ASCLEPIO ET. SALUTI
COMMILITIONUM COH. VI. PR.
VOTO. SUSCEPTO
SEX. TITIUS. MEDIC. COH.
VI. PR.
D. D.
Long ago Reines published in his _Syntagma Inscriptionum_,[399] a tablet
found at Rome and erected by TITUS CLAUDIUS JULIANUS, Clinical Physician
to the fourth Prætorian Cohort, to himself, to his wife Tullia Epigone,
to their freedmen, freedwomen, and descendants.
D. M.
TI. CLAUDIUS. IULIANUS
MEDICUS. CLINICUS. COH. IIII.
PR. FECIT. VIVOS. SIBI. ET
TULLIÆ EPIGONE. CONIUGI
LIBERTIS. LIBERTATIBUS (Q)
CLAUDIIS. POSTERISQUE
EORUM
H. M. H. N. S.
Muratori, in his Thesaurus,[400] cites a Roman sepulchral tablet
discovered at Veterbi, and containing an inscription by a father to his
deceased son, M. VLPIUS SPORUS, Physician to the Indian and Asturian
Auxiliaries (Medico Alarum Indianae et tertiae Asturum).[401]
The tablets to which I have hitherto alluded all refer, with the
doubtful exception of the first and last, to one rank of medical
military men, namely the surgeons of cohorts (_Medici Cohortum_). It is
generally believed that each cohort consisted of about 500 or 600 men;
though this appears to have varied at different times. From the
preceding tablets, each cohort seems to have been provided with at least
one medical officer, if not more. For the distinctive terms “Ordinarius”
and “Clinicus,” which occur in the first and last of the preceding
inscriptions, when added to the usual term “Medicus Cohortis,”
apparently tend to indicate a different grade or rank of medical officer
from the latter.
Whether, however, or not there were different grades among the Roman
_Medici Cohortum_, we have sufficient evidence for proving that there
existed in the Roman army a higher rank of medical officer than
these,—namely, _Medici Legionum_. The Roman legion consisted of ten
cohorts.[402] We have seen that the individual cohorts of which the
legion was composed were each provided with a medical officer or
officers. I have already cited a law from Justinian’s Codex, showing
further that there were military physicians to the Roman legions. The
evidence of monumental tablets affords additional proof, that over the
whole legion, another, and in all probability a superior medical
officer, was placed. More than one monumental tablet has been
discovered, dedicated not to the _Medicus Cohortis_, but to the _Medicus
Legioni_. Thus Maffei, in his _Museum Veronense_, gives the inscription
of a tablet raised by Scribonia Faustina to the manes of her very dear
husband, L CÆLIUS ARRIANUS, physician to the Second Italian Legion, who
died at the age of forty-nine years and seven months. The inscription
in the original runs as follows:—
D M
L. CAELI ARRIANI
MEDICO LEGIONIS
II. ITALIC. QUI. VIX. ANN
XXXXVIIII. MENSIS VII
SCRIBONIA FAUSTINA
COIUGI KARISSIMO.[403]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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