Tombstone of C. Romanius of the Ala Noricorum.
(By kind permission of the authorities of the Stadtmuseum, Mainz.)

Frontispiece

THE AUXILIA OF THE
ROMAN IMPERIAL ARMY

BY
G. L. CHEESMAN, M.A.
FELLOW AND LECTURER OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1914

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK
TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY
HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE

The following essay is an attempt to deal with an interesting branch of Roman military history which has not previously been made the subject of an independent treatise. In a study of this kind, which relies largely upon epigraphical evidence to which additions are constantly being made, it is equally necessary that the scattered material available should at intervals be collected and utilized, and that the unfortunate collector should realize that his conclusions will inevitably be revised in the future in the light of fresh evidence. I hope, accordingly, that I have made some use of all sources of information available without acquiring or expressing excessive confidence in the finality of my deductions. Students of the military system of the Roman Empire may complain that a certain number of complicated questions are too summarily disposed of in the following pages, but if discussion of the evidence in detail has been occasionally omitted with the idea of keeping the size of this book within reasonable limits, I hope that I have been careful to indicate where uncertainty lies.

I have in many places been glad to acknowledge my indebtedness to my predecessors in this field of study, who in one branch of the subject or another have removed so many difficulties from my path. To two scholars, however, my debt is too extensive and general to have received adequate recognition in the footnotes. Mommsen’s article, ‘Die Conscriptionsordnung der römischen Kaiserzeit,’ was written thirty years ago; I have, I hope, been diligent in collecting the evidence which has since accumulated, but I have found little to induce me to leave the path indicated by the founder of the scientific study of the Roman Empire. I owe much to Professor A. von Domaszewski’s ingenious and comprehensive work, Die Rangordnung des römischen Heeres, and feel my obligation to its learning and suggestiveness none the less that I have sometimes been compelled to differ from the conclusions stated in it. I am also deeply indebted to Professor Haverfield for constant encouragement and much valuable criticism, and can only wish that this essay were a more adequate testimony to the value of his influence upon the study of Roman history at Oxford. I desire also to express my gratitude to my colleague, Mr. N. Whatley, of Hertford College, for reading this essay in manuscript, and making many valuable suggestions.

G. L. CHEESMAN.

New College, Oxford.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATION

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED

The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum is referred to simply by the numbers of the volumes without any prefix.

The military diplomata (D) are referred to by the revised numbering given in the supplement to the third volume of the Corpus.

Eph. Ep. = Ephemeris Epigraphica.

A. E. = L’année épigraphique, edited by MM. Cagnat and Besnier.

I. G. R. R. = Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes, edited by Cagnat.

B. J. B. = Bonner Jahrbücher, the periodical of the Verein von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande.

W. D. Z. = Westdeutsche Zeitschrift.

B. G. U. = Ägyptische Urkunden aus den königlichen Museen zu Berlin.

Mommsen Conscriptionsordnung = Mommsen, Die Conscriptionsordnung der römischen Kaiserzeit, published in volume vi of the Gesammelte Schriften.

von Dom. Rangordnung = A. von Domaszewski, Die Rangordnung des römischen Heeres, Bonn, 1907.

von Dom. Sold = A. von Domaszewski, Der Truppensold der Kaiserzeit, in volume x of the Neue Heidelberger Jahrbücher.

J. R. S. = The Journal of Roman Studies.

INTRODUCTION
THE MILITARY REFORMS OF AUGUSTUS

An essay on the Roman auxilia might seem merely to be one of the many monographs in which students of the military system of the Roman Empire are patiently arranging material for some future scholar to utilize in a more comprehensive work. But while much space must necessarily be devoted to details of military organization, the subject opens up social and political questions of wider range. The extent to which a ruling race can safely use the military resources of its subjects and the effect on both parties of such a relation, the advantages and dangers of a defensive or an aggressive frontier policy, these are questions of universal historical interest, on which even an essay of so limited a scope as this must necessarily touch in passing.

As a preliminary consideration it must be realized that the use of troops drawn from the subject races was not an invention of the imperial government, but goes back to the most flourishing days of the Republic. The heavy-armed yet mobile infantry which formed the greater part of the burgess militia of the cives Romani and the socii constituted an arm which won for Rome the hegemony of Italy, and triumphed alike over the numbers and courage of Ligurian and Gaul or the disciplined professional armies of Carthage and the Hellenistic monarchies. In other branches of the service, however, the republican armies were less superior. Their cavalry, drawn, as was usual in the citizen armies of the ancient world, from the wealthier classes, was not sufficiently numerous and proved no match for its opponents in the Second Punic War. The light troops came off even worse when engaged either with mountain tribes fighting on their own ground or with the skilled archers and slingers of Carthage or Macedon. So early was this recognized that, in describing an offer made by Hiero of Syracuse to furnish a thousand archers and slingers in 217 B.C., Livy is able to make the Syracusans justify the suggestion to Roman pride by asserting that it was already customary for the Republic to use externi in this capacity.[1] To make up their notorious deficiency in this respect the Government could have recourse to three sources of supply. They could, as in this case, accept or demand contingents from allies outside the Italian military league, such as Hiero, Masinissa, or the Aetolians; they could make forced levies among subject tribes, such as the Ligurians, Gauls, or Spaniards; or, finally, they could imitate their opponents and raise mercenaries, although they might save their pride by including such contingents as ‘allies’. In fact all these sources were freely drawn on during the first half of the second century B.C., and all troops of this kind were known as auxilia, to distinguish them from the socii of the old organization. This at any rate seems to be the distinction recognized by the grammarians, and it agrees generally with the terminology employed by Livy, who may be supposed in such a matter to be following his sources.[2] A good example both of republican methods and of the phraseology employed may be found in Livy’s elaborate description of the measures taken to make up the army required for the Macedonian campaign of 171 B.C.: ‘P. Licinio consuli ad exercitum civilem socialemque petenti addita auxilia Ligurum duo milia, Cretenses sagittarii—incertus numerus, quantum rogati auxilia Cretenses misissent, Numidae item equites elephantique.’[3] Of the troops grouped here under the heading of auxilia the Numidians represent a contingent sent by an independent ally, Masinissa, the Ligurians were probably obtained by a forced levy, while the Cretans, nominally allies, may fairly be described as mercenaries. That their services were hardly disinterested is shown by the fact that in the following year the Senate found it necessary to issue a sharp warning to the Cretan states against their habit of supplying contingents to both sides.[4] The fact that the Roman star was now definitely in the ascendant probably reconciled the Cretans to this interference with their national customs, for from this date onward Cretan regiments regularly form a part of the republican armies; it will be remembered that the Senate made use of a body of Cretan archers against the followers of Caius Gracchus, and a similar corps is found serving under Caesar in his second Gallic campaign.[5]

The course of the second century saw the auxilia still more firmly established as an essential part of the republican military system. Before its close the Roman and Italian cavalry had entirely disappeared; the changes in the condition of military service, in particular the tedious and unprofitable Spanish campaigns, made the members of the upper classes, among whom the cavalry had been recruited, increasingly reluctant to take their places in the ranks as private soldiers. After the reforms of Marius the legion had no cavalry attached to it, and if the Italian contingents still existed they must likewise have disappeared when, in consequence of the extension of the franchise in 90 and 89 B.C., the former socii were all enrolled in the legions. From this moment the Roman generals depended for their cavalry upon the auxilia alone.[6] In the case of the light-armed troops the same process took place, although here military rather than political reasons probably predominated. The last recorded use of the velites, the old national light infantry, is during the war against Iugurtha, and they were probably abolished by Marius.[7] There is certainly no instance of any but auxiliaries being employed as light troops during the following century. From these considerations it necessarily follows that when, during the last fifty years of the Republic, a standing army came into existence, a number of auxiliary regiments formed part of it. When Caesar mentions that he had Cretan archers, Balearic slingers, and Numidian cavalry under his command so early as the beginning of his second campaign, we can hardly doubt that these regiments had formed part of the regular troops which he found in the province.[8]

Thus before the end of the Republic we have the chief feature of the military system of the Empire, the division of the army into the legions of cives Romani and the auxiliary light troops and cavalry supplied by the unenfranchised provincials, already in existence. Even the practice of conferring the civitas upon troops of this class as a reward for military service was resorted to by the Republic, although probably only under exceptional conditions. We possess a document recording a grant of this nature to some Spanish auxiliaries, members of a turma Salluitana which had distinguished itself at the siege of Asculum in 89 B.C.[9]

There is no evidence, however, that this branch of the service escaped the effects of the inefficiency in administration which characterized the last generation of the republican régime. Certainly too few regiments of this class were kept on a permanent footing, and a general of the period either had to take the field with far too small a proportion of cavalry and light infantry, or make up the deficiency by hasty levies called out in the districts nearest to the scene of operations. Caesar, for example, started the campaign of 58 B.C. with a totally insufficient number of regular auxiliaries, and during the following years was forced to make up his deficiency in cavalry by demanding contingents, which were often of more than doubtful fidelity, from the Gallic tribes which successively submitted to his arms. To supplement these he also raised a corps of German mercenaries and largely increased it later after the defection of the majority of the Gallic contingents to Vercingetorix.[10]

The civil wars saw a large increase in the numbers of the auxilia. Caesar set the example by leading off thousands of his Gallic cavalry, with the object, doubtless, of using them as hostages for their compatriots’ fidelity as well as of increasing his army. Pompeius followed suit and endeavoured to make up for the loss of the Italian recruiting ground by enrolling auxilia from the Eastern provinces in large numbers. The Gallic cavalry proved a great success; in the campaign of Thapsus they showed marked superiority to the African light horse, previously accounted supreme in cavalry warfare,[11] and the death of Caesar found them still serving in large numbers in every part of the Empire. At least those who are found, together with Lusitanians and Spaniards, in the army of Brutus and Cassius during the Philippi campaign must have been stationed either in Macedonia or the East before hostilities began.[12]

We can thus see that when the battle of Actium in 31 B.C. placed the forces of the Roman world in the hands of Augustus, the main lines on which the military system of the Empire was based were already clearly marked, and his great work of reorganization, while importing everywhere order and principle into existing practice, involved no breach with the military traditions of the past. To say this is in no sense to minimize his achievement. It must be remembered that while individual generals, such as Lucullus, Pompeius, or Caesar, had brought their armies to a high pitch of efficiency, the general military administration of the late republic had been chaotic in the extreme. Here, as elsewhere, the real issues were resolutely evaded, and in case of need a crisis had to be met by hasty and inefficient improvisation. Although a standing army had existed in practice for fifty years it was never accepted in principle, and no attempt was made to assess the military requirements of the state and see that an efficient force of the proper strength was maintained. With similar lack of foresight the Senate refused to admit the principle of granting a donative on discharge, while repeatedly granting it under pressure, thus weakening the control of the central government over troops in the field and increasing the chances of a military pronunciamento. In consequence, the wars of this period almost invariably begin with disasters in the field, owing to the inadequacy of the standing army both in numbers and efficiency,[13] and end with a political crisis of greater or less magnitude over the donative grievance, which naturally gave an ambitious general an opportunity of using the support of his troops to further his own ends. The work of Augustus in bringing order out of this chaos, providing forces adequate to the needs of the state, and re-establishing over them the control of the central government, is not the least of his administrative triumphs.

As a preliminary he accepted, as was perhaps inevitable, the principle of a standing army of professional soldiers. This step has of late been severely criticized, especially by admirers of the Continental system, but it is difficult to see how short-service levies could have proved adequate to the defence of frontiers which were, for all practical purposes, more distant from Rome than Peshawur is from Aldershot. The other alternative, to entrust the provincials with the defence of their own borders, was not in harmony with his general policy, nor, it may be said, was the time ripe for such a step. The words which the third-century historian and administrator, Dio Cassius, puts into the mouth of Maecenas in dealing with this question were written doubtless with reference to the conditions of his own time, but they may certainly be applied to the earlier period, and in essence they still hold good to-day.

‘You will be wise to maintain a permanent force (στρατιώτας ἀθανάτους) raised from the citizens, the subjects, and the allies distributed throughout all the provinces in larger or smaller bodies, as necessity requires. These troops must always remain in arms and be drilled constantly; at the most suitable points they must prepare themselves winter quarters, and they must serve for a fixed period calculated to allow them a little freedom after their discharge before old age comes on. For we can no longer rely upon forces called out for the occasion, owing to the distance which separates us from the borders of our Empire and the enemies which we have upon every side. If we allow all our subjects who are of military age to possess arms and undergo a military training, there will be a continual series of riots and civil wars, while if, on the other hand, we check all military activity on their part, we shall run the risk of finding nothing but raw and untrained troops when we need a contingent for our assistance.’[14]

The solution which Augustus found for this problem was then to revise the military system so that, while using as much as possible of the available material, he did not disturb the political conditions on which the equilibrium of the State depended. For it was no part of his intention materially to alter the structure of the Empire as an aggregate of states possessed of greater or less powers of self-government, held together by their subordination to Rome and withheld by their position from any independent external policy. Whatever possibilities he may have contemplated for the future he made himself few attempts to further the process of unification either by reducing the inhabitants of the privileged states to a lower grade or by the more generous policy of making wide extensions of the franchise and creating by this means a new imperial citizenship. This difference of status among the inhabitants of the Empire was naturally reflected in the military system. The cives Romani—that is to say, the inhabitants of Italy and of the few enfranchised communities among the provinces—furnished the new Household Troops, and the greater part, at any rate, of the recruits for the legions, and paid for their superior position as the ruling race by contributing much more heavily in proportion to their numbers than any other class in the population. The nominally independent monarchs of the client kingdoms were allowed and encouraged to maintain armies, often of considerable size, under their own control, and frequently led in person the contingents which they were called upon to bring to the aid of the regular troops when hostilities were taking place near their borders. These contingents were often numerous and capable of rendering valuable service. Thus Rhoemetalces of Thrace assisted in the suppression of the dangerous Pannonian revolt of 6-9, and Ptolemaeus of Mauretania was publicly honoured for his loyal co-operation against the African rebel Tacfarinas.[15] Along the eastern frontier, kingdoms of this type, the wreckage of the old Hellenistic system, were more numerous and played a more important part. Thus Antiochus III of Commagene, Agrippa II, Sohaemus of Emesa, and Malchus of Damascus contributed 15,000 men to the army which Vespasian led into Palestine in the spring of 67.[16] Even the more autonomous city states seem to have retained a militia which was occasionally made use of. So late as the reign of Hadrian, in the army which Arrian led against the Alani, we find a contingent from the ‘free’ city of Trapezus, which is reckoned among the σύμμαχοι as opposed to the regular imperial troops.[17] A similar freedom from the direct control of Roman officers was permitted to the chiefs of some of the border tribes, who were allowed to lead their own clansmen to battle. To this type of militia belong the tumultuariae catervae Germanorum cis Rhenum colentium, including the Batavians under their dux Chariovalda, who serve in the campaigns of Germanicus,[18] and the levies of the Dalmatian clans who started the rebellion of 6.[19]

Last come the permanently embodied regiments raised from the subject communities, the auxilia properly so called, who form the subject of this treatise. Here, probably more than in any other department of the military system of the Empire, we can trace the results of Augustus’s own activity. Regiments of this kind had, as we have seen, existed under the Republic, but they had probably been few in number and the incidence of the levy had been uneven and capricious. Under Augustus not only was the number of regiments largely increased—we hear of no less than fourteen alae and seventy cohorts taking part in the Pannonian War of 6-9[20]—but the inscriptions show us that, with the exception of Greece, always the spoiled child of Roman sentiment, every quarter of the Empire contributed its quota. Details respecting the incidence of this levy on different provinces, and the methods of organization and recruiting, will be found in later sections. It will be sufficient to say here that while the subject communities had probably more reason than any other class to complain of the military demands of the state, the burden was at least more equitably distributed than under the Republic and the total contribution required, in most cases at any rate, not excessive. It is natural to suppose that the fixing of the quota supplied by each community was connected with the drawing up of the census, which placed the taxation of the Empire for the first time on an organized basis, and it seems probable that more evidence might show a reciprocal variation between the two forms of contribution required. We know, for instance, that the Batavians were altogether excused from the payment of tribute on account of the size and value of their contingent, and this case was probably not exceptional.[21]

In all this it is easy to see how much Augustus owes to the institutions of the Republic, and when we come to consider details his debt becomes even more apparent. A standing army consisting of legions of cives Romani and smaller units of peregrini, supported in the field by contingents from allied and nominally independent states, was already in existence. His task was merely to introduce such changes as might obviate the mistakes and failures of the past, and to establish principles which should make for permanence and stability. For in accepting the principle of maintaining a standing army Augustus could not have been blind to the political dangers which this institution brought with it. He endeavoured to meet them by fixing the conditions of service, in particular the sum which a soldier might claim at his discharge, and by establishing a special treasury from which those claims might be satisfied, thus accustoming the troops to look to the central government, not to their generals, for rewards due to them. Moreover, in this department of the state even Augustus allowed no respect for constitutional forms to veil or weaken his authority. When in 69 the legions on the Upper Rhine tore down the imagines of Galba and swore allegiance to the oblitterata iam nomina senatus populique Romani it was a manifest sign that after a century of peace a new period of anarchy had begun.[22]

Since this military system, with its division of the troops into categories differing from each other in status and prestige, reflected the general conditions prevalent in the Empire, so it was inevitable that a change in these conditions should have its effect also upon the army. How far the political developments of the first century were foreseen or intended by Augustus it is perhaps impossible to say; it is certain, at any rate, that his system was capable of adapting itself to them. One of these developments was a steady increase in the power of the central government and a disappearance of all forms of local autonomy which involved a division of authority. By the reign of Vespasian almost all the great client kingdoms had been more or less peaceably absorbed into the ordinary provincial system. Cappadocia was annexed in 17, Mauretania in 39, Thrace in 46, Pontus in 63, and Commagene in 73. The troops which these kingdoms had maintained were naturally taken into the Roman service, transformed into auxiliary regiments, and lost the privilege which attached to their former condition of serving only in local campaigns. One instance of such a transference, in the case of a regiment which had been in the service of the kings of Pontus, is mentioned in Tacitus,[23] and we also meet with Hemeseni on the Danube,[24] Commageni in Africa and Noricum,[25] and the successors of one of Herod’s old Samaritan regiments in Mauretania.[26] The resentment with which the new conditions of service were sometimes received is an instructive comment on the wisdom of Augustus’s policy in not enforcing their universal applicability at an earlier date. The Thracians, for example, rose in open revolt when they were first summoned to supply a contingent for service at a distance from their own borders.[27] Somewhat similar was the fate of the border militia on the Rhine and Danube. On the latter frontier the revolt of 6-9 showed at an early date the dangers of the system. After its suppression the clan chiefs seem, in many cases at any rate, to have been deposed and replaced by Roman officials,[28] regiments of Pannonians and Dalmatians were raised and transferred to other provinces, and a garrison was imported from outside to control the country.[29] On the Rhine the process was a more gradual one. The Batavi, for example, whom we have noticed serving in the campaigns of Germanicus as a clan levy under their dux Chariovalda, seem to have been organized in regular auxiliary regiments by the middle of the first century,[30] although they still retained, in common with many other corps of Rhenish auxilia, their clan chiefs as their praefecti.[31] In the year 69 we also find the Helvetii still responsible for maintaining the garrison of a fort within their borders, and a militia existing in Raetia capable of supplementing the garrison of regular auxilia.[32] Some even of the Gallic states, which were more distant from the frontier, sent contingents to support Vitellius, which were not, however, regarded as a very sensible addition to his forces.[33]

Probably these last vestiges of independent organization and control were swept away at the time of the reorganization of the Rhine army in 70, after the rebellion of Civilis. From this date onward there are at any rate few traces here or elsewhere of any use of irregulars of this type by the military authorities. This militia, which might have proved invaluable in the days to come as a national reserve, fell a victim, together with the local autonomy on which it was based, to the growing tendency towards centralization which marks the first and second centuries. The supersession of local officials by the agents of a centralized bureaucracy in the civil administration coincides with the complete transference of the burden of the defence of the state to the shoulders of a professional army. It is the purpose of the following chapters to discuss one part of this army, the auxilia, to trace its organization and the part which it played in frontier defence, and to illustrate from this study the lines on which the military system of the Empire developed and the causes of its failure.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Livy, xxii. 37 ‘Milite atque equite scire nisi Romano Latinique nominis non uti populum Romanum: levium armorum auxilia etiam externa vidisse in castris Romanis’. Cf. Polybius, iii. 75.

[2] Cf. Varro, De Lat. ling. v. 90 ‘auxilium appellatum ab auctu, quum accesserant ei qui adiumento essent alienigenae’. Festus, Epit. 17 ‘auxiliares dicuntur in bello socii Romanorum exterarum nationum’.

[3] Livy, xlii. 35.

[4] Livy, xliii. 7.

[5] Plutarch, Vit. C. Gracchi 16; Caesar, Bell. Gall. ii. 7.

[6] The famous occasion when Caesar, distrusting his auxiliaries, mounted some of the tenth legion, proves conclusively that he had then no citizen cavalry in his army. Caesar, Bell. Gall. i. 42.

[7] Sallust, Bell. Iug. 46.

[8] Caesar, Bell. Gall. ii. 7.

[9] See Dr. T. Ashby’s article in the Classical Review for August 1909, and A. E. 1911, n. 126, for a further fragment of the text.

[10] Cf. Caesar, Bell. Gall. vii. 13 ‘Germanos equites circiter CCCC summittit, quos ab initio habere secum instituerat’, and c. 65 of the same book.

[11] Auct. de bell. Afr. 6 ‘Accidit res incredibilis, ut equites minus xxx Galli Maurorum equitum duo milia loco pellerent’.

[12] Appian, Bell. Civ. iv. 88.

[13] The First Mithridatic War is a very good example.

[14] Dio Cassius, lii. 27.

[15] Velleius, ii. 112; Tac. Ann. iv. 24.

[16] Josephus, Bell. Iud. iii. 4. 2.

[17] Arrian, Ect. 7.

[18] Tac. Ann. i. 56; ii. 11.

[19] Dio Cassius, lv. 29.

[20] Velleius, ii. 113.

[21] Tac. Hist. iv. 12, Germ. 29.

[22] Tac. Hist. i. 55.

[23] Tac. Hist. iii. 47 ‘Caesa ibi (at Trapezus) cohors, regium auxilium olim; mox donati civitate Romana signa armaque in nostrum modum, desidiam licentiamque Graecorum retinebant’.

[24] D. lviii (138-46).

[25] viii. 18042 (Hadrian’s speech) and D. civ (106) for Noricum.

[26] viii. 9358, 9359, 21039.

[27] Tac. Ann. iv. 46 ‘Causa motus super hominum ingenium, quod pati dilectus et validissimum quemque militiae nostrae dare aspernabantur, ne regibus quidem parere nisi ex libidine soliti, aut si mitterent auxilia, suos ductores praeficere nec nisi adversum accolas belligerare’.

[28] The praefecti civitatium, usually ex-centurions, who are mentioned on many inscriptions. Cf. v. 1838, ix. 2564.

[29] The question how far this practice was maintained will be found discussed in a later section.

[30] They undoubtedly furnished the octo auxiliarium cohortibus sent to Britain by Nero in 61. Cf. Tac. Ann. xiv. 38, and Hist. iv. 12.

[31] Tac. Hist. iv. 12 ‘cohortibus quas vetere instituto nobilissimi popularium regebant’.

[32] For the Helvetii see Tac. Hist. i. 67 ‘castelli quod olim Helvetii suis militibus ac stipendiis tuebantur’. The Raetian militia are mentioned in the following chapter: ‘Raeticae alae cohortesque et ipsorum Raetorum iuventus, sueta armis et more militiae exercita.’ It is quite clear that there were in the province (a) regular auxiliary regiments; (b) a native militia. I do not understand Professor Reid’s statement (The Municipalities of the Roman Empire, p. 203) that ‘the troops maintained there were not Roman legions with regular auxiliaries but contingents of allied forces’.

[33] Tac. Hist. ii. 69 ‘reddita civitatibus Gallorum auxilia, ingens numerus et prima statim defectione inter inania belli adsumptus’.

THE AUXILIA DURING THE FIRST TWO CENTURIES A.D.

SECTION I
THE STRENGTH AND ORGANIZATION OF THE AUXILIARY REGIMENTS

From the death of Augustus to the period when the frontier defences first began to collapse under the strain of the barbarian invasions, more than two centuries later, the imperial army presents a picture of military conservatism unrivalled in history. Not only does the original distinction between the legions of cives Romani and the auxilia of peregrini remain throughout the basis of its organization, but even individual corps show a marvellous power of vitality. Dio Cassius, writing at the beginning of the third century, notes that, of the twenty-five legions in existence in 14, eighteen still survived in his own day, and epigraphical evidence shows that scores even of the more easily destructible auxiliary regiments could claim as long a record. In appearance, indeed, the only considerable change introduced into the organization of the auxilia during this period was the addition of the numeri in the second century to the alae and cohortes which had previously been the only units employed. It is true, of course, that this conservatism was in some respects rather superficial, and that, while administrative forms and nomenclature remained unaltered, in more essential matters the army had been deeply affected by the tendencies of the age. It is still, however, possible, while paying due attention to these changes, to treat the two centuries which follow the death of Augustus as a single period in the history of the auxilia; it is only amid the confusion caused by the barbarian invasions of the third century and the subsequent attempts at reorganization that we definitely lose sight of our old landmarks.

Leaving out of account for the moment the numeri, which, as late creations with a special significance, are reserved for future discussion, let us commence with the alae and cohortes, which remained throughout this period the units of auxiliary cavalry and infantry respectively.

Both these terms, although their history is widely different, originate in the military terminology of the Republic. The term cohors had been originally applied to the infantry contingents of the Italian socii, which were not united in legions after the model of the levies of cives Romani, and it was naturally retained after the disappearance of the socii to describe the similar tactical units of provincial auxilia.

The term ala originated as a metaphorical description of the two divisions into which the contingents of socii were formed, which were stationed in the normal republican order of battle on either flank of the legions. After the disappearance of the socii the term was applied in a more restricted sense to the two flanking divisions in which the average Roman general massed all his available cavalry. This use of the word continued down to the last days of the Republic. When, for instance, the author of the De bello Africo writes, ‘Caesar alteram alam mittit qui satagentibus celeriter occurreret,’[34] or Cicero says of his son in the De Officiis, ‘Quo tamen in bello cum te Pompeius alteri alae praefecisset, magnam laudem et a summo viro, et ab exercitu consequebare equitando, iaculando …’[35] the word is clearly being used in this sense, and does not refer to a regiment of any fixed size. In fact the cavalry of the socii never seem to have been organized in larger units than turmae, and the auxiliary levies naturally adopted the same formation. It has already been noticed that some of the Spanish auxiliaries who served in the Social War are officially described as belonging to a turma Salluitana. Occasional phrases in Livy, such as the statement that the Aetolian cavalry contingent, in the campaign of 171 B.C., was alae unius instar, do not seem to prove anything more than that the historian used the technical terms of his own age to make his narrative clearer.[36] This usage, however, shows that Livy was familiar with the restricted meaning of the word—that is to say, the ala must have been a recognized institution in the reign of Augustus, and we may add that Velleius states that fourteen alae were employed in the Pannonian campaigns of 6-9 in which he himself had served.

It is improbable, however, that the ala was a creation of Augustus, although he may have determined its exact size and organization. In Caesar’s account of his Gallic campaigns we find frequent mention of contingents of tribal cavalry serving as independent units under officers bearing the title of praefecti equitum,[37] and these units must have been much larger than turmae. The organization of these regiments, originally of a purely temporary kind, must have been placed on a more permanent basis when many of them were taken out of their own country to serve in the Civil Wars, and it would have been natural that a new term should be used to describe them.[38]

Evidence in support of this conjecture, which is, as we have seen, lacking in the writings of Caesar and his continuators, has been sought for elsewhere. The majority of Caesar’s praefecti equitum seem to have been tribal chiefs; one may cite, for example, the Aeduan Dumnorix,[39] the heroic veteran Vertiscus,[40] and the two treacherous Allobroges, Roucillus and Egus, the sons of Adbucillus.[41] On the other hand, when we meet with an ala Scaevae on an early inscription, it is difficult to avoid agreeing with Mommsen that it was called after Caesar’s well-known officer of that name.[42] Many other cavalry regiments, which are shown by epigraphical evidence to have existed at an early date and to have been Gallic in composition, bear titles similarly formed from personal names.[43] It is suggested that these corps, or at any rate the majority of them, represent tribal contingents embodied by Caesar at the time of the Civil Wars under the title of alae and placed under his veteran officers. Thus during this period the use of the term ala in the restricted sense would be already known, although only the older and wider use appears in literature. How slowly the new expression won favour is shown by the fact that during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius the officers commanding these regiments were usually described on inscriptions simply as praefectus equitum, and it was not until after this that the title praefectus alae came to be generally adopted.[44]

Curiously enough, we find very few cohorts with titles which suggest a similar history.[45] Probably in this case Augustus’s reorganization was more thorough and the existing regiments had not, like some of Caesar’s corps of Gallic cavalry, a record of individual achievement which might exempt them from its scope.

Size of regiments. In discussing the size of the auxiliary regiments we have two questions to settle, the numbers of the establishment and the actual strength at which the regiments were maintained. As regards the first question, the evidence of Hyginus[46] and the inscriptions shows us that both alae and cohortes were known as miliariae or quingenariae—that is to say, they contained, roughly speaking, 500 or 1,000 men each. The smaller unit seems to have been preferred in the first century, while the larger predominates among the corps raised by Trajan and his successors. The exact theoretical size, both of the regiments themselves and of the centuries and turmae into which they were divided, is more difficult to determine. Hyginus states that an ala quingenaria was divided into sixteen turmae, and an ala miliaria into twenty-four.[47] He does not state the number of men in a turma in either case, and it seems impossible to arrive at any certainty on the basis of figures found elsewhere in his treatise. Turning to epigraphical evidence we find an inscription from Coptos which describes the composition of a vexillatio drawn from three alae and seven cohorts, as: ‘Alarum III: dec(uriones) V, dupl(icarius) I, sesquiplic(arii) IIII, equites CCCCXXIIII. Cohortium VII: centuriones X, eq(uites) LXI, mil(ites) DCCLXXXIIX’.[48] Von Domaszewski suggests that the cavalry in this detachment are to be divided into ten turmae of 42 men, each commanded by a decurio, a duplicarius, or a sesquiplicarius, and that this figure represents the theoretical strength of the turma in an ala miliaria.[49] In an ala quingenaria, on the other hand, the turma probably contained only 30 men.

This seems to be as near certainty as we are likely to arrive in the present state of our evidence, unless indeed we take literally a statement of Arrian that an ala contained 512 men, a total which would presumably give 32 men to the turma.[50] Arrian is, of course, the best authority on the imperial army whom we possess, but the remark in question is a parenthesis inserted into an account of the ideal establishment of a Hellenistic army, and he may have meant no more than that the unit under discussion corresponded roughly with a Roman ala quingenaria. More satisfactory and conclusive evidence will perhaps be found when the barracks of an ala in a frontier fort have been accurately planned.[51]

The size of the auxiliary cohorts is a matter of even greater difficulty. Hyginus states, and there seems no reason to doubt his statement, that a cohors miliaria was divided into ten centuries, a cohors quingenaria into six.[52] Archaeological evidence supports this statement and suggests further that the centuries were in each case of the same size, since the centurial barracks in the fort at Housesteads, in Northumberland, which was occupied by a cohors miliaria, offer almost precisely the same accommodation as those in the Scottish fort at Newstead, which are clearly designed to accommodate two cohortes quingenariae. The question to be decided is whether these centuries contained 80 or 100 men each. In either case, one of the titles must be a misnomer, since six centuries of 100 would make a cohors quingenaria consist of 600 men, while ten centuries of 80 would only give 800 men for a cohors miliaria. On the whole, although Hyginus suggests the higher figure, the lower is probably to be preferred. Certainly the Coptos inscription cited above, which is probably the most valuable evidence which we possess, clearly indicates centuries of 80. The most important evidence on the other side is that of Josephus, who describes some cohorts which belonged to the Syrian army in 67 A.D. as containing ἀνὰ χιλίους πεζούς.[53] His succeeding statement, however, that other cohorts, by which cohortes equitatae quingenariae are apparently meant, contained 600 infantry and 120 cavalry, suggests that he may be basing his reckoning simply on the number of centuries. Few would defend his calculation in the second instance, and he may be equally wrong in the first. On the whole, therefore, it seems safer to assume establishments of 480 and 800 men for cohortes quingenariae and miliariae respectively, although it remains, of course, possible that the size of the cohorts was altered between the Jewish war of 66-70 and the period of the erection of those frontier forts upon which we have been relying for our evidence.

The last question to be settled in this connexion is that of the cohortes equitatae, in which a proportion of the men were mounted, which form a peculiar and interesting feature of the imperial army. Corps in which infantry and cavalry fought together had of course always been common,[54] but the idea was probably revived by the Romans from observing the practice of the German tribes, from whom Julius obtained a contingent accustomed to fight in this manner.[55] It is certainly significant that one of the earliest of these regiments known to us from inscriptions is a cohors Ubiorum.[56] There is, however, no later evidence for the employment of these tactics, and the continued use of cohortes equitatae is due rather to the necessity of having detachments of mounted men at as many frontier stations as possible. The equites cohortales should be reckoned rather as mounted infantry than cavalry, since we learn from a fragment of Hadrian’s address to the army in Africa that they were worse mounted than the equites alares, and less skilled in cavalry manœuvres.[57] As regards the strength of these regiments and the proportion of mounted to unmounted men, Hyginus states that the cohors miliaria equitata contained 760 infantry and 240 cavalry, while the cohors quingenaria contained six centuries, and in other respects, ‘in dimidio eandem rationem continet’—that is to say, it apparently had 380 infantry and 120 cavalry.[58] The figures for the mounted men are probably correct, and, since we learn from an inscription that there were four decurions to a cohors quingenaria, we may presume that the turmae were 30 strong.[59] This agrees very well with the Egyptian vexillation cited above, which included 61 equites cohortales—that is to say, 2 turmae. On the other hand, there is considerable reason for supposing that the figures for the infantry are schematic and incorrect. It is sufficient here to remark that centuries of 76 could not be divided into contubernia of either 8 or 10, and that the 380 men of Hyginus’s cohors quingenaria could not even be divided evenly among six centuries. The question cannot be settled with certainty until forts occupied by regiments of this class have been planned, but it seems probable that while the number of the centuries remained unaltered the complement of each was reduced from 80 to 60, or possibly to 64, if it was thought desirable to retain the division into contubernia of 8.[60]

Having endeavoured to determine the theoretical establishment of the auxiliary regiments, it remains to discover how far this corresponded to the actual strength at which they were maintained, and here our evidence is scanty, and likely to remain so. Fortunately, the discovery in Egypt of some of the official papers of the Cohors I Augusta Praetoria Lusitanorum has thrown some light on the question. On January 1, 156, this regiment had on its books 6 centurions, 3 decurions, 114 mounted infantry, 19 camel-riders (dromedarii), and 363 infantry, making, with the praefectus, a total of 506 men. Between January and May, 18 recruits were enrolled, 15 infantry, an eques, a dromedarius, and a decurion.[61] These figures agree fairly well with the arrangement suggested above, although the dromedarii are an additional complication, and the regiment appears even to have exceeded its ‘paper-strength’. This, however, may be easily accounted for if we imagine that a number of men had served their term and were about to be discharged. Unfortunately, this document remains isolated, and further evidence is not likely to be forthcoming.

Conditions of service. Questions concerning the method of enlistment for the auxiliary regiments are reserved, on account of their connexion with the broader issues raised by the whole recruiting system, for discussion in a later section. For the present it will be sufficient to discuss the conditions of service in this branch of the army, as they are laid down in the so-called diplomata militaria.[62] These documents, of which we possess some 70 or 80 examples dealing with the auxilia, are small bronze tablets, issued originally to individual soldiers, recording the privileges granted to them either after their discharge or after they had completed a term of 25 years. The reason for this variation seems to be that while the praemia militiae were always conferred after the regulation number of years had been served, it was often the practice to retain the men with the colours for some years longer before finally discharging them. This practice, which we hear of in the early empire as a standing grievance of the legionaries,[63] seems to have prevailed also among the auxilia during the first century.[64] After 107, however, we have no instances of the praemia unpreceded by discharge, a change which is probably due to the perfection of organization, and can be traced also in the legions.

Previous to the reign of Antoninus Pius, the privileges granted to the recipient of a diploma include citizenship for himself, the full legalization of any matrimonial union into which he has entered or shall enter in the future (conubium), and civic rights for his wife, children, and descendants. If he already possessed a family, the names of his wife and children follow his own on the diploma, and the frequency of this occurrence shows the extent to which the military authorities permitted the soldiers to form family ties while on active service.[65] The significance of this fact and its effect on the character of the army will be discussed in a later section.

At the beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius, a change takes place in that part of the formula which concerns the grant of citizenship. In place of the words ipsis liberis posterisque eorum civitatem dedit et conubium cum uxoribus, &c., we read in all the later examples, civitatem Romanam, qui eorum non haberent, dedit et conubium cum uxoribus, &c.[66] The first inference to be drawn from this alteration is that there now existed a numerous group of auxiliary soldiers who possessed the civitas before their discharge, and we are probably justified in the further inference that many actually possessed it when they were enrolled. It has been noted, for example, that on a document dating from the reign of Trajan, six recruits accepted for the Cohors III Ituraeorum all have the tria nomina.[67] In this change, then, we have a clear instance of the extent to which the franchise was now diffused throughout the Empire.

The omission of the phrase liberis posterisque eorum, on the other hand, suggests the opposite tendency. It cannot, of course, mean that children born after their father’s discharge would not be cives, for their status would be secured by the grant of conubium, but it seems clear that those born before it no longer acquired the citizenship with him. This is supported not only by the absence of all mention of children on the later diplomata,[68] but by the phraseology of an Egyptian document dealing with an ἐπίκρισις of the year 148 which distinguishes two classes of veterans, ἔνειοι μὲν ἐπιτυχόντες σὺν τέκνοις καὶ ἐγγόνοις, ἕτεροι μόνοι τῆς Ῥωμαίων ποτειτείας (sic) καὶ ἐπιγαμίας πρὸς γυναῖκας ἃς τότε εἶχον, ὅτε τούτοις ἡ πολιτεία ἐδόθη,[69] &c. Clearly we have here a translation of both types of formula, and the translator gave to the second the same meaning as that suggested above. Clearly, too, the change was considered an important one since the veterans discharged before and after it are thus divided into two groups. In view of the prevailing policy of the imperial government with respect to the extension of the civitas this step has a curiously retrograde appearance, and it is difficult to see the motives which suggested it. Possibly it was merely desired to get rid of an anomalous situation by which the auxiliaries had previously occupied a more privileged position than the Household Troops.[70] In any case, even after this restriction, there can be little doubt that the grant of the civitas with the improvement in civil status which it brought to the recipient, and the increased possibilities which it offered to his children, must have done much to popularize the service. We have seen that the idea of such a reward did not originate with the Empire, but it was probably not until the reorganization of the army by Augustus that it was regularly conferred and the years of service required to earn it definitely fixed.[71]

We do not know whether at the time of their discharge the auxiliaries also received, like the legionaries, a grant of money or land in lieu of a pension. It seems certain that their status excluded them from a share in the donativa, which the emperors distributed among the troops at their accession, and on other special occasions, and that they could only receive the dona militaria after a special preliminary grant of the civitas.[72] That such grants were made, even to whole regiments at a time, is shown by the number of cohorts which commemorate the receipt of this honour by employing the title civium Romanorum.

On the still more important matter of the ordinary pay of the auxiliary regiments an almost equal uncertainty prevails. Our only two pieces of evidence on the subject, a passage in Tacitus and a phrase in Hadrian’s address to the garrison of Africa,[73] tell us nothing more than that the equites cohortales were paid on a higher scale than the infantry, but received in their turn less than the equites alares, a preference in favour of the mounted men, which is not so great as appears at first sight, since it is clear that they were responsible for the upkeep of their own horses. The chief defect of these passages is that they do not mention the amount of the pay in any of the three cases. Our only basis for calculation is the fact that a legionary considered it promotion to be made duplicarius alae; hence the pay of an ordinary cavalryman must have been more than half that of a legionary. On a priori considerations it can hardly have been less, if, as Hadrian’s speech suggests, he paid for his own arms and mount, and if he also, like the legionaries, had the cost of his rations deducted from his pay. On the whole, however, it seems best to defer speculation until further evidence is forthcoming.[74]

Internal organization. As is only natural in the case of a professional army with so long a term of service, the internal organization of the auxiliary regiments reveals a far more complicated system of grades and promotions than anything which the ancient world had yet known. The epigraphical evidence is abundant, and the efforts of modern scholars, particularly von Domaszewski in his monumental treatise, Die Rangordnung des römischen Heeres, have done much to make the main lines of the system clear. Difficulties in detail still remain, but we may hope for their ultimate solution.

The commanding officer of an ala quingenaria or miliaria, or of a cohors quingenaria bore the title of praefectus. Cohortes miliariae and the cohortes civium Romanorum, which occupied an exceptional position,[75] were commanded by tribuni. Early inscriptions also mention a subpraefectus alae and a subpraefectus cohortis, but these posts seem later to have been abandoned.[76] In later times in case of the absence of the praefectus, his place seems to have been filled by an officer placed temporarily in charge with the title of praepositus or curator. Questions concerning the order of precedence among the praefecti and tribuni, and their place in the military hierarchy generally, are so closely connected with the method of selection and appointment of these officers at different periods, that they are best left for future discussion.[77] It is only important here to note that they usually entered the service with this rank, and that it is very rare to find the regular commander either of an ala or cohort drawn from among the lower officers.

The remaining ‘commissioned officers’, as we should call them, are represented by the troop and company commanders, the decurions who commanded the turmae of the ala, and the centurions and decurions of the cohorts. The senior officer in each class was styled decurio princeps or centurio princeps,[78] but apart from this we cannot trace any regular order of precedence with fixed titles such as is found among the legionary centurions. As regards the respective position of infantry and cavalry officers, the decurio alae ranked highest. This is shown clearly, as von Domaszewski has pointed out, by the frequent employment of this officer as praepositus cohortis.[79] On the other hand, among the officers of the cohorts the centurions ranked above the decurions who commanded the mounted men, where such existed. In one inscription, which seems to have included all the officers of a cohors equitata, the centurions come first on the list, and in the Coptos inscription, so often cited, the officers of the 61 equites cohortales are not mentioned at all.[80] The difference in rank cannot, however, have been very great since all these officers could be promoted to the post of legionary centurion without any intervening step, although this distinction seems to have been conferred most freely upon the decurions of the alae. In these cases it was of course necessary for the auxiliary officer to have acquired the civitas either by serving his full time or by a special grant before his promotion.

Throughout the period these posts seem usually to have been filled by promotion from the lower ranks, although we also find instances of legionaries being given commissioned rank in the auxiliary regiments, and it is officers of this class who seem most frequently to have secured further promotion to the legionary centurionate.[81] Von Domaszewski wishes to consider that these transfers were especially characteristic of the early days of the imperial army, and that a deliberate attempt was then made to provide every auxiliary regiment with a staff of ex-legionaries. With this suggestion, however, it is difficult to agree; not only is the epigraphical evidence insufficient to prove such a wholesale use of imported officers, but the cases known to us are by no means confined to the first fifty years of the Empire. Further, as will be shown later, the arrangement does not harmonize with the general character of the early auxilia.

The holders of subordinate posts, who ranked below the centurion or decurion, may be divided, following the arrangement adopted by von Domaszewski, into two groups.[82] The members of the first group practically correspond to our non-commissioned officers, and are able to command small detachments or to take the place, if necessary, of the company officers. These alone, and the holders of certain higher administrative posts, to which the taktische Chargen gave access,[83] have a legitimate claim to the title of principales. The members of the second group did not, strictly speaking, rank above the privates, but they were granted freedom from certain routine duties in return for special services which they discharged, and were distinguished in consequence by the title of immunes.

It is of course often difficult to ascertain whether a particular post falls into the higher or lower group, and this is especially the case with the standard-bearers, who occupy a position of peculiar importance in the military system. In the ala each troop had its own flag carried by the signifer turmae, but there seems also to have been a regimental standard, the bearer of which was known as the vexillarius alae.[84] A few inscriptions also mention an imaginifer, but it is not clear whether this officer always or at all periods found a place on the staff.[85] In a cohort, on the other hand, each century seems to have had its signifer, and each turma of mounted men its vexillarius, but it does not appear that there was a regimental standard, any more than there existed at this date a standard for each cohort of a legion. This at least is implied by Tacitus in his description of the entry of the Vitellian army into Rome, when he mentions the alarum signa by the side of the legionum aquilae, but says nothing of the ensigns of the cohorts.[86] We must suppose, then, that the imaginifer cohortis, who is mentioned on inscriptions, was not regarded as the regimental standard-bearer any more than the imaginifer legionis.[87]

In consequence of this difference in organization the company and troop standard-bearers of the cohorts rank among the principales, while in the alae only the regimental standard-bearer is included in the higher group, and the signiferi turmae sink to the position of immunes.

Returning, then, to the ala we may place at the head of the principales the vexillarius, and next to him the imaginifer, when this officer existed. Other members of this class were the non-commissioned officers of every turma, the duplicarius and sesquiplicarius,[88] who derived their titles from the fact that they were paid twice and one and a half times the private’s pay respectively, an institution found in the Hellenistic military system from which it was probably borrowed.[89] Lastly we should perhaps add the optio, who commanded the escort of the praefectus (singulares).[90]

To the lower group, the immunes, belong the signifer, custos armorum, and curator attached to every turma,[91] the cornicularius,[92] actarius,[93] strator,[94] stator,[95] librarius,[96] and beneficiarius,[97] who form the clerical and administrative staff of the praefectus, and his escort, the singulares.[98] In determining the position of the holders of these posts among the immunes we are supported by the analogy of the Equites Singulares Imperatoris, a corps modelled upon and to a certain extent recruited from the auxiliary cavalry. The list of a turma of this regiment contained on a Roman inscription gives the following arrangement:[99]

nomina turmae
Iul(ius) Mascel(lus) dec(urio)
Nonius Severus dup(licarius)
Iul(ius) Victorinus sesq(uiplicarius)
Aur(elius) Mucatral
Aur(elius) Lucius
Ael(ius) Crescens sig(nifer)
Aur(elius) Victor arm(orum custos)
Aur(elius) Atero cur(ator)
Ael(ius) Victor bf (beneficiarius)
Cl(audius) Victorinus lib(rarius)
Iul(ius) Vindex bf (beneficiarius)
17 names of equites follow.

The fact that two privates occupy the fourth and fifth places shows clearly that the holders of all the posts mentioned lower in the list belong to the immunes. Had it not been for this piece of evidence we might have been tempted to place the signifer turmae in the higher category. The analogy of the Equites Singulares also suggests that we may include the bucinator and tubicen among the immunes of the ala,[100] and we have also to add the medicus, whose somewhat exceptional position is discussed later.[101]

A distinction between the principales and immunes of the cohorts may be based partly upon the principles already adopted for the ala, partly upon the analogy of the legion, the organization of which was clearly followed in several respects. On these grounds we may class as principales the imaginifer cohortis, the signifer, optio, and tesserarius of each century, and the optio and vexillarius of each turma in the cohortes equitatae. The case of the optio, who commanded, if necessary, in the place of the centurion or decurion, may be taken for granted. It may also be noted that both optio and vexillarius could be promoted to the position of decurion without any intervening step.[102] The tesserarius, whose main duty consisted in receiving from the centurion the orders and password for the day and transmitting them to the men, is found in charge of a detachment on special duty,[103] as is also the imaginifer cohortis.[104] The signifer,[105] lastly, can hardly have had a position inferior to that of the vexillarius or tesserarius, and would indeed rank higher than the latter if the analogy of the legions holds good. As regards the immunes, the officer commanding a cohort possessed a smaller administrative staff than the praefectus alae, including only the cornicularius,[106] actarius,[107] librarius,[108] and beneficiarius.[109] The musicians possibly include the cornicen[110] as well as the tubicen[111] and the bucinator[112], and the post of mensor seems to be confined to the cohorts.[113] At least no inscription has yet mentioned one among the immunes of the ala.

Finally, as regards the position of the medici, who were attached to the cohorts as well as to the alae, a few special remarks seem necessary. On a British inscription one of these army doctors is described as medicus ordinarius[114], which would naturally mean that he served in the ranks, and a passage in the Digest confirms this by ranking the medici among the immunes.[115] On the other hand, M. Ulpius Sporus, who is described in an inscription erected by his freedmen at Ferentinum in Etruria as medicus alae Indianae et tertiae Astorum (sic)[116], seems to be on rather a higher level, as also M. Rubrius Zosimus of Ostia, who was doctor to the Cohors IV Aquitanorum in Germania Superior in the second century.[117] Both these men are apparently Greeks, and can hardly have reached their regiments by the ordinary recruiting channels.[118] It has been noticed also that the medici appear to have a special position in some inscriptions of the Praetorian cohorts.[119] Probably, then, one may infer two classes of medici, the common soldier who possessed some elementary qualifications (first aid and blood-letting) and was given the position of an immunis, and the fully-trained professional doctor who was attached to a regiment but held no actual military rank. It was probably to distinguish himself from the latter class that the medicus of the Tungrian cohort added the word ordinarius to his title.

As regards the rate and method of promotion, and the order of precedence of the various posts within the two groups of principales and immunes, we know practically nothing. There is nothing to show that it was customary to hold several posts in a regular order,[120] or to become an immunis before entering the principales. It was doubtless usual for a man not to receive commissioned rank without first holding some subordinate post, but we do not know that any such preliminary qualification was essential.[121] Owing to the length of service promotion was probably not rapid, but on the other hand the number of posts available was very large. In an ala quingenaria, for example, there were 16 decurions, 34 principales, and probably over 100 immunes.[122] Thus every soldier must have felt confident of obtaining sooner or later a position of greater ease and profit, and this, together with the fact that the ladder of promotion led to commissioned rank, and even to the coveted legionary centurionate, must have increased the attractions of the profession.

Titles of the regiments. The titles of the auxiliary regiments were as various in form as those of the legions, and it is unnecessary to give a complete list of them. The alae which bear a title derived from a personal name, presumably that of their original commander, have been mentioned already. The majority of them were probably raised during Caesar’s Gallic campaigns or the Civil Wars, and there are few to which a later date can be assigned with any certainty.[123] The few cohorts known to have borne such titles are more difficult to explain, but have perhaps a similar origin.[124] Regiments raised under the Empire, on the other hand, were usually called by the name of the tribe or district from which they were raised, and distinguished by a number from other corps of the same origin.[125] In course of time these ethnical titles were in many cases supplemented by others, some of which were granted as marks of distinction and rewards for meritorious service, while others were purely descriptive. Examples of the former class are the title civium Romanorum, which indicates that on some occasion all the members of a corps received the franchise before their discharge,[126] and honorary epithets, such as pia, fidelis, or fida.[127] The title Augusta seems also to have been granted at all periods honoris causa, although some of the regiments bearing it may date back to the beginning of the Empire.[128] Titles derived from the names of later emperors, on the other hand, while they were doubtless granted occasionally as marks of distinction, seem often to indicate nothing more than the reign during which a regiment was raised. Finally, from the time of Severus Antoninus onwards, every regiment employs a secondary title, derived from the name of the reigning emperor. A remarkable series of dedicatory inscriptions of the Cohors I Aelia Dacorum, which was stationed during the third century at Birdoswald (Amboglanna), on the British frontier, shows us this regiment successively assuming the titles Antoniniana, Gordiana, Postumiana, and Tetriciana.[129]

Purely descriptive titles might be derived either from the size of the regiment (miliaria, quingenaria), its composition (equitata, gemina),[130] its weapons (scutata, contariorum, sagittariorum), or the name of the province in which it was or had been stationed (Syriaca, Moesiaca). A frequent motive for the assumption and accumulation of such secondary descriptive titles seems to have been the desire of a regiment to distinguish itself from another unit bearing the same number and ethnical title, and stationed in the same province. This was probably the origin of the title veterana or veteranorum, which was borne by five alae and five cohorts,[131] although its interpretation is much disputed. According to von Domaszewski, these regiments were so called because they were originally formed of discharged veterans recalled to active service in time of war.[132] Cichorius suggests that a regiment assumed this name when another corps bearing the same number and ethnical title, but of more recent origin, was stationed in the same province.[133] This certainly furnishes the best explanation in the case of the Cohors III Thracum c. R., and the Cohors III Thracum veteranorum, which appear together in the Raetian diplomata for 107 and 166.[134] On von Domaszewski’s theory it is difficult to see why a regiment of recalled veterans should bear the number III, and his explanation that ‘the numbers borne by these corps are connected with the numbering of the auxilia in the province to which they were attached after their formation from missicii’ does not make matters much clearer. Cichorius’s suggestion would also account satisfactorily for the Cohors I Aquitanorum and the Cohors I Aquitanorum veterana, which appear together in Germania Superior in 74,[135] and the Cohors I Claudia Sugambrorum and the Cohors I Sugambrorum veterana which were stationed together in Moesia Inferior.[136] The latter would be identical with the regiment mentioned by Tacitus as forming part of the garrison of the province in the reign of Tiberius.[137] In other cases where similar duplication cannot be proved it must be remembered that our evidence is very imperfect, and that a regiment after assuming this title may have continued to use it when the reason for doing so had disappeared.

These descriptive and honorary epithets, although sometimes borne alone,[138] were usually employed to supplement the original ethnical title, with the result that after a hundred years of meritorious service the ‘full style’ of a second-century regiment might be almost as long and imposing as that of the emperors whom it served. As an example, one may cite the Cohors I Breucorum quingenaria Valeria Victrix bis torquata ob virtutem appellata equitata, which formed part of the garrison of Raetia.[139]

Relation of the auxilia to the legions. It is perhaps relevant to discuss here a point affecting the auxilia as a whole, namely, their relation to the legions in the general scheme of military organization. It is generally supposed that in those frontier armies which included both classes of troops, a group of auxiliary regiments was definitely attached to each legion, and such phrases as ‘a legion with its attendant auxiliaries’ are common in writers on the military system of the Roman Empire. Evidence as to the exact nature and even the existence of such a connexion is, however, somewhat difficult to find. Tacitus does, it is true, refer to the eight Batavian cohorts, who play such an important part in the events of 69, as auxilia quartae decimae legionis, but no other passage can be quoted in the same sense, and the connexion in this case was obviously neither close nor durable.[140] In the comparatively detailed account of the first campaign of Bedriacum, which rests at any rate upon a good military source, there is no suggestion that the auxilia marched or manœuvred in separate groups, each connected with a particular legion. Certainly in the normal order of battle throughout the first century the available auxilia were all massed together either as a first line, or in two flanking divisions to the right and left of the legionaries, and the auxilia of the army which crossed the Rhine in 73 were not divided among the legionary legati, but had a commander of their own.[141]

Supporters of the legionary connexion also refer to the two diplomata issued in the same year and on the same day (August 14, 99) to two different groups of auxiliary regiments stationed in Moesia Inferior, and suggest that this curious arrangement can best be explained on the supposition that each diploma refers only to the auxilia of one legion.[142] A similar explanation suggests itself for the fact that only one regiment is common to the two British diplomata of 103 and 105.[143] It seems impossible, however, to interpret all the diplomata in this manner. The British diploma of 124, for example, which was issued to men from six alae and twenty-one cohorts, can hardly be supposed to contain the auxilia of only one of the three legions then stationed in the province.[144] In Pannonia Superior also so many regiments are common to the five complete second-century diplomata which we possess that we must, on this theory, refer them all to the auxilia of one and the same legion.[145] How, then, do we account for the fact that the inscriptions of the province hardly mention any regiments but those contained in these diplomata? In other words, why should all our evidence refer to the auxilia of one legion, and those attached to the other two, then stationed in the province, have entirely disappeared?

A stronger argument is perhaps to be found in inscriptions which contain the phrase legio … et auxilia eius.[146] It could be wished that these texts were more numerous and more precise, but they support the supposition that some connexion existed between each legion and a definite group of auxiliary regiments better than any evidence previously adduced. The connexion, however, must have been very slight and easily broken. Dr. Hardy has pointed out that although three out of the four legions stationed in Germania Superior in 70 left the province for good during the following thirty-five years, there is abundant evidence that nothing like the same proportion of the auxilia stationed in the province accompanied them.[147] It is also clear that, in the second century at any rate, the number of auxilia attached to any legion was not fixed in accordance with any general principle, but depended upon the exigencies of the local situation on each frontier. A reference to the list of provincial garrisons contained in the appendix will show that whereas there are not likely to have been more than three thousand auxilia apiece to each of the three legions of Pannonia Superior, there were probably thirty thousand to be divided among the three legions of Britain, while in Dacia there was only one legion with something approaching twenty-five thousand auxilia. Still, with these reservations, it seems possible enough that the auxilia were always considered as in some sense dependent on the legions, and that where several legions were stationed in the same province, an arrangement was made dividing the auxilia into a corresponding number of groups, each of which was for certain purposes attached to a particular legion.[148]

Total number of the auxilia. This section should naturally conclude with some statement of the total number of auxilia in the imperial service. Unfortunately, no clear and direct evidence can be obtained on this point either from literary or epigraphical sources. Tacitus, in his survey of the military resources of the Empire in the reign of Tiberius, after enumerating the legions in detail, contents himself with a vague sentence suggesting that the auxiliaries were as numerous as the legionaries and Household Troops.[149] This phrase is perhaps accurate enough for the period to which he is referring, but it is obviously not meant to be precise, and must certainly not be taken to express any principle habitually followed in the composition of the imperial army. If we endeavour to check the statement from other sources we have the remark of Velleius that in 6, at the time of the great Pannonian revolt, the ten legions concentrated under Tiberius’s command were accompanied by 70 cohorts and 14 alae.[150] If we allow for a few regiments being miliariae, this would represent a little over 50,000 men, a number about equivalent to that of the legionaries. If we may assume a similar ratio in other provinces, the total for the auxilia at this period would amount to 150,000 men.[151] It must be remembered, however, that at this date and throughout the whole pre-Flavian period the government relied upon the troops of the client kingdoms and levies of border militia to supplement the imperial troops. With the gradual elimination of these secondary forces, which has already been described, the number of regular units was proportionately increased. More than twenty regiments were raised in the old kingdom of Thrace after its annexation in 46, and five alae and nineteen cohorts are found in 69 garrisoning the two provinces which had been formed from the kingdom of Mauretania.[152] We need not, then, be surprised if the figures supplied by Tacitus and Josephus show that so early as 69 the number of the auxiliaries considerably exceeds the figure suggested for the end of the reign of Augustus. According to Josephus, Vespasian entered Judaea in 67 with at least 20,000 auxiliaries, which probably represents two-thirds of the total number available in the Eastern provinces.[153] In the Danubian provinces in 69 there were, according to Tacitus, sixteen alae.[154] On the basis of the information given in the diplomata, we can safely reckon that there would be at least three cohorts to every ala, and that one regiment in four would be miliaria. Some 40,000 auxiliaries, therefore, must have been stationed in the Danubian provinces at this period. In the same year Vitellius entered Rome with twelve alae and thirty-four cohorts, that is to say some 30,000 men, which represented probably two-thirds of the auxilia in the Rhine armies and Raetia.[155] The garrison of the two Mauretanias, to which allusion has already been made, would amount to about 15,000 men. We thus arrive at the following totals for the auxilia at this period:

To this at least another 50,000 men must be added for the auxilia of Britain, Spain, Africa, Noricum, and the small garrisons of the inland provinces, making a grand total of 180,000 men. The next forty years saw the figure mount even higher. The remaining client kingdoms in the East, which were still strong enough to furnish 15,000 men for the Jewish war in 67, were annexed, and the appearance of several new units with the titles Flavia or Ulpia shows that more than this number of regular auxilia was raised in their place.[156] Even Hadrian seems to have made a few additions to the list, since his foreign policy, though essentially pacific, was based upon a system of frontier defence to which the auxilia were more than ever essential.[157] In Appendix I, where the evidence as to the strength and distribution of the auxilia in the second century is discussed in detail, it is suggested that by the middle of the second century the force may have amounted to some 220,000 men, and that even this figure was probably exceeded sixty years later.

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.

[45] See below, [p. 46.]

[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:

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.

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.

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]