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Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement During the Principate

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Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement During the Principate LEGIONARY RECRUITMENT AND VETERAN SETTLEMENT DURING THE PRINCIPATE by J.C. MANN Edited for publication by M. M. Roxan Occasional Publication No. 7 ROUTLEDGE Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1983 by The Institute of Archaeology Published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright© 1983 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISSN 0141-8505 ISBN 13: 978-0-905853-11-6 (pbk) CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES v INTRODUCTION vii CHAPTER ONE: Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement in the Late Republic 1 CHAPTER TWO: The Evidence for Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement during the Principate 12 Africa 12 Spain 21 Britain 23 Germania Inferior 25 Germania Superior 28 Note on recruitment to the German legions 29 Upper Illyricum, later Dalmatia 30 Lower Illyricum, later Pannonia 31 Noricum and Raetia 35 Moesia 36 Dacia 39 Note on recruitment to vexillations serving on the Danube 40 Syria, Palestine, Arabia and Mesopotamia 41 Cappadocia 44 Egypt 44 Note on recruitment in Egypt 46 II Parthica 48 CHAPTER THREE: The Development of Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement in the Principate 49 lii CHAPTER THREE: Recruitment in the Julio-Claudian Period 49 (cont.) Recruitment under the Flavians and Trajan 54 Veteran Settlement to the end of Trajan's reign 56 Recruitment and Veteran Settlement from Hadrian to Diocletian 63 APPENDIX: The Dating of the Lambaesis Dedication-lists 69 ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE TEXT AND TABLES 70 INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO TABLES 72 TABLES 1-32 73 NOTE TO TABLE 33 160 TABLE 33: Legionary movements and stations to AD 230 facing p.160 BIBLIOGRAPHY 161 FOOTNOTES 165 INDEX 183 IV LIST OF TABLES Page TABLE 1: Africa, recruitment to AD 117 73 TABLE 2: Africa, recruitment AD 117-238: dedication lists 74 TABLE 3: Africa, recruitment AD 117-238: other evidence 77 TABLE 4: Africa, recruitment AD 117-238: transfer to other legions 79 TABLE 5: Africa, veteran settlement: III Augusta named unit 80 TABLE 6: Africa, veteran settlement: unit not named 82 TABLE 7: Spain, recruitment 84 TABLE 8: Spain, veteran settlement 87 TABLE 9: Britain, recruitment 89 TABLE 10: Britain, veteran settlement 91 TABLE 11: Germania Inferior, recruitment 93 TABLE 12: Germania Inferior, veteran settlement 97 TABLE 13: Germania Superior, recruitment 100 TABLE 14: Germania Superior, veteran settlement 107 TABLE 15: Upper Illyricum, later Dalmatia, recruitment 110 TABLE 16: Upper Illyricum, later Dalmatia, veteran settlement 114 TABLE 17.1: Lower Illyricum, later Pannonia, recruitment to AD 69 116 TABLE 17.2: Pannonia, recruitment AD 69 to 117 119 TABLE 17.3: Pannonia Superior, recruitment AD 117 to c.300 120 TABLE 17.4: Pannonia Inferior, recruitment AD 117 to c.300 121 TABLE 18.1: Lower Illyricum, later Pannonia, veteran settlement to AD 117 123 TABLE 18.2: Pannonia Superior, veteran settlement AD 117 to c.300 125 TABLE 18.3: Pannonia Inferior, veteran settlement AD 117 to c.300 126 TABLE 19: Noricum and Raetia, recruitment 129 TABLE 20: Noricum and Raetia, veteran settlement 130 TABLE 21.1: Moesia, recruitment to AD 117 131 TABLE 21.2: Moesia Superior, recruitment AD 117 to c.300 134 v TABLE 21.3: Moesia Inferior, recruitment AD 117 to c.300 135 TABLE 22.1: Moesia, veteran settlement to AD 117 137 TABLE 22.2: Moesia Superior, veteran settlement AD 117 to c.300 139 TABLE 22.3: Moesia Inferior, veteran settlement AD 117 to c.300 140 TABLE 23: Dacia, recruitment 142 TABLE 24: Dacia, veteran settlement 143 TABLE 25: Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Mesopotamia, recruitment 144 TABLE 25A: Recruitment to legions or vexillations temporarily stationed in the East 147 TABLE 26: Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Mesopotamia, veteran settlement 150 TABLE 27: Cappadocia, recruitment 152 TABLE 28: Cappadocia, veteran settlement 153 TABLE 29: Egypt, recruitment 154 TABLE 30: Egypt, veteran settlement 156 TABLE 31: II Parthica, recruitment 157 TABLE 32: II Parthica, veteran settlement 158 TABLE 33: Legionary movements and stations to AD 230 facing p.160 vi INTRODUCTION This work began as a study of the settlement of legionary veterans during the principate. Its aim was to discover why legionary veterans were settled in colo­ nies, when such settlements ceased to be made, and where the men preferred to settle when the choice was left to them. It soon became evident that this would not be achieved without a new and full study of legionary recruitment with parti­ cular reference to the growth of hereditary service. Although this study derives from a PhD thesis submitted in 1956, the evidence accruing in the interval has not altered its general conclusions. It deals above all with geographical questions - the geographical origins of recruits, the geo­ graphical distribution of veteran settlements. It is thus essentially a complement to, and in no sense a replacement of, the work of G. Forni; II reclutamento delle legioni da Augusto a Diocleziano (Milan 1953) supplemented now by ’Estrazione etnica e sociale dei soldati delle legioni nei primi tre secoli dell’impero', anrw 2,1 , 339-391. These works are vital for their exhaustive documentation and com­ prehensive bibliographies. The evidence for legionaries is of greater interest and usefulness than that for men who served in other bodies of citizen troops, in that it allows much more to be deduced regarding official policies, and the preferences of the men them­ selves after discharge. Veterans from the City units were rarely officially settled outside Italy, nor did many of them voluntarily choose to do so, unless they were returning to their homes. It would be possible to produce a study simi­ lar to the present work for the auxiliaries and the fleets. Veterans from these formations were only exceptionally settled in colonies: otherwise it seems clear that their settlement patterns were closely similar to those of legionary veterans. The evidence regarding them would complement rather than contrast with that for legionary veteran settlement. Veteran settlement and recruitment in the late republic are first discussed in Chapter One, which owes much to the comprehensive discussion by J. Harmand, L'armee et le soldat a Rome de 107 a 50 avant notre ere, Paris 1967, especially pp.245-262 on recruitment, with exhaustive bibliography. Chapter Two deals with the evidence for recruitment and legionary settlement area by area. Chapter Three discusses the same evidence chronologically, with some short reference to the developments of the fourth century, when the legions‘had ceased to exist in the form in which they are known in the principate. Throughout, the dependence of this study on Ritterling’s article Legio (in RE 12, 1-2) will be evident. This work, with the others just mentioned, with their bibliographies, clearly forms the essential basis for any research in this field. The bibliographical note lists only further works relevant to the present study. The evidence, being mainly epigraphic, is inevitably unwieldy and also very uneven in geographical distribution. For the purposes particularly of Chapter Two, the only convenient method of presentation is in the form of Tables, which appear as a separate section at the end of the book. The work was brought up to date, so far as possible, to about the end of 1978, after which the author was not able to continue working on the subject. Special thanks are due to John Wilkes, who organised publication, and above all to Margaret Roxan, who generously undertook the daunting task of reducing the work to order and seeing it through the press. vii Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com CHAPTER ONE Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement in the Late Republic According to Velleius, from the time of Marius’s sixth consulship only veteran colonies were founded by Rome. After referring to the colonies of the second cen­ tury BC, he says: neque facile memoriae mandaverim quae nisi militaris post hoc tempus deducta est.1 There is no evidence to suggest that either the coloniae civium Romanorum or the Latin colonies founded down to the middle of the second century BC, or the colonies founded in Italy or overseas later in the same century were veteran colonies of the later type. Nor is this perhaps surprising, since the pre-Marian army was still, in theory at least, a national army, and such a person as a veteran, in the later sense, did not theoretically exist. In some cases, it is true, provision was made for the re-settlement of men after service. Land in Samnium and Apulia was granted to certain men who had served overseas in the Second Punic war.2 But there is no evidence for any other settlements in Italy in the second century, in spite of the fact that men were kept under arms for longer and longer periods. Only in Spain do we hear of arrangements being made for ex-servicemen, and here it was not a question of pro­ viding land for them, or of settling them in new communities, but rather of organising them in the settlements which they had already made.8 The best attested case is that of Carteia, where legionaries settled down of their own volition, with Spanish wives.
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