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Epigraphic Consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

J. C. Mann
J. C. Mann
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

The paper by Saller and Shaw in JRS 1984 calls for some comment on its treatment of epigraphic evidence, and especially on the question of what we can expect inscriptions to tell us about the people of a given area.

A first point to make in relation to their argument is that the poorer classes throughout the empire could not in any case afford stone inscriptions. If, then, the extended family is (as could be argued) an adaptation of the nuclear family induced by poverty, rather than its biological or cultural predecessor, evidence for it will naturally tend to be absent from the epigraphic record, even if it is in fact quite common at the lowest levels of society.

But my present purpose is to consider a different aspect of the use of inscriptions—the question of habit, a subject recently raised by Ramsay MacMullen. After examining the relevance of this matter to the claim by Sailer and Shaw that there was little or no local recruitment to the Roman army in Britain, it will be argued that the epigraphic evidence cannot be used to support this view.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 75 , November 1985 , pp. 204 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © J. C. Mann 1985. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Saller, Richard P. and Shaw, Brent D., ‘Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves’, JRS 74 (1984), 124–56Google Scholar.

2 The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire', AJP 103 (1982), 233–46.

3 In The Personality of Britain (1st ed. 1932, 4th and last ed. 1943), building on the work of Mackinder (Britain and the British Seas, 1907) and HaverfieldGoogle Scholar (The Romanization of Roman Britain, 1923). Fox's work is improperly neglected, indeed not apparently fully understood, by many modern archaeologists.

4 See now Williams, J. H., Britannia 2 (1971), 166–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Except where otherwise specifically stated, the inscriptions considered here are those in RIB I only. It is improbable that discoveries since the publication of RIB 1 will have substantially altered the picture. Using the evidence of RIB I alone makes for ease of reference, and makes it easier for the reader to check the figures given.

6 The building inscription of A.D. 79, found in 1955 (JRS 46 (1956), 146 no. 3)Google ScholarPubMed, provides a welcome addition, and exception, to this meagre catalogue.

7 Tac., Ann. 13, 32; 14, 31; Agr. 14, 1.

8 For the governor's staff the best evidence is RIB 19, the tombstone of a speculator, a judicial official only found on the staffs of governors with capital jurisdiction, although the centurion of II Augusta in RIB 17 is almost certainly the head of the governor's staff, his princeps praetorii. For the procurator, there is reason to think that the ‘200 ill-armed men’ of A.D. 61 were in fact from his staff.

9 RIB 1–308, less the stones, 278–83, from Derbyshire. (Milestones are excluded from these figures.)

10 RIB 99–186, 88 in all.

11 ‘Sailer and Shaw's figures for military populations (pp. 152–3), give 165 commemorations for Britain compared with 330 for the two Pannonias. Britain had three legions and perhaps 57 auxiliary units in the mid-second century, the Pannonias four legions but only 31 auxiliary units. (The figures for auxiliary units are supplied from her files by Dr. Margaret Roxan, to whom I am also indebted for valuable assistance in the preparation of this paper.) The garrison of Britain is thus considerably larger than that of the two Pannonias, but it provides only half the number of funerary commemorations, of all kinds, even though stones should have a much better chance of surviving in the highland zone of Britain than among the settlements along the middle Danube.