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Discharge Certificates of the Roman Army

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

John C. Mann  and
Margaret M. Roxan
John C. Mann
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, London
Margaret M. Roxan
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, London
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Extract

One of the most interesting documents to emerge from Egypt is a wooden tablet from the Fayum (PL XXX). The main text of the tablet reads: M. Acilio Avaviola et Pansa cos. pridie nonas lanuarias T. Haterius Nepos praef. Aeg. L. Valerio Nostro equiti alae Vocontiorum turma Gaviana emerito hone-stam missionem dedit This may be translated: ‘In the consulship of Manius (not Marcus) Aviola (not Avaviola) and (Corellius) Pansa (i.e. A.D. 122), on the day before the nones of January (i.e. on 4 January), T. Haterius Nepos, the Prefect of Egypt, gave an honourable discharge to L. Valerius Noster, time-expired cavalryman of the ala Vocontiorum, from the troop formerly commanded by Gavius.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 19 , November 1988 , pp. 341 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © John C. Mann and Margaret M. Roxan 1988. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Journal d'entré 29811 = de Ricci, S., Nouvelle revue historique de droit (1906), 471 ff.Google Scholar = CRAI 1905, 402 = AE 1906, 22 = Bruns7 100 = Girard6127 = ILS 9060 = CIL xvi. Appendix 1.

2 For this educidation of turma Gaviana. see Birley, E., Roman Britain and the Roman Army (1953). 127–9.Google Scholar

3 On the position of veterans in Egypt, see Welles, C.B., JRS xxviii (1938). 41 ff.Google Scholar

4 CIL xvi, Appendix 8.

5 Suggested by M.M. Roxan, on the basis of a statistical analysis of surviving diplomas, in Eck, W. and Wolff, H. (eds.), Heer und Integrations-politik (Passauer Historische Forschungen, (2) 1986), 265–6.Google Scholar Also suggested by Absil, M. and Le Bohec, Y. in Latomus xliv, (1985). 863Google Scholar , although they present no basis for their suggestion.

6 P. Hamb. 31 = CIL xvi Appendix 2.

7 Tabuiarii are not known in auxiliary units, but they do appear on the staffs of provincial governors. In the present case it is quite possible that provincial records were held in a temple of Castor and Pollux. That there was such a temple in Alexandria is clear from P. Oxy. XXVII 2465, frag. 11. (We owe this information to Dr Walter Cockle.) Tabuiarii working there could well be known colloquially as ‘Tabuiarii of Castor and Pollux.’

8 The latest auxiliary diploma known dates to A.D. 203, but the auxiliary format continues well into the third century with diplomas of the equites singulares Augusti, CIL xvi 144 (AD. 230), 146 (AD. 237), RMD 134 (Severus Alexander) and ZPE 64 (1986), 219–21 (AD. 230).

9 PSI ix 1026 = CIL xvi. Appendix 13.

10 For legionaries see J.C. Mann, Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement during the Principate (1983), passim. The evidence suggests that this was true for auxiliaries also, see Roxan, M.M. in Epigraphische Studien 12 (1981), 273–83.Google Scholar

11 Mann, J.C. in Epigraphische Studien 9 (1972), 223.Google Scholar

12 Diploma and discharge certificate together were sometimes not enough. In AD 103, Cornelius Antas had to produce, in addition to his diploma and a discharge certificate, three witnesses as to his identity (P. Hamb. 31 = CIL xvi. Appendix 2). In 185 Valerius Clemens similarly produced three witnesses to prove his identity (CIL xvi, Appendix 8).

13 As appears especially from his speech of A.D. 48, ILS 212 and Tacitus, Annals xi, 24.

14 Corpus Pupyrorum Laiinarum (CPL) 159 = AE 1937, 112.

15 BGU vii 1690 = CPL 160 (Philadelphia, AD 131); P. Mich, vii 436 = CPL 161 (Pselchis. A.D. 138). A document dealing with an epicrisis of A.D. 159 (Daris, S., Documenti per la storia dell'esercito romano in Egitto (1964), 95Google Scholar – to be added to the collection of epicrisis documents in CIL xvi. Appendices 2–8) concerns a military man who produced a professio of birth, evidence that his son was legitimate.

16 Mitteis, Chrestomathie II, ii, 372 col. III.

17 CIL xvi 132 collated with RMD 53, see Wolff, H., Chiron 4 (1974), 479–96.Google Scholar We may note also that by the middle of the second century veterans from the Italian Fleets had to produce proof (no doubt normally documentary proof) that the women they claimed were their wives really had been living with them as such, see now Hanel, N., Bonner Jahrbücher 185 (1985), 89–95.Google Scholar

18 CIL xvi 7, 8 and 9 (all 22 Dec, A.D. 68).

19 Mariën, M.E., Helinium iv (1964), 52 ff. = RMD i, p. 103.Google Scholar

20 On which see further Morris, J.R. and Roxan, M.M., Arheološki Vestnik xxviii (1977), 299–333.Google Scholar

21 Very probably the commentarius civitate romana donatorum which appears in the tabula Banasitana (CRAI 1971. 468–90 = AE 1971, 534).

22 cf. Digest 3, 2, 2, 2; CIL iii 6787; AE 1925, 109.

23 As in the Fayum tablet above, and in CIL iii 1078, 1172; xvi 43, 69 and 99, and CIL xvi, Appendix 12 = ILS 9059. That the governor was acting on the emperor's orders is specifically mentioned in the document of AD 150 referred to above (PSI ix 1026 = CIL xvi. Appendix 13).

24 cf. Tacitus, Annals i, 37, and perhaps the document produced by Valerius Clemens (CIL xvi, Appendix 8).

25 Paulovics, I., Archaeologia Hungarica (1936), 39–68 = AE 1937, 232.Google Scholar

26 Epistolae in Cod. Theod. vii 20, 4, 1 (A.D. 325); testimonia in Cod. Theod. vii 1,7 (A.D. 365); testimoniales in Cod. Theod. vii 20, 12 (A.D. 400) and Vegetius ii, 3.

27 Mann, J.C., Hermes 81 (1953), 499.Google Scholar