[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’.