The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial ArmyCheesman, George Leonard
History
The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army
Cheesman, George Leonard
Rome -- Army; Rome -- Colonies
Evidence of continued stay in one _castellum_ is naturally more
difficult to find, but the way in which the names Ulpius, Aelius,
and Aurelius follow one another on a series of inscriptions of the
Ala I Ulpia Contariorum from Arrabona in Pannonia Superior suggests
that the regiment remained there throughout the second century, and
the title Antoniniana shows that it had not moved before the reign of
Severus Antoninus.[353] At the fort of Veczel in Dacia the Cohors II
Flavia Commagenorum has left inscriptions dating from the reigns of
Hadrian, Marcus, Septimius Severus, Severus Alexander, and Philip,
which cover practically the whole period during which the province
was in existence.[354] In Britain a remarkable series of dedications
from Amboglanna (Birdoswald), which has already been referred to, shows
that the Cohors I Aelia Dacorum was stationed there from about 211 to
271.[355]
Had the practice of employing a secondary title derived from the name
of the reigning emperor commenced before the third century it would
probably be easy to prove stays of much longer duration. The figures
given above must certainly be taken as a minimum. A second-century
auxiliary could thus make himself at home in his quarters in the
practical certainty that, with the exception of a few temporary
absences as member of a _vexillatio_, he would spend the whole of his
twenty-five years of service patrolling the frontier on each side of
his _castellum_.
In considering the life which the frontier guards would lead under
these conditions we must remember that the character of the auxiliary
soldier in the second century had changed considerably since the force
was first organized by Augustus. In the early first century enrolment
in the Roman service had little effect on the levies of wild tribesmen
who composed the greater part of the auxilia at this period. They might
be organized in Roman fashion, but the military qualities which they
displayed and their whole manner of fighting were inherited from their
ancestors. _Promptam ad pericula nec minus cantuum et armorum tumultu
trucem_ is Tacitus’s description of a cohort of Sugambri employed in
Thrace in the reign of Tiberius, and in like fashion the German cohorts
of Caecina’s army shouted their war-songs and rattled their shields
beneath the walls of Cremona.[356] In the second century all this was
changed: the progress of Romanization had raised the majority of the
provincials, even in the frontier districts, to a level of culture
which placed them far above their ancestors of three generations
back, although they might still seem barbarous to a cultured Greek
or Italian.[357] In the conditions of the service there was nothing
to prevent the auxilia from participating in this general advance,
and the soldiers who spent the best years of their lives in these
little frontier stations gathered around them all the amenities of
provincial life which would have been found in any country town in the
neighbourhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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