FOOTNOTES:
[34] De Bell. Afr. 78.
[35] Cicero, De Off. ii. 13. 45.
[36] In a note to the French translation of Mommsen and Marquardt (xi. 105) von Domaszewski declares decidedly against the possibility that the equites sociorum were organized in alae. Writing in Pauly-Wissowa (s.v. Auxilia), he seems to consider that the auxiliary cavalry had adopted the formation before the close of the Republic, although the passages to which he refers, those from Cicero and the author of the Bell. Afr. which are given above, seem at least to be susceptible of a different interpretation.
[37] For praefecti equitum cf. Caesar, Bell. Gall. iii. 26; iv. 11. They are not to be thought of as merely commanding turmae, since we have a decurion mentioned in Bell. Gall. i. 23.
[38] This organization cannot have taken place earlier since it is obvious from Caesar’s narrative that during the Gallic campaigns no attempt was made to reduce the tribal contingents to units of a fixed size.
[39] Caesar, Bell. Gall. i. 18.
[40] [Caesar,] Bell. Gall. viii. 12. He is described as principe civitatis, praefecto equitum.
[41] Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 59.
[42] See Eph. Ep. v. 142, n. 1. The ala is only known from x. 6011.
[43] The alae Flaviana, Petriana, Proculeiana, Tauriana, and Sebosiana all bear ‘Gallorum’ as a secondary title, and the alae Agrippiana, Longiniana, Picentiana, Pomponiana, and Rusonis seem to have been recruited in Gaul in the first century. The Gallic origin of the ala Atectorigiana is even more obvious. The ala Gallorum Indiana may possibly have a later origin, cf. Tac. Ann. iii. 42. The theory given above as to the origin of these regiments is unhesitatingly affirmed by von Domaszewski (Rangordnung, pp. 122, 123), but a little more evidence would certainly be advantageous.
[44] Cf. v. 3366, x. 6309.
[46] Von Domaszewski, in his edition, puts the treatise De munitione castrorum into the reign of Trajan. It is difficult to regard the evidence as decisive, but there can be little doubt that the information contained in the work is in any case applicable to the period under discussion.
[47] Hyginus, 16. An Egyptian inscription, iii. 6581, also gives sixteen as the number of decurions in an ala.
[48] iii. 6627.
[49] Von Dom. Rangordnung, p. 35, and also p. 52 of the same writer’s commentary on Hyginus.
[50] Arrian, Tactica, 18 αἱ δὲ δύο ταραντιναρχίαι ἱππαρχία, δώδεκα καὶ πεντακοσίων ἱππέων, ἥντινα Ῥωμαῖοι ἴλην καλοῦσιν. It is perhaps worth noting that Vegetius (ii. 14) gives 32 as the strength of a turma of his equites legionis.
[51] The question will probably be found to turn on the strength of the contubernium. 30 and 42 suggest contubernia of 6. A small turma of 32 would suggest contubernia of 8 or 4 and a large turma of 40.
[52] Hyginus, 28 ‘Cohors peditata miliaria habet centurias X … item peditata quingenaria habet centurias VI, reliqua ut supra’. This refers to the description of the cohortes equitatae in the preceding section in which it is stated that ‘Cohors equitata quingenaria habet centurias VI, reliqua pro parte dimidia’.
[53] Josephus, Bell. Iud. iii. 67 τῶν δὲ σπειρῶν αἱ δέκα μὲν εἶχον ἀνὰ χιλίους πεζούς, αἱ δὲ λοιπαὶ τρισκαίδεκα ἀν’ ἑξακοσίους μὲν πεζούς, ἱππεῖς δ’ ἑκατὸν εἴκοσι. Nissen, who accepts the authenticity of these figures, assumes that both types of cohort mentioned had 120 cavalry attached to them, but it seems impossible to get this meaning from the Greek. See his article on the history of Novaesium in B. J. B. cxi-cxii. 41.
[54] Thuc. v. 57.
[55] Caesar, Bell. Gall. vii. 65 ‘trans Rhenum in Germaniam mittit ad eas civitates quas superioribus annis pacaverat equitesque ab his arcessit et levis armaturae pedites, qui inter eos proeliari consuerant’.
[56] x. 4862: ‘… praef(ecto) cohort(is) Ubiorum peditum et equitum …’ The inscription dates from the end of the reign of Augustus.
[57] viii. 2532, 18042: ‘Eq(uites) coh(ortis) Commagenorum. Difficile est cohortales equites etiam per se placere, difficilius post alarem exercitationem non displicere: alia spatia campi, alius iaculantium numerus … equorum forma, armorum cultus pro stipendi modo.’
[58] Hyginus, 25-7.
[59] iii. 6760 with Mommsen’s note. Cf. also the roll of the Cohors I Lusitanorum cited below.
[60] Hyginus, 1, gives this as the size of a legionary contubernium, and the ‘four quaternions’ of Acts xii. 4 suggest that the same system prevailed among the troops of the client kingdom of Palestine.
[61] For text and discussion see Mommsen in Eph. Ep. vii. 456-67. He considers that the papyrus supports 60 as the normal strength of a century in these cohortes equitatae.
[62] The name is incorrect but convenient. Excluding D. xc, which is of an exceptional character, the diplomata cover the period from the reign of Nero (D. ci is the earliest, being apparently issued before 60) to 178 (D. lxxvi).
[63] Tac. Ann. i. 17.
[64] For example, the praemia are granted to soldiers who are not yet discharged in diplomata for 60 (ii), 74 (xi), 83 (xv), 84 (xvi), and 86 (xix). The latest example is dated in 105 (xxxiv).
[65] e.g. a diploma for 114 (xxxix) mentions a wife, two sons, and a daughter, another for 134 (xlviii) four sons and two daughters.
[66] The first to give the new wording for the auxiliaries is a British diploma of 146 (lvii), and it is universal after this date.
[67] Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vii. 1022. Given with commentary by Wilcken and Mitteis in Papyruskunde, no. 453. Cf. also iii. 14632. The two recruits described on the roll of the Cohors I Lusitanorum as accepti ex legione II Traiana may have been transferred as a punishment, the militiae mutatio prescribed in the Digest, xlix. 16, as the appropriate penalty for various military offences.
[68] The last diploma to mention children is dated 138 (cviii).
[69] Wilcken and Mitteis, Papyruskunde, no. 459. I have assumed the correctness of Wilcken’s restorations of the text, which is very corrupt in places.
[70] The phraseology of the diplomata issued to the Praetorians ‘ut etiam si peregrini iuris feminas matrimonio suo iunxerint, proinde liberos tollant ac si ex duobus civibus Romanis natos’—D. xii (76)—shows that in their case children born before their father’s discharge had always suffered under the disabilities created for the auxiliaries in the second century. The position of the legionaries is still uncertain.
[71] Such regulations would be covered by the general statement of Suetonius, Vit. Aug. 49 ‘Quidquid autem ubique militum esset, ad certam stipendiorum praemiorumque formulam adstrinxit, definitis pro gradu cuiusque et temporibus militiae et commodis missionum’. The number of the diplomata seems to tell decisively against the suggestion that they were only issued to troops who had distinguished themselves by exceptional conduct in the field.
[72] Von Dom. Sold, p. 226; id. Rangordnung, p. 68.
[73] Tac. Hist. iv. 19. The Batavian cohorts demand ‘duplex stipendium, augeri equitum numerum’. Cf. viii. 18042, where the emperor gives as a reason for the superiority of the cavalry over the mounted infantry of the cohorts, ‘equorum forma, armorum cultus pro stipendi modo.’ I do not see how von Domaszewski concludes from the first passage that the pay of the infantry was one-third that of the legionaries, i.e. 75 denarii a year. Sold, p. 225.
[74] I am assuming that the duplicarius really did receive twice the pay of the private, as his name implies, which is probable since he maintained two horses (Hyginus, 16). For the promotion of legionaries to this post cf. viii. 2354 cited below.
[75] See below, [pp. 65-7].
[76] xii. 2231 ‘[D] Decmanio Capro sub praef(ecto) equit(um) alae Agrippian(ae)’; v. Suppl. 185 ‘Ti. Iulio C. f., Fab(ia) Viatori subpraef(ecto) cohortis III Lusitanorum …’. The origin of this post may be due to Augustus’s practice of giving auxiliary regiments two praefecti, although this measure was primarily designed in the interest of officers of senatorial rank. Cf. Suet. Vit. Aug. 38 ‘binos plerumque laticlavios praeposuit singulis alis’. Von Domaszewski prefers to connect it with the early system of brigading several auxiliary regiments together under one commander; Rangordnung, p. 119.
[77] See below, [pp. 90-101].
[78] At any rate among the cohorts. A. E. 1892. 137 ‘C. Cassio Pal(atina) Blaesiano dec(urioni) coh(ortis) Ligurum principi equitum’. I. G. R. R. ii. 894 κεντυρίων ὁ καὶ πρίνκιψ σπείρας θρακῶν. There is no certain inscription of a decurio princeps alae.
[79] Cf. viii. 10949, 21560; von Dom. Rangordnung, p. 63. For the following section I am deeply indebted to his discussion of the officers of the auxilia on pp. 53-61 of this work.
[80] iii. 6627, 6760.
[81] iii. 11213 ‘T. Calidius P. (filius) Cam(ilia) Sever(us) eq(ues), item optio, decur(io) coh(ortis) I Alpin(orum), item (centurio) leg(ionis) XV Apoll(inaris) annor(um) LVIII stip(endiorum) XXXIIII …’ is a good example of a man who rose from the ranks to the legionary centurionate.
viii. 2354 ‘… mil(itis) leg(ionis) III Aug(ustae), duplic(arii) alae Pann(oniorum), dec(urionis) al(ae) eiusdem, (centurionis) leg(ionis) III Aug(ustae)’ gives the career of a promoted legionary. D. xv, xxxii, xxxiv, xc, were granted to centurions and decurions, who must therefore have been of the same status as the men if they had not actually risen from the ranks.
[82] For the line of demarcation between principales and immunes see von Dom. Rangordnung, pp. 1-4. It must be admitted that, although this distinction existed, it is not always recognizable on inscriptions.
[83] These do not concern us here since their rank depended upon that of the officer to which they were attached, and the commander of an auxiliary regiment did not stand sufficiently high for his clerks and orderlies to be ranked among the principales.
[84] I accept, although with some hesitation, the view of Lehner in B. J. B. cxvii against that of von Dom. Rangordnung, p. 55. It is accepted also by Max Mayer, Vexillum und vexillarius, Strassburg, 1910. For instances of the title vexillarius alae cf. iii. 4834, 11081. The standard of the Ala Longiniana, discussed by Lehner, was a vexillum bearing as its device a Celtic religious emblem, the three-horned bull. The signum of a turma of the Ala Petriana shown on a sepulchral monument was a radiated head in a medallion. See J. R. S. ii (1912), Fig. 8. Another signum on a Mainz tombstone shows four ivy leaves hanging from a cross-bar. Cf. B. J. B. cxiv-cxv, Pl. I, n. 3.
[85] A. E. 1906. 119.
[86] Tac. Hist. ii. 89 ‘Quattuor legionum aquilae per frontem totidemque circa e legionibus aliis vexilla, mox duodecim alarum signa et post peditum ordines eques; dein quattuor et triginta cohortes, ut nomina gentium aut species armorum forent, discretae’.
[87] On one of the inscriptions which mentions this officer, iii. 3256, he is ranked among the mounted men of a cohors equitata.
[88] For the position of these officers cf. viii. 21567.
[89] Arrian, Anab. vii. 23.
[90] iii. 11911.
[91] viii. 2094 ‘… C. Iulius Dexter vet(eranus), mil(itavit) in ala eq(ues), cur(ator) turmae, armor(um) custos, signifer tur(mae) …’.
[92] iii. 7651.
[93] iii. 3392.
[94] I. G. R. R. iii. 1094.
[95] iii. 4369.
[96] iii. 13441.
[97] iii. 11811. There were of course several of these, and also of the preceding officers.
[98] iii. 12356.
[99] vi. 225. vi. 2408 also shows seven equites preceding the signifer turmae.
[100] vi. 3179, 32797. Both appear also among the equites cohortales, iii. 3352, 10589.
[101] xi. 3007.
[102] iii. 11213, 8762.
[103] ii. 2553; cf. A. E. 1910. 4. A detachment of the Cohors I Celtiberorum in Lusitania is under the charge of a centurion of the Cohors I Gallica, a beneficiarius of the procurator, an imaginifer of Legio VII Gemina, and a tesserarius of the Cohors I Celtiberorum.
[104] xiii. 7705.
[105] iii. 10315.
[106] iii. 10316.
[107] vii. 458.
[108] iii. 12602.
[109] iii. 1808. We should perhaps add to this group the capsarius, A. E. 1906. 110.
[110] xiii. 6572.
[111] iii. 10589.
[112] iii. 8522. In xiii. 6503 the musicians are described collectively as aeneatores.
[113] xiii. 6538.
[114] vii. 690. He served in the Cohors I Tungrorum.
[115] Dig. l. 6, 7.
[116] xi. 3007. His cognomen is uncertain.
[117] xiii. 6621. One might add M. Mucius Hegetor medicus of the Cohors XXXII Voluntariorum in Pannonia, iii. 10854.
[118] Lucian mentions a doctor of an auxiliary cohort who wrote a history of the Parthian war of Marcus and Verus and must have been a man of some education. Lucian, de hist. conscrib. 24.
[119] Von Dom. Rangordnung, p. 26.
[120] The record of the career of C. Iulius Dexter quoted above is quite exceptional. Usually only one post is mentioned.
[121] iii. 11213 gives the sequence eques-optio-decurio, and 8762 that of eques-vexillarius-decurio, but such details are rare.
[122] The principales would be the vexillarius alae, the optio singularium, and a duplicarius and sesquiplicarius to each turma. Of the immunes each turma has its signifer, custos armorum, and curator. The total number of the beneficiarii, &c., we do not know, but the inscription of the Equites Singulares quoted above suggests an average of three to a turma. In a cohors quingenaria with only 6 commissioned officers and 19 principales (the imaginifer cohortis and the signifer, optio, and tesserarius of each century) the chances of promotion would be less. This is another reason for the popularity of the cavalry and the desire of cohorts to become equitata. Cf. Tac. Hist. iv. 19.
[123] The Ala Indiana may have been called after the Trevir Iulius Indus mentioned in Tac. Ann. i. 42, the Ala Siliana after C. Silius the general of Tiberius, and the Ala Pannoniorum Tampiana after Tampius Flavianus, governor of Pannonia in 69. The last case, however, is doubted by von Domaszewski, Rangordnung, p. 122, n. 6.
[124] The only cases known at present are the cohorts Lepidiana and Apuleia civium Romanorum, and a Cohors Flaviana only known from a cursus honorum.
[125] The name of the tribe was usually in the genitive plural but might also be in the nominative singular. Thus we find the same regiment described as Cohors I Alpinorum and Cohors I Alpina. The question of duplicate numbering, which is connected with the system of recruiting and distribution, is discussed in the following section.
[126] The fact that the numerous regiments bearing this title appear in the diplomata shows that the status of their members was not permanently raised. One regiment, the Cohors II Tungrorum, bears the title C(ivium) L(atinorum), Eph. Ep. ix. 1228.
[127] Ritterling has shown that all the auxilia of Germania Inferior received the titles pia fidelis Domitiana in 89 for their loyalty at the time of the rebellion of Saturninus; W. D. Z. 1893. The title fida was borne by the Cohors I Vardullorum; vii. 1043.
[128] It is borne by regiments of Dacians and Britons who cannot have acquired it during the reign of Augustus; D. xxxix, iii. 10255.
[129] vii. 818, 819, 820 and 823.
[130] As in the case of the legions this title was probably borne by regiments which had been formed by a combination of two previously existing units. The two Alae Flaviae Geminae, for example, which appear in Germania Superior at the end of the first century, would represent the salvage of the old Rhine army which went to pieces in 69.
[131] The alae Britannica, Gaetulorum, Gallorum, Parthorum, and I Thracum, and the Cohorts I Aquitanorum, III Brittonum, I Hispanorum, I Sugambrorum, and III Thracum.
[132] Rangordnung, p. 80.
[133] In Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie, s.v. ala and cohors. See these articles also for some rarer titles which have not been mentioned here.
[134] D. xxxv and lxxiii.
[135] D. xi.
[136] D. xxxi (99) and xlviii (134). For proof that two distinct cohorts are referred to see Cichorius, s.v.
[137] Tac. Ann. iv. 47.
[138] In these cases an ethnical title may have been dropped, or omitted on the only inscriptions known to us.
[139] iii. 11930, 11931 (reign of Pius), 11933 (Commodus).
[140] Tac. Hist. i. 59.
[141] For the position of the auxilia in the normal order of battle see below, [p. 103]. For Domitius Tullus and Domitius Lucanus, who held in turn the post of praefectus auxiliorum omnium adversus Germanos, probably in 73 and 74, see Dessau, Inscr. Lat. Sel. 990, 991, with notes.
[142] D. xxx and xxxi.
[143] D. xxxii and xxxiv.
[144] D. xliii.
[145] The diplomata of 133, 138, 148, 149, and 154 (D. xlvii, li, lx, lxi, and lxv) contain, on an average, ten regiments each. Four regiments are always present, and five more occur in four diplomata out of the five. This makes it sufficiently clear that, on the theory given above, the auxilia of the same legion must always be referred to, particularly in view of the immobility of the frontier troops in the second century (see below, [pp. 114-16]), which forbids the supposition that the same regiments would appear first attached to one legion, then, after a few years’ interval, to another.
[146] The earliest I know of is legio III Augusta et auxilia eius, which dates from 158. viii. 2637. Other instances are a dedication at Bonn by legio I Minervia pia fidelis Severiana Alexandriana cum auxilis (xiii. 8017), and a Pannonian inscription of the reign of Gallienus which mentions vexillationes legionum Germaniciarum et Brittanniciarum (at least this seems to be intended) cum auxilis earum. iii. 3228. The formula is certainly a rare one.
[147] Studies in Roman History, Second Series, p. 112.
[148] What exactly this amounted to is difficult to make out. It would be natural to suppose a system of military districts within the province. In Britain, for instance, the line between Tyne and Solway, with the auxilia upon it, might have been divided between Legio VI Victrix from York and Legio XX Valeria Victrix from Chester. Unfortunately the epigraphical evidence does not support the idea that the activity of the two legions was localized in this way. The point is obscure and would not have been worth such a detailed discussion but for the unwarrantable facility with which it is usually disposed of.
[149] Tac. Ann. iv. 5 ‘At apud idonea provinciarum sociae triremes alaeque et auxilia cohortium, neque multo secus in iis virium: sed persequi incertum fuit, cum ex usu temporis huc illuc mearent, gliscerent numero et aliquando minuerentur’. The sociae triremes, i.e. the Rhine fleet, &c., counterbalance the Italian fleets at Ravenna and Misenum.
[150] Velleius, ii. 113.
[151] The number of legions existing at this date is not absolutely certain, but it seems most probable that there were twenty-eight. Cf. von Domaszewski in the Römisch-germanisches Korrespondenzblatt, 1910, on the date of the creation of legions XXI and XXII.
[152] Tac. Hist. ii. 58.
[153] Josephus, Bell. Iud. iii. 4. 66. Twenty-three cohorts (of which ten, an unusually high proportion, were miliariae) and six alae, of unspecified size. That the auxilia had been very largely drawn on is shown by the fact that Titus in 70, although he had a whole additional legion and detachments from two others, had only twenty cohorts and eight alae; Tac. Hist. v. i.
[154] Tac. Hist. iii. 2. The garrison of Noricum is probably not included.
[155] This is on the supposition that the auxilia would have been drawn upon in the same proportion as the legions. Some of the regiments which remained behind seem to have been very much weakened, others such as the Ala Picentiana and the Ala Batavorum probably remained fairly intact. Tac. Hist. ii. 89, iv. 15, 18, 62. Vitellius may have had some of the British auxilia with him (cf. Tac. Hist. ii. 100, iii. 41), but these are more than counterbalanced by the eight Batavian cohorts which had been sent back.
[156] For the provenance of these regiments, particularly the large levies made by Trajan in the Eastern provinces, see the following section.
[157] On the other hand, Legio IX Hispana, destroyed in Britain at the beginning of the reign, and XXII Deiotariana, which was probably annihilated in Judaea either at the same date or twenty years later, were not replaced until Marcus raised legions II and III Italica for the defence of Noricum and Raetia.
SECTION II
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 et Aravacorum[221 ] | Hispanus | Spain | iii. 3271. |
Ala II Hispanorum et Aravacorum[221] | Sueltrius | Narbonensis | iii. 3286. |
Ala Frontoniana Tungrorum[222] | Andautonia | Pannonia | iii. 3679. |
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 Aravacorum | Azalus | Pannonia | D. c (150). |
Ala Pannoniorum | Apulum | Dacia | iii. 4372. |
Ala I Thracum Victrix[223] | Boius | Pannonia | vi. 3308. |
Cohors II Alpinorum | Azalus | Pannonia | D. lxv (154). |
Cohors I Britannica | Dobunnus | Britain | D. xcviii (105). |
Cohors V Lucensium et Callaecorum | Castris | Pannonia | D. lix (138-46). |
Cohors V Lucensium et Callaecorum | Azalus | Pannonia | D. lxi (149). |
Cohors I Ulpia Pannoniorum | Azalus | Pannonia | D. lx (148). |
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 Sagittariorum | Eraviscus | Pannonia | D. lxxiv (167). |
Cohors I Alpinorum | Eraviscus | Pannonia | D. lxviii (154-60). |
Cohors I Thracum[224] | Andautonia | Pannonia | iii. 4316. |
| II. C. Dacia. | |||
Ala I Gallorum et Bosporanorum | Bessus | Thrace | D. lxvii (158). |
Ala I Hispanorum Campagonum[225] | Dacus | Dacia | vi. 3238. |
Ala I Tungrorum Frontoniana[226] | Thrace | iii. 799. | |
Vexillatio equitum Illyricorum[227] | Sebastopolitanus | Pontus | D. xlvi (129). |
Ala I Illyricorum | Dacus | Dacia | vi. 3234. |
Cohors I Ulpia Brittonum | Britto | Britain | D. lxx (145-61). |
Cohors III Campestris | Scupi | Moesia Superior | iii. 7289. |
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.