Auxiliary Deployment During Trajan's Parthian War
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Auxiliary Deployment during Trajan’s Parthian War : Some Neglected Evidence from Asia Minor (1) vl\ A recently published diploma for auxiliary veterans released from the garrison of Moesia Superior between 1 May and 31 August 115 reveals that at least nine of the auxiliary units assigned to the province on the day the document was certi- fied were ‘translatis in expediti[0nem]’ — ‘absent on campaign’ (2). The units in question consisted of one cavalry regiment, the ala Praetoria Singularum, and eight cohortes, the I Thracum Syriaca ', I Montanorum ', I Cilicum ', I Cisipaden- sium ; III Augusta Neruiana Pacensis ; IIII Raetorum ; V Hispanorum ; and VII Breucorum c.R. Given the date of the document, the campaign is clearly Trajan’s Parthian War : preparations for this were well under way by the autumn of 113, when Trajan left Rome for Antioch to make ready for his advance into Armenia Major Via Satala in the spring of 114 (3). As such, then, the new diploma consti- tutes a valuable addition to our knowledge concerning the auxiliary units deployed for that campaign, a subject that has previously defied exact analysis (4). (1) This paper stems from work in 2006 while an Honorary Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, Liverpool University 2 I am glad to formally rec- ognize the support given me there, especially by Dr.Alan Greaves. I am also most grate- ful to Dr. Jean Greenhalgh for her continued support in my epigraphic researches ; and to my Bilkent colleague Dr.Jacques Morin, for assistance with matters Greek. Most of all, however, I wish to acknowledge the great debt I owe Dr. Timothy Mitford (Christ Church, Oxford), for his exceptional generosity in allowing me to report the third text discussed here in advance of his own more detailed analysis of the same. (2) W. ECK and A. PANGERL, Traians Heer im Partherkrieg. Z14 einem neuen Diploma aus dem Ja r 115 in Chiron 35, 2005, p. 49-67 Unfortunately, as is so often the case today, thi diploma is an unprovenanced item from the ever-expanding market for such document note, for example, how all ten diplomata published in two more recent papers by the same authors are unprovenanced but thought to be from the Balkans : W. ECK and A. PANGERL, Neue Diplomefu'r die Hilfstruppen von Brittania in ZPE 162, 2007, p. 223— 34 ; and IDEM, Weitere Militc’irdiplomefiir die mauretainischen Provinzen, loc cit., p. 235- 47). Diplomata attain a greater economic value in the antiquities market from scholarly discussion of their contents : perhaps it is time to actively discourage the trade in those that lack a secure provenance by refusing academic comment on them : surely the short- term effect on scholarly analysis and reputation would be more than compensated for in the longer term by a wealth of securely provenanced items. (3) J. BENNETT, Trajan Optimus Princeps, London, 2000, p. 183-204, esp. 189-91. (4) Cf. F. A. LEPPER, Trajan ’s Parthian War, Oxford, 1948, p. 173-74 : ‘The evidence for auxiliary units [involved in the Parthian War] is too scattered and not sufficiently com- plete’. 424 J. BENNETT The editors of the new diploma were aware of and duly noted the documen- tary evidence available already indicating that two of the units listed therein, namely the cohortes IIII Raetorum and VII Breucorum, were present in Asia Minor at some time in their history, and most probably in connection with Trajan’s Parthian War (5). On the other hand they neglected to address other evi- dence showing how at least another six and possibly seven auxiliary units regu- larly recorded in the Danubian region before and after that campaign were also in Asia Minor at some point in the early 2““l century, and thus presumably there in connection with the same operation. They are : the cohors I Thracum Syriaca and (possibly) cohors I Montanorum, both listed as ‘translatis in expediti[one]’ on the new diploma ; the ala I Claudia Noua, also from Moesia Superior ; the ala I Flauia Augusta Britannica >< c.R., and the cohors I Campanorum c.R., both from Pannonia Inferior and the first of which is similarly listed as ‘missa in expeditionem’ on a diploma issued for its ‘home’ province on l-ix-114 ; and the cohors Lepidiana equitata bis torquata c.R., from Moesia Inferior. Moreover, there are good reasons for supposing the cohors IIII Gallorum equitata recorded in Thrace on 19-vii—1 14 is the homonymous cohort recorded as the garrison of Cilicia in 121, and that it too was deployed to the east in connection with Traj an’s Parthian War (6). The failure to note the evidence indicating the possible/probable participation of these six or seven ‘European’ regiments in Trajan’s Parthian War might seem to be a somewhat surprising and remarkable omission in an article that ostensi- bly discusses auxiliary d ployments during that campaign, no matter how mis- leading the title. Yet, the f the matter is that the relevant evidence is not so easily available or necessarily familiar to scholars whose main field of interest generally excludes the Roman Army in Anatolia. This paper, therefore, seeks to rectify this omission by reporting this evidence in a much more accessible form as a prelude to a future re-analysis of Trajan’s Parthian campaign. 1) Cohors IIII Raetorum equitata Evidence for the cohors IIII Raetorum equitata having been in Asia Minor at the time of Traj an’s Parthian War comes in both epigraphic and literary form. A sarcophagus from Side, to begin with, bears the following text (7) : M(<’xguov) Oifikmov / ’Aootowov / Zenbv y’ / M(ét9uog) Obxmog / AoWog (émrovrd)ox(ng) /oneioag 6’ / ‘Perdw /f)tov éomtof) léveétoe /évé081:o (5) ECK and PANGERL, 2005 [n. 2], p. 61. (6) Another text that may be relevant here is CIL 3, 12257 = AE 1890, 11, a funerary inscription recording the presence in Asia Minor of a cohors Lusitanorum and using epi— graphic conventions suitable to the period we are concerned with. However, the lack of an identifying numeral for the unit precludes fruitful analysis. (7) AE 1915, 49 = J. NOLLE, Side im Altertum : Geschichte und Zeugnisse II (= [K 44), Bonn, 2001, p. 535-36, no. 219. AUXILIARY DEPLOYMENT DURING TRAJAN’S PARTHIAN WAR 425 ‘Marcus Ulpius Longus, éxatowaupng in the [III cohors Raetorum, placed his own son, Marcus Ulpius Arrianus, three years of age, in here.’ The find spot of an epitaph erected by a serving soldier normally indicates that he and his unit were present at that place at the time the text was inscribed, and the phrasing used in the text seems to confirm that Marcus Ulpius Longus was indeed serving with the rank of centurion in the cohors IIII Raetorum at the time he placed his deceased three-years old son in a locally-made sarcophagus. In which case it follows that Longus’ regiment was at Side in Lycia-Pamphylia at some point in its history, a supposition that gains support in the knowledge that Side was one of two places regularly used as a home base by the garrison of that province (8). That aside the inscription is of note in that both father and son have the trio nomina of full Roman citizens, and as they share the same nomen then the son was born in legal wedlock : therefore Longus was a Roman citizen who chose to serve in the nominally peregrine auxilia (9). Moreover, given the age of Longus’ son at the time of his death we might reasonably assume that his wife was with him at Side, centurions being exempt from the rule that forbade ordi— nary Roman soldiers from legal marriage during their military service (1°). As for the date of this text, the way that it registers the full tria nomina of both son and the father points to it having been inscribed no later than the opening decades of the 2'“l century AD, as later on it became more usual to give nomen and cognomen alone (“). On the other hand, our centurion (and his son) bears the same praenomen and nomen as the emperor Trajan, and acquired imperial nomenclature of this type were usually taken by auxiliaryman discharged by the emperor of the same name (‘2). In which case it could be objected that not only (8) J. BENNETT, The Auxilia ofLycia-Pamphylia .' Identity, Deployment and Function in C. DEROUX (ed), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History XIV, Brussels, 2008, p. 283-305 : 297-299. (9) Cf. P. A. HOLDER, The Auxilia from Augustus to Trajan, Oxford, 1980, p. 86-90, where it is noted that most Roman citizens who entered the auxilia often ranked as cen— turions (as here) ; see also M. P. SPEIDEL, The Captor of Decebalus .' a New Inscription from Philippi in JRS 60, 1970, p. 142-153 (= IDEM, Roman Army Studies I, Amsterdam, 1984, p. 173-87) ; and B. PFERDEHIRT, Die Rolle des Milita'rs fiir den sozialen Aufstieg in der Romischen Kaiserzeit, Mainz, 2002, p. 16. The potential advantages to a citizen of service in the auxilia as opposed to the legions or another citizen unit are discussed in B. DOBSON, Legionary Centurion or Equestrian Ofiicer ? A Comparison of Pay and Prospects in Ancient Society 3, 1972, p. 193-208. (10) J. B. CAMPBELL, The Marriage of Soldiers under the Empire in JRS 68, 1978, p. 153—166 : for other cases of serving soldiers in legal wedlock see items 3, 7 and 8 below. (11) Such at least is the commonly held opinion, although there are naturally excep- tions to prove the rule.