Military Diplomas Research Articles

A New Military Diploma from Ibida (Moesia Inferior)

The authors published a new military diploma from the settlement of Ibida (Moesia Inferior). The document is a copy of a constitutio issued August, 14th 99 for the troops of Moesia Inferior. The diploma was found in an archaeological context which confirms the dating. It is revealed to be a third one from Ibida issued in the same day. Moreover, the unit of the soldier who received the honesta missio is the same as in another diploma found in Ibida.

Militärdiplome, überliefert durch papyrologische Dokumente

Abstract In the so-called epikrisis documents, soldiers sometimes also presented their citizenship diplomas. From these, an extract in Greek was occasionally included in the administrative records. These have not been considered as fully valid documentation in the collections of military diplomas until now. Therefore, the partially preserved diplomas were not included in the collections. Here three such cases are retranslated into the original Latin form.

Hamstrung Horses: Dating Constantine's Departure from the Court of Galerius

This article reconciles contradictory ancient evidence concerning the date and circumstances of Constantine's departure from the court of Galerius to join his father, Constantius I. Modern consensus places this departure in mid-305 on the strength of evidence derived from Pan. Lat. 6.7.5–8.2, which states that Constantine joined his father in Gaul, and a military diploma unearthed in Italy in 1958, which lists Constantius as Britannicus Maximus II. This article deconstructs the case for this chronology on three grounds: firstly, that there is a prima facie plausibility to the fourth-century narrative of Constantine's hostage status with Galerius, who had worked hard to keep the sons of Maximian and Constantius from power; secondly, the 306 diploma is subjected to scrutiny and arguments offered for rejecting the iteration Britannicus Maximus II, not least because such other evidence of victory titles as exists contradicts it; thirdly and finally, a historical argument is made, on the basis of Pan. Lat. 7(6) and 6(7), that no major victory was ever won by Constantius in northern Britain. In all, it is argued that the story of Constantine's flight should be treated as historical and dated to the summer of 306.

Insights on the Bar Kokhba Revolt from the Coins

Without having any contemporaneous account of the Bar Kokhba Revolt comparable to the writings of Josephus that describe the First Jewish Revolt, our knowledge about many aspects of the later uprising is rather sketchy. The publication of Roman military diplomas and the remarkable series of documents recovered from caves in the Judaean Desert, along with other major archaeological findings, has filled in just some of missing details. This study is devoted to a reexamination of the rebel coinage. It has highlighted the importance of the numismatic evidence in helping to elucidate the religious ideology that succoured the rebellion and shaped its leadership.

Legal Protection Granted to Soldiers’ Partners in the Military Diplomas

The paper examines the formulas granting conubium in the military diplomas, focusing on the problem of soldiers’ relationships with women before and after their discharge. Keeping in mind the fact that between Augustus and Septimius Severus a marriage ban was imposed on soldiers in service, the study offers a reconstruction of the way in which soldiers’ de facto unions were viewed by the authorities and analyzes the legal protection against abandonment granted to soldiers’ partners by the imperial constitutions.

Cocceius Naso als Präsidialprokurator von Dacia Inferior und seine Diplome

Through a new fragment of a military diploma from 123 for Dacia inferior, it becomes possible to complete the already known constitution from which the diploma depends. It was issued for alae and cohortes under the governor Cocceius Naso. He was in office in the province at least from the middle of 122 until after the middle of 126. He is mentioned in altogether ten diplomas. The numerous discharges under him are the result of mass recruitments in the late period of the emperor Domitian or under Nerva in Moesia inferior.

A New Military Diploma Recently Found at Porolissum (Dacia Porolissensis)

The authors are presenting a military diploma recently found in the Roman fort at Porolissum (Dacia Porolissensis). It dates from Hadrian’s time and was issued for a soldier from cohors II Augusta Nerviana Pacensis milliaria Brittonum garrisoned in the fort at Buciumi (Sălaj County) on the frontier of Dacia Porolissensis. The document is a more complete copy of a fragmentary one already known. The diploma mentions one cavalry unit and eight infantry troops from the province’s army. The authors discuss the strange order of troops in the new diploma and highlight the accurate mention of the complete titles of the units.

Un fragment de diplôme militaire romain découvert à al-Badʿ (BDLat1)

A bronze plate fragment, inscribed on both sides, incidentally discovered by Saudi archaelogists at al-Badʿ (Hisma, Northwestern Saudi Arabia), has proven to be part of a Roman military diploma. Its text-in Latin-can be widely restituted by comparison with a longer document of the same type, which was published earlier but whose place of discovery is unknown. The date is ad 142, first semester. Eight auxiliary Roman units-two alae of cavalry (one of them being of meharis) and six pedestrian cohorts are mentioned. In the 1970’s, Al-Badʿ already provided a fragment of a monumental Roman military inscription: it is thus plausible that a unit had its permanent camp there, possibly the 1st “veteran” ala of Gaetuli or the Ulpian ala of Palmyrenian meharis.

A new copy of the constitution for soldiers and their “parents, sisters, brothers …” of 5 April 121?

A new Roman military diploma is published, which is most probably the fifth survived copy of the so called “parents, sisters, brothers …” constitution of 5 April 121. It was a special grant of Hadrian to the soldiers of a single unit, the ala I Ulpia contariorum milliaria c. R., belonging temporarily to the army of Dacia Superior c. 121, and their close relatives (parents, sisters, brothers), as reward for bravery in 117–119 war against the Sarmatian Roxolani and Iazyges.

‘Celtic’ commentaries on four Roman military diplomas

Zusammenfassung Dieser Aufsatz behandelt ‚keltisches‘ Material in vier römischen Militärdiplomen. Die genaue Herkunft von dreien dieser Diplome ist unbekannt, sie stehen aber sicher mit der unteren Donau in Verbindung, während das vierte in Dakien (Neuschloß/Gherla, Rumänien) gefunden wurde. Besonderes Augenmerk gilt der Interpretation der sprachlich keltischen Personennamen, die in diesen vier Texten belegt sind, und weitergehende Beobachtungen zu der Mobilität innerhalb des römischen Reiches von Einzelpersonen aus keltischsprachigen Gebieten werden angeführt.

THE ROMAN MILITARY DIPLOMA AS A HISTORICAL DOCUMENT

The purpose of the article is to analyze and characterize the Roman military diploma as a historical document. The research methodology consists in the use of general scientific methods and principles: a comparative and historiographical analysis, systematization of scientific literature, research works and documents; the principle of historicism, systematicity, scientificity and objectivity. The scientific novelty: on the basis of a wide range of the research es for the first time in the Ukrainian historiography the significance of the Roman military diploma as a historical document ha s been characterized; the prospects of the study of diplomata militum as the sources for the study of the Roman influences on the territory of ancient Ukraine have been elucidated . The Conclusions . During m any years the research es in the field of epigraph ics , including the study of military diplomas, became an important component in the reconstruction of the personnel of the Roman auxiliary units – auxilia, the names of these units, and helped reproduce some other aspects of functioning related not only to the military history. This refers to the administrative apparatus of the Empire, in particular, in addition to the then ruling emperor, in the diplomas the names of consuls, the governor of the province and the commanders of these military units are recorded ; you can also trace the stages of their career – cursus honorum. Analyzing these documents, we can determine the status and place of retired servicemen in their residence places after the honorary resignation ( honesta missio ), to trace the stages and nature of the Romanization of the provinces owing to the quantity of diplomas found and the information about the retiree’s family. It ha s been also noted that the Roman military diplomas from the territory of Ukraine can be an important source for studying some aspects of the history of ancient Ukraine. Nowadays, many issues related to the Roman military diplomas remain not analyzed. For instance, the place of publishing of the imperial constitutions (tabula aenae (aerae)), from which the diplomas were copied , has not yet been identified. The place the diplomas were stored has not been identified either. It is unknown why bronze documents were stopped issuing in the ІІІd century and what are the reasons for their appearance on the territory of the Ukrainian lands. Despite all these gaps, many aspects of this issue have already been studied and this gives us the opportunity to look in a new way at the functioning of such a complex part of the Roman state mechanism as the Roman army.

A POSSIBLE NEW AUXILIARY UNIT IDENTIFICATION AT POROLISSUM?

The author is reopening the file of an enigmatic tile-stamp found in the Roman fort at Porolissum and in the neighbor one at Romita. He is challenging the old proposed reading c(o)horti(s) I(primae) I(turaeorum) (milliariae ) with c(o)h(ortis) S(agittariorum) I(primae) (milliariae), which can be the same with cohors I milliaria sagittariorum attested by late 1 st century AD military diplomas in Judeea and with no later records in other provinces, or with cohors I sagittariorum milliaria first time attested at Tibiscum in Upper Dacia in AD 165. The chronology of two tile-stamps found at Porolissum in precise archaeological contexts, as well as the one from Romita is in Hadrian-Antoninus Pius time when the unit worked to the building of the stone buildings from the interior of the two forts, belonging to the first stone phase of the forts. As no official inscription of the unit survived, it was probably a unit brought from other province to participate to the huge effort of building the northern frontier defenses of Dacia, together with detachments of legio VII Gemina Felix, legio III Gallica, or cohors III all attested only by tile-stamps at Porolissum.

The Army and the Spread of Roman Citizenship

AbstractThis paper draws on recent advances in our knowledge (much of it owed to the proliferation of military diplomas) and a new analytical method to quantify the number of soldiers and their children who received Roman citizenship between 14 and 212c.e.Although significant uncertainties remain, these can be quantified and turn out to be small relative to the overall scale of enfranchisement. The paper begins by reviewing what is known about grants of citizenship to soldiers, with particular attention to the remaining uncertainties, before presenting a quantitative model of the phenomenon. The total number of beneficiaries was somewhere in the region 0.9–1.6 million — significantly lower than previous estimates have suggested. It also emerges that the rate of enfranchisement varied substantially over time, in line with significant changes in manpower, length of service (and hence the number of recruits and discharged veterans) and the rate of family formation among soldiers. The Supplementary Material available online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075435819000662) contains a database of military diplomas (Supplementary Appendix 1), a mathematical model of enfranchisement implemented in MS Excel (Supplementary Appendix 2), a description of the model (Supplementary Appendix 3A) and a derivation of the model of attrition across service cohorts in Fig. 6 (Supplementary Appendix 3B).

(ii) Interim report on the inscriptions from the aedes of the fort near Tel Shalem

Ever since the discovery of a building inscription of a vexillatio of the legio VI Ferrata near Tel Shalem,1 it was clear that the area was a locus of Roman military activity. In the following years the vicinity of the Tel yielded the inscription of a Hadrianic arch whose letter-size is surpassed only by the lettering on the Pantheon and the Arch of Titus in Rome.2 Most recently, the headquarters complex of the fort (principia), and in particular the regimental shrine (aedes or sacellum), have been uncovered (see above). Within and in front of the aedes were found three inscriptions:3 a dedicatory inscription to Caracalla on a statue base in front of the building (no. 1), and two mosaic inscriptions inside, one at the entrance to the nave (no. 2), the other at its far end (no. 3). The fills covering the building produced stamped roof-tiles bearing three different formulae. The new inscriptions prove that the building was the aedes of the Ala VII Phrygum. The earliest attestation of its presence in Syria Palaestina is inferred from a military diploma of A.D. 1394 found at Apheka, not far from Tel Shalem. Assuming that the Ala Phrygum, attested without the number VII in the province of Syria up to A.D. 88,5 is the same unit as the Ala VII Phrygum of our inscriptions, its transfer to Iudaea is most likely to be associated with the suppression of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.6 The inscriptions published here provide the latest known date for its stay in Syria Palaestina, some 40 years after the latest date so far attested in military diplomas.7

The manpower of the Roman fleets

The fleets are often neglected in consideration of the military forces of the Roman empire – indeed, some estimates of military strength have ignored them completely.1 Even more egregious is their omission in discussions of the rôle of the army in disseminating Roman citizenship, since the soldiers serving in the fleets benefitted from the same system of regular grants as did auxiliaries. When the fleets are included in inventories of the military, most scholars reckon them at either 30,000 or 40,000 men. In so doing, they are relying explicitly or implicitly on the work of C. G. Starr or M. Reddé, respectively. There has been no discussion of the discrepancy between them. Moreover, those who rely on Reddé tend to overlook the fact that he himself implied a strength of more than 50,000 men. This paper aims to draw attention to the significance of the large divergence between the two estimates and to offer a new one that takes better account of the uncertainties involved. It reviews the evidence adduced by Starr and Reddé but also draws on newer data from the archaeology of fleet bases and military diplomas. I conclude that the combined strength of the fleets was probably c.25,000 men, somewhat smaller than Starr suggested. Yet it is just as important to recognise that the margin of error remains large.

Ancora sull'iscrizione del Monginevro e sui consoli del 102 d.C.

Again on the inscription from Montgenevre and the consuls of AD 102 In a recently found military diploma of the 5th of May AD 102 from Sardinia (AE 2013, 650) the consular pair T. Didio Secundo L. Publilio Celso seem, at first glance, to disprove the reconstruction of Fasti Ostienses, frg. XV, proposed by the author in «SCO» 64 (2018), 332. But a more careful analysis shows that the name of the second consul, initially skipped, was only subsequently and erroneously added to this diploma, after a cursory checking of the Fasti Consulares. For this reason, the author reaffirms his text of the Montgenevre inscription and proposes a better reconstruction of frg. XV of the Fasti Ostienses, with L. Fabius Iustus, L. Publilius Celsus and L. (?) Cornelius Priscus following one another as colleagues of the consul ordinarius, Iulius Servianus, until T. Didius Secundus replaced the same Servianus, almost certainly on the calends of May.

Neue Diplomzeugnisse für die Truppen in den Donauprovinzen aus dem 2. Jh.

In the article seven new military diplomas are published: one for the troops in Moesia inferior from 13th May 105, a second for the troops of Dacia from 17th February 110, a third for the troops of Moesia superior under the governor Prifernius Paetus, a fourth for Dacia Porolissensis from October 142, a fifth for the troops in Pannonia inferior from 151 under the governor Nonius Macrinus, a sixth for the troops of Moesia superior under the legate Curtius Rufus from 157 and a diploma for the troops of Moesia inferior under the governor Vitrasius Pollio.

Zu den Konsulnfasten der Zeit des Antoninus Pius. Konsequenzen aus einem neuen Militärdiplom

A new military diploma for the province Dalmatia mentions the pair of suffect consuls Q. Antonius I[sauricus, L. Aurelius Flaccus], known from the Fasti Feriarum Latinarum for May of an unknown year. Till now this pair was dated to the first years of Antoninus Pius, no later than 144 AD. But since in the diploma in the emperor’s title cos. IIII = 145 AD is mentioned, this is excluded. It seems that the suffect consuls can be dated only to one of the last years of Pius, either in 156 or 157, because in all the other years the consuls of the relevant months are known.

Cohort dislocations in Pannonia in the 130s – Consequences of the Bar Kokhba revolt?

It is generally accepted that vexillations of the legio I Adiutrix and legio II Adiutrix were sent to Judaea for the repression of the Bar Kokhba revolt, although epigraphic testimonies are missing. We did not know anything about a possible participation of Pannonian auxiliary units. A military diploma from 135 AD shows the lack of a cohort and the presence of another cohort, cohors I Brittonum, but probably in a different garrison. The article discusses of the possibility the cohors I Brittonum was brought here as a substitution, and the exact identity of this troop. It may have been either the cohors I Ulpia, dislocated from Dacia for cca. two years, or the cohors I Aelia, which was most likely constituted for the occasion. The probable garrison of this unit was Albertfalva in these two years, where it might substitute a vexillation of the legio II Adiutrix; an epigraphic relic of this short period is a little altar in Aquincum dedicated to Mithras for the common welfare of a certain troop called C I B.

Thracians in the Roman Imperial Navy

The Roman fleets of the imperial period were crewed by provincials, not by Italians. Of the sailors and soldiers whose names and geographical origin are attested epigraphically (on military diplomas or epitaphs) almost 15 per cent claim a Thracian origin; and among these, the majority identify themselves as Bessi, a tribe in the mountains of southern Thrace that is not known to have had a tradition of seafaring. The explanations proposed by earlier research include Theodor Mommsen’s contention that Bessi was used as a synonym for Thracians in general, and Jerzy Kolendo’s suggestion that these people were recruited from a colony of displaced Bessi with maritime traditions. This article proposes that the presence of Bessi in the navy was a by-product of the creation of new Black Sea fleets in the first century AD.