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: