Long ago Reines published in his Syntagma Inscriptionum,[399] a tablet found at Rome and erected by TITUS CLAUDIUS JULIANUS, Clinical Physician to the fourth Prætorian Cohort, to himself, to his wife Tullia Epigone, to their freedmen, freedwomen, and descendants.
| D. M. |
| TI. CLAUDIUS. IULIANUS |
| MEDICUS. CLINICUS. COH. IIII. |
| PR. FECIT. VIVOS. SIBI. ET |
| TULLIÆ EPIGONE. CONIUGI |
| LIBERTIS. LIBERTATIBUS (Q) |
| CLAUDIIS. POSTERISQUE |
| EORUM |
| H. M. H. N. S. |
Muratori, in his Thesaurus,[400] cites a Roman sepulchral tablet discovered at Veterbi, and containing an inscription by a father to his deceased son, M. VLPIUS SPORUS, Physician to the Indian and Asturian Auxiliaries (Medico Alarum Indianae et tertiae Asturum).[401]
The tablets to which I have hitherto alluded all refer, with the doubtful exception of the first and last, to one rank of medical military men, namely the surgeons of cohorts (Medici Cohortum). It is generally believed that each cohort consisted of about 500 or 600 men; though this appears to have varied at different times. From the preceding tablets, each cohort seems to have been provided with at least one medical officer, if not more. For the distinctive terms “Ordinarius” and “Clinicus,” which occur in the first and last of the preceding inscriptions, when added to the usual term “Medicus Cohortis,” apparently tend to indicate a different grade or rank of medical officer from the latter.
Whether, however, or not there were different grades among the Roman Medici Cohortum, we have sufficient evidence for proving that there existed in the Roman army a higher rank of medical officer than these,—namely, Medici Legionum. The Roman legion consisted of ten cohorts.[402] We have seen that the individual cohorts of which the legion was composed were each provided with a medical officer or officers. I have already cited a law from Justinian’s Codex, showing further that there were military physicians to the Roman legions. The evidence of monumental tablets affords additional proof, that over the whole legion, another, and in all probability a superior medical officer, was placed. More than one monumental tablet has been discovered, dedicated not to the Medicus Cohortis, but to the Medicus Legioni. Thus Maffei, in his Museum Veronense, gives the inscription of a tablet raised by Scribonia Faustina to the manes of her very dear husband, L CÆLIUS ARRIANUS, physician to the Second Italian Legion, who died at the age of forty-nine years and seven months. The inscription in the original runs as follows:—
| D. M. |
| L. CAELI ARRIANI |
| MEDICO LEGIONIS |
| II. ITALIC. QUI. VIX. ANN |
| XXXXVIIII. MENSIS VII |
| SCRIBONIA FAUSTINA |
| COIUGI KARISSIMO.[403] |
In the Collectio Inscriptionum (vol. i. No. 448) of Hugenbach and Orelli, there is published another Roman tablet found in Switzerland (at Gebistorf, near Windisch), bearing the name of a Legionary physician. The inscription states that Atticus Patronus erected this tablet to TITUS CLAUDIUS HYMNUS, physician to the twenty-first Legion, and to Claudia Quieta, his wife.[404]