The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial ArmyCheesman, George Leonard
History
The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army
Cheesman, George Leonard
Rome -- Army; Rome -- Colonies
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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