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The Cohors I Hamiorum in Britain*

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The Cohors I Hamiorum in Britain* ACTA CLASSICA LV (2012) 1-16 ISSN 0065-1141 THE COHORS I HAMIORUM IN BRITAIN* Anthony R. Birley Vindolanda Trust ABSTRACT A newly published military diploma, probably found in the Balkans, issued to a veteran of the cohors I Hamiorum sagittariorum in December AD 132, allows a conjecture to be made about the cohort’s previous history before its earliest attestation in another diploma for the army of Britain, of AD 122. The suggestion is that it had participated in Trajan’s Dacian Wars, had been based in Moesia Inferior and had been brought to Britain in AD 118 to reinforce the army there, weakened by a revolt. In the remainder of the article the famous metrical poem at the cohort’s base on Hadrian’s Wall, in honour of the Virgo Caelestis, identified with the Syrian Goddess, is discussed. It is argued that there is no basis for the view, still repeatedly propagated (in spite of cogent rebuttals), that the dedicator identified the goddess with the empress Julia Domna. The existence of the auxiliary regiment discussed in this paper is first securely attested in the reign of Hadrian and hence it does not qualify for mention in Denis Saddington’s monograph on the auxilia, of which the terminal dates are 49 BC to AD 79. But one may draw attention to his comments on the early references to regiments of archers, of which the cohors I Hamiorum was one: the sagittarii were among the first specialist or ‘professional’ auxiliary units to be recorded in Roman service.1 The exact * It is a pleasure, mingled with sadness at our loss, to offer these pages to a volume in memory of Denis Saddington. Geography dictated that our contacts were mainly by post and later by e-mail, but it was a great joy when we had a chance to meet at conferences and to discuss Roman military affairs. For advice on archer regiments I am grateful to Paul Holder, whose knowledge of the Roman auxilia is encyclopaedic. 1 D.B. Saddington, The Development of the Roman Auxiliary Forces from Caesar to Vespasian (49 B.C.-A.D. 79) (University of Zimbabwe 1982), esp. 24, 30-35, 137, 139, 194. At 174, he discusses the variant titulature sagittaria and sagittariorum, mostly abbreviated sag., sagitt. or sagittar. in epigraphic texts, on which see now R. Frei-Stolba & H. Lieb, ‘Sag(-): cohors sag(ittaria) ou sag(ittariorum) – un problème d’édition de texte’, Epigraphica 71 (2009) [2010] 291-302. They argue that sagittariorum is the proper expansion. 1 size of auxiliary regiments is not easy to establish, but Paul Holder convincingly concludes that the ‘standard-sized’ infantry cohorts, cohortes peditatae quingenariae, were some 480 men strong. There were also ‘part- mounted’ ones, cohortes equitatae, in which 120 cavalrymen served along- side the 480 foot-soldiers. Further, there were double-strength, ‘milliary’ or ‘one thousand’ strong, cohorts. The term milliaria evidently meant, in practice, 800 men for double-strength cohorts with infantrymen only, cohortes peditatae milliariae, and 1,040 (800 + 240) for part-mounted ones, cohortes equitatae milliariae. As for the cavalry alae, most were about 500 strong (the small number of ‘milliary’ alae in practice each numbered about 800 men).2 The Roman army of the ‘High Empire’ in due course included over forty archer regiments: at least ten cavalry alae and over thirty infantry cohorts. Three of the standard-sized cohorts and five of the ‘milliary’ ones were equitatae; and there were a further three ‘milliary’ cohorts of infantry only. All told, the paper-strength of the Roman army’s archers must have been well over 20,000 men, but they were thinly distributed throughout the provinces. It is noteworthy that most were originally raised in the East. This was the case with five of the alae: I Commagenorum, II Flavia Commagenorum, I Hamiorum, I Augusta Ituraeorum and Parthorum. The others were the alae Gallorum et Thracum Antiana, I Thracum veterana, I Augusta Thracum, I Thracum civium Romanorum and III Augusta Thracum. There were a good twenty eastern cohortes, while several others with titles that did not advertise their origin are quite likely to have been raised in the East as well. In addition, one must note the ‘irregular’ Palmyreni sagittarii that served in Trajan’s Dacian wars.3 Some other archer cohorts were clearly raised elsewhere: I Bosporanorum, III Bracaraugustanorum, I Cretum, III Augusta Cyrenaica, I Aelia Gaesata, I Numidarum, I Thracum and III Thracum Syriaca. In the period from Augustus to Trajan recruitment to 2 P.A. Holder, Studies in the Auxilia of the Roman Army from Augustus to Trajan (BAR Int. Ser. 70, Oxford 1980) 5-9. 3 The lists in J.L. Davies, ‘Roman arrowheads from Dinorben and the sagittarii of the Roman army’, Britannia 8 (1977) 257-70, at 269-70, naturally require considerable revision. A good deal of more recent evidence is supplied by J.E.H. Spaul, Ala2. The Auxiliary Cavalry Units of the Pre-Diocletianic Imperial Roman Army (Andover 1994) and id., Cohors2. The Evidence for and a Short History of the Auxiliary Infantry Units of the Imperial Roman Army (BAR Int. ser. 841, Oxford 2000); but some additions and changes to his lists are also required in the light of new finds, not least of new diplomas, as published in the later volumes of RMD and AE, and in B. Pferdehirt, Römische Militärdiplome und Entlassungs-urkunden in der Sammlung des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums (Mainz 2004), no. 32. For the ‘irregular’ Palmyrene archers, see CIL 16.68; RMD 16, 27, 28. 2 the eastern regiments in general seems to have continued to be from the original area where they were raised.4 But as will be seen this was not a rigid rule. Only one of these archer regiments was stationed in Britain, the cohors I Hamiorum sagittariorum, a standard-size cohors quingenaria of some 480 men.5 The chief town of the Hamii was the ancient Hama or Hamath (the name evidently means ‘fortress’) in central Syria, on the River Orontes, some 110 miles north of Damascus. Hamath’s earliest known inhabitants were Amorites, who colonised the area in the 3rd millennium BC. Around 1500 BC it was part of the empire of Mitanni, but was captured by the Hittites after the battle of Kadesh in 1295 BC. After the collapse of the Hittite Empire in about 1200 BC, it came under Assyrian influence and was settled by Aramaeans, speakers of Aramaic. That was to become the main language of the whole Near East, including Palestine in the time of Jesus. In the Old Testament, Hamath is first mentioned as one of the Canaanite communities. King David had dealings with King Toi of Hamath, and the city was later conquered by Solomon, who made it one of his ‘store cities’. From the 9th century BC onwards the revived Assyrian Empire repeatedly attacked Hamath, which fell in 720 BC; in the next two centuries it came under Babylonian rule, then from 540 to the 330s BC formed part of the Persian Empire. Alexander the Great conquered Syria along with the remaining Persian territories, and it was ruled by one of the successor dynasties, the Seleucids, until Rome took it over in 64 BC. Like many eastern cities under Greco-Macedonian rule Hama(th) was given a new Greek name, in its case Epiphan(e)ia, after King Antiochus IV Epiphanes (reigned 175-164 BC). During the Roman period the city is scarcely mentioned in our sources until Christianisation in the 4th century AD. It is no surprise that the regiments raised here, two or three cohorts and an ala, no doubt from the hardy peasants of Hama(th)-Epiphania’s hinterland, retained the old name, Hamii. That name was never forgotten; at the time of the Arab conquest in AD 638-39 it was at once revived and is still used today. Modern Hama has some 527,000 inhabitants, making it the fifth largest city in Syria.6 4 Holder (note 2) 115, 118, 135 (Table 8.11). 5 The evidence is assembled by P.A. Holder, The Roman Army in Britain (London 1982) 117; Spaul, Cohors (note 2) 408-09. 6 See, for example, ‘Epiphaneia 4’, RE 6.1 (1907) 192, and the informative http://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Hama. At the time of writing (June 2011), Hama and other Syrian cities have been frequently mentioned in news reports, for distressing reasons. 3 In the case of the regiment stationed in Britain the men worshipped what must be a local goddess, Ham(m)ia, as well as the dea Syria. The main shrine of the famous Syrian fertility goddess was at the ‘holy city’, Hierapolis, also called Bambyce, some 120 miles north-east of Hama(th), close to the River Euphrates. Her Syrian name was Atargatis, but the Greeks and Romans knew her just as ‘the Syrian goddess’; as such she appears at Carvoran (see below).7 No evidence survives to tell us when the cohort stationed in Britain was first raised. The earliest record of its presence in the army of Britain is from the reign of Hadrian, in diplomas from the years 122 (CIL 16.69), 124 (CIL 16.70), 127 (RMD 240) and 135 (CIL 16.82). Inscriptions of late Hadrianic date disclose that the cohort was stationed at Carvoran/ Magna. That fort was first built alongside the east-west Stanegate road that preceded Hadrian’s Wall, at the junction with another road, the Maiden Way, which comes north across the Pennines. At this point the Stanegate is very close to the line of the Wall, and the fort was incorporated into the Wall-system.
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