
second century, but it probably reached a higher figure. See Appendix I.
[234] xiii. 7024, 7025, 7579, D. xxxv.
[235] viii. 3101. For the recruiting of Legio III Augusta cf. Cagnat,
_L’Armée romaine d’Afrique_, 2nd edition, pp. 287-303.
[236] We find the Ala I Ulpia Dromedariorum, the Cohorts I, III, IV,
V and VI Ulpia Petraeorum, II and III Ulpia Paflagonum, I and II
Ulpia Galatarum, and I Ulpia Sagittariorum all in Cappadocia, Syria,
or Palestine in the second century, and only one of this series of
regiments, the Cohors III Ulpia Galatarum, can be traced elsewhere.
[237] iii. 6580. The non-Egyptians all come from the Eastern provinces,
except two from Africa.
[238] iii. 14507. 7 come from Dacia, 7 from Pannonia, 5 from Dalmatia,
3 from Thrace, 6 from Macedonia, and 1 from Pergamum.
[239] It is impossible to go into this question here. The soldiers
mentioned on vi. 31138, who were discharged in 118, must, if they
served their full time, have been enrolled before Trajan’s accession.
The corps seems to have replaced the old _Germani corporis custodes_,
disbanded by Galba; Suet. _Vit. Gal._ 12.
[240] In the hundred cases only five men are actually described as
_allecti_ from an ala, but the fact may not always have been mentioned
on the tombstones.
[241] I have taken the first hundred inscriptions on which nationality
is recorded, beginning with vi. 3173.
[242] The contingents of the two Pannonian and the two Moesian
provinces cannot be distinguished, because in a large number of cases
the deceased is simply described as Pannonius or Moesus.
[243] Using this term to apply only to the contingents of Lugdunensis.
The inhabitants of Belgica still appear.
[244] Between 70 and 107 the garrison of the Danubian provinces was
increased to ten legions, chiefly at the expense of the Rhine army, in
which the legions were reduced from eight to four.
[245] In 69, when Antonius Primus boasted of the superiority of the
Danubian cavalry, there were, according to Tacitus, sixteen alae in
Pannonia and Moesia (Tac. _Hist._ iii. 2). In the second century
seventeen regiments can be traced in the two Pannonias and Moesia
Inferior, while in Dacia, which covered Moesia Superior, were ten
more. These figures, moreover, are probably below the real total. See
Appendix I.
[246] It appears in a Pannonian diploma for 98 (D. xxvii) and in the
first Dacian diploma for 110 (D. xxxvii).
[247] See _Archaelogiai Ertesitö_, 1905 and following, and for the
inscriptions _A. E._ 1906 and following.
[248] D. lviii (138-46), iii. 3331.
[249] iii. 10316, 10318. _A. E._ 1906. 110. Ib. 1909. 150. Ib. 1910.
137.
[250] D. lviii. The name of the town is missing.
[251] _A. E._ 1910. 141. Cf. 133.
[252] D. xxvii, xxxvii; iii. 4371. Another inscription (iii. 4368)
mentions a Batavian, but he is a decurion who may have been transferred
on promotion from another corps.
[253] For orientals on the Rhine, cf. xiii. 7512, 7514.
[254] Throughout the Empire the archer regiments seem to have been
exclusively Thracians or orientals, but the latter alone preserved
their national character in the second century.
[255] iii. 10315, 10316.
[256] The difficulty is to establish clear cases of men who must have
entered a regiment after its original formation. The ‘Britto’ of the
Dacian diploma for 145-61 (lxx) seems to be one.
[257] ‘Nectovelius natione Brigans’ in the Cohors II Thracum. The
inscription comes from Mumrills and probably dates, therefore, from
between 142 and 180. _Eph. Ep._ ix. 623.
[258] The _numeri_ have been discussed by Mommsen in the latter part
of the _Conscriptionsordnung_, a discussion which naturally forms the
basis of the following pages.
[259] xiii. 6526, 6542, 6592, 6622, 6629, 6642, 7749.
Elantienses—6490. Gurvedenses—7343. Murrenses—6471.
Triputienses—6502, 6511, 6514, 6517, 6518, 6599, 6606.
[260] _A. E._ 1910. 152.
[261] viii. 2486, 2505, 18007, 18008, 18026, &c.
[262] iii. 837, 907, 7999, 14216.
[263] The Palmyrene _vexillarius_, whose tombstone was found at
Corbridge in 1911, is most likely to have belonged to a _numerus_
formed from his countrymen. _Eph. Ep._ ix. 1153a.
[264] D. lxvii (158).
[265] _Eph. Ep._ ix. 1191, where all the references are collected.
[266] iii. 8032.
[267] viii. 21015, 21017.
[268] iii. 7493.
[269] If Mommsen’s interpretation of _Eph. Ep._ vii. 957 as n(umerus)
m(ilitum) S(urorum) S(agittariorum) be correct.
[270] Hyginus, 29. Accepting this emendation for the meaningless Getati
of the manuscripts.
[271] iii. 12601 a and b, 12605. The inscriptions date from the reign
of Hadrian, showing that this usage was an early one.
[272] Hyginus, 30.
[273] _Praepositus_ is more usual, and probably the original title.
Later we find the title _praefectus_, and the inclusion of this post at
the bottom of the equestrian census, below the previous three posts,
gave rise to the phrase _a quattuor militiis_. Cf. xiii. 6814 and von
Dom. _Rangordnung_, p. 131.
[274] Von Dom. _Rangordnung_, pp. 60, 61.
[275] viii. 2505, 2515. The latest inscription is a dedication to
Malagbel, the native god of Palmyra, for the safety of Gordian III.
[276] iii. 907, 14216 (Oriental names).
[277] If the Brittones were really, as has been suggested, transported
wholesale to Germany, these _numeri_ also would have preserved their
national character.
[278] These disappeared during the period, which came in the history
of almost every regiment, when it contained drafts from different
nationalities.
[279] This is shown by Hyginus, 43, as von Dom. has pointed out,
_Rangordnung_, p. 60.
[280] Dio, lxviii. 8 and 32.
[281] Arrian, _Tactica_, 44.
[282] The Κελτοὶ ἱππῆς, however, which are mentioned in the _Ectaxis_,
2, are probably, as Ritterling (_Wiener Studien_, xxiv. 127-40)
suggests, cavalry of the Cohors Germanorum M. E.
[283] The nearest case I know of is xiii. 3177, where we have the order
signifer-centurio-tribunus, but this is in one of the Cohortes civium
Romanorum, which occupy an exceptional position.
[284] _Rangordnung_, pp. 112-15, 122-30.
[285] ix. 996, x. 4862.
[286] _Rangordnung_, pp. 57, 72. He also considers that at this date
the centurions and decurions of the auxiliary regiments were drawn
from the ranks of the legions, a suggestion which has already been
discussed. See above, p. 38.
[287] See pp. 16-20.
[288] Tac. _Hist._ iv. 12 ‘(Batavorum) cohortibus quas vetere instituto
nobilissimi popularium regebant’.
[289] Ib. iv. 18. Its _praefectus_ Claudius Labeo, ‘oppidano certamine
aemulus Civili,’ was clearly a Batavian.
[290] Ib. iv. 16.
[291] Ib. iii. 35; ii. 14; iv. 55. To the same class of officers
belonged ‘Chumstinctius et Avectius tribuni ex civitate Nerviorum’, who
played an important part in one of the campaigns of Drusus. Epit. Livy,
cxxxxi.
[292] v. 7003 is an example of a career of this kind which dated from
the reign of Claudius.
[293] ix. 2564; _A. E._ 1902. 41.
[294] Cf. iii. 1918 ‘I. O. M. Sulpicius Calvio c(enturio) leg(ionis) I
Min(erviae) praepositus coh(ortis) I Belgarum’.
[295] Cf. viii. 18007 ‘… M. Annius Valens leg(ionis) III
Aug(ustae) praepositus n(umeri) Palmyrenorum’; xiii. 6526 ‘… M.
Octavius Severus (centurio) leg(ionis) VIII Aug(ustae) Praeposit(us)
Brit(tonum)’. The office of _praefectus numeri_ does, however, occur;
iii. 1149. See above, p. 87.
[296] xi. 5669 ‘C. Camurio C. f. Lem(onia) Clementi … praef(ecto)
coh(ortis) VII Raet(orum) equit(atae), trib(uno) mil(itum) coh(ortis)
II Ulpiae Petraeor(um) miliar(iae) equit(atae), praef(ecto) alae
Petrianae …’.
[297] D. xlvii, li, lix, lx, lxi, lxvi, lxx.
[298] In a list of over two hundred and fifty _praefecti_ whose place
of origin is known I have not come across one from either of these
provinces. But it is of course impossible to be sure that such a list
is even as complete as the existing evidence permits.
[299] For the military qualities of the Gauls in the fourth century cf.
Ammianus Marcellinus, xv. 12, xix. 6.
[300] _A. E._ 1899. 177.
[301] Such men probably stood a better chance than the Greeks. See my
article on the Caristanii of Pisidian Antioch in _J. R. S._ iii.
[302] Possibly curator, the Greek being ἐπιμελητής.
[303] _A. E._ 1911. 161. A son, or other relative, who erected the
inscription was _praefectus cohortis II Hispanorum equitatae, C. R.,
tribunus cohortis III Ulpiae Petraeorum_.
[304] It is true that we do not know where the Cohors III Thracum
Syriaca was stationed, but the other units in the series of four
bearing this title all appear in the East. The Cohors II Hispanorum, in
which his son served, is probably that mentioned on an inscription from
Ancyra. iii. 6760.
[305] D. xlviii and cviii.
[306] Cf. Tacitus’s remarks in the _Annals_, xiii. 35, with the account
in Dio Cassius, lxxv. 11-13, of the siege of Hatra by Septimius
Severus, especially τῶν μὲν Εὐρωπαίων, τῶν δυναμένων τι κατεργάσασθαι
and the promise of one of the officers ἐάν γε αὐτῷ δώσῃ πεντακοσίους
καὶ πεντήκοντα μόνους τῶν Εὐρωπαίων στρατιωτῶν, ἄνευ τοῦ τῶν ἄλλων
κινδύνου τὴν πόλιν ἐξαιρήσειν.
[307] This point has been well made by Dessau in _Hermes_, 1910. The
evidence does, however, suggest that an unusually large proportion of
Africans obtained commands during the reign of Septimius Severus.
[308] This is put very strongly on pages 133 and 134 of the
_Rangordnung_, ‘die Italiker und die Weströmer sind von der _militia
equestris_ ausgeschlossen.’
[309] The first name is that of the province in which the praefectus
was stationed. His place of origin is placed last.
[310] Its best justification is the solidarity of the Empire in the
fourth century, which appears so markedly in the pages of Ammianus,
and exercised so powerful an influence over the minds of the barbarian
invaders.