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 Trajanic reliefs show several varieties of uniforms in addition to
the ordinary type described above. The flying column which the emperor
leads down the Danube includes men who wear, instead of the ordinary
helmet, an animal’s skin arranged over the head and shoulders in the
manner usually confined to standard-bearers, and others whose helmets
are of a curious Teutonic pattern.[407] These may belong to regular
cohorts which had been allowed to retain something of their national
costume, but a barbarian who appears in this scene and elsewhere clad
only in long loose breeches and a _sagum_, and whose chief weapon is
a knotted club, must represent a _numerus_. Others of these irregular
regiments are probably represented by the archers clad in long tunics
and pointed caps or wearing helmet and shirt of scale armour who appear
in one or two scenes.[408] They are certainly to be distinguished from
the archers of the _cohortes sagittariorum_, who appear in a uniform
which only differs from that of the ordinary auxiliary infantry in
the absence of the shield.[409] The most exceptional uniform is that
of the slingers, who are dressed simply in tunics with no armour
but a shield.[410] Cichorius[411] wishes to recognize in them men
from the Balearic Islands, but although the Baleares were employed
by the Republic we have no inscriptions of a Cohors Balearum under
the Empire. Moreover, if there existed cohorts of slingers with this
distinctive uniform we should expect to find _cohortes funditorum_
or _libritorum_ on the analogy of the _cohortes sagittariorum_. It
appears, on the contrary, from a passage in Hadrian’s speech to the
African army that slinging formed part of the general training of
all the auxilia.[412] Like the cavalry, the auxiliary infantry are
represented on the Marcus column in a uniform essentially the same as
that worn eighty years previously, and no further developments can be
traced. The most striking fact which emerges from this inquiry is the
general uniformity of the equipment of nine-tenths of the auxiliary
regiments in the second century. We learn from casual references in
Tacitus that this uniformity had always been the ideal of the Roman War
Office,[413] and from the military point of view there was doubtless
much to recommend it.
It has, however, more significance if we regard it as one phase in that
extension of a uniform material culture through at any rate the western
half of the Empire which marks the first and second centuries.
Footnotes:
[374] Arrian, _Tactica_, 4 and 34-41.
[375] The chronology of the Rhenish reliefs has been worked out by
Weynand (_B. J. B._ 108/9), and the Danubian monuments have been
similarly treated by Hofman (_Sonderschrift des Oesterreichischen
Archäologischen Institutes in Wien_, Band v, 1905).
[376] Figured by Lehner in the first part of his illustrated catalogue
of the Bonn Museum, Plate vii, no. 3.
[377] Figured by Cagnat, _L’Armée romaine d’Afrique_, p. 238.
[378] Frontispiece.
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