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The Immunitas of the Roman Legionaries in Egypt1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

C. B. Welles
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Extract

The papyrus which bears the Yale inventory number 1528 (pl. i) was purchased from an Egyptian dealer in Paris in the summer of 1933. Nothing is known of its place of origin. It is a rectangular sheet of good quality and colour, frayed but not seriously damaged. The writing is confined to the recto. The presence of a heading, and the long vacant space below the three lines of the second column shown that the document is complete. Paragraphing is indicated in lines 4 and 17 of the first column by the projection to the left of the first two letters of the name Τοῦσϰος. Otherwise the left margin is even, and the right margin fairly so. There is a natural fold between the two columns, indicating that the papyrus was handled as a diptych.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , 1938 , pp. 41 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © C. B. Welles 1938. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

2 Bell, H. I., Aegyptus, xii (1932), 176.Google Scholar

3 Reinmuth, O. W., ‘The Prefect of Egypt from Augustus to Diocletian,’ Klio, Beiheft xxxiv (1935), 132Google Scholar. Tuscus was juridicus in 51–52 (PIR 2, ii, p. 23, no. 109. Reinmuth has Tuscus juridicus in 63, but this must rest on a misunderstanding; cf. P. Ryl. 119, 4, and the editors' introductory remarks), and was succeeded by Tiberius Julius Alexander (or by one Ponticus), by 66. Tuscus appears now in P. Mich. 179, date Epiph 23=17 July, A.D. 64.

3A Dr. H. I. Bell's suggestion of εἴποσαν came too late to be submitted to Professor C. B. Welles.— Ed.

4 P. Oxy., 1253, of the fourth century. Cf. B. Meinersmann, Die lateinischen Wörter mid Namen in den griechischen Papyri (1927), 65.

5 For the earlier bibliography cf. my Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period (1934), 283, n. 11, and 284, n. 13, to which add now Jolowicz, H. F., Journ. Soc. Public Teachers of Law, 1937, 1–15 (pages of the reprint)Google Scholar.

6 With the word ἀνέγνων cf. Preisigke, Wörterbuch, s.v.

7 von Premerstein, A., Hermes, lvii (1922), 266–316Google Scholar. For bibliography cf. Welles, , Trans. Am. Phil. Assn., lxvii (1936), 13, n. 33Google Scholar. This is the only ‘we’ narrative among the Acta.

8 E.g., Polyb., vi, IIA, 4; Aristeas, 1 (with πρός τινα). The other use of the word is fully illustrated in Preisigke's Wörterbuch, s.v.

9 E.g. προσαγγέλλω, προσαγορεύω, προσέρχομαι, προσϕέρω. But in any such case the idiom would normally require a genitive absolute, and the normal expression would still be ἐντυχόντων τῶν λεγεωναρείων.

10 Cf. e.g. U. Wilcken, Grundzüge der Papyruskunde (1912), 391.

11 The exact location of the temple is unknown. For the evidence cf. E. Breccia, Alexandria ad Aegyptum (1914), 73 f.

12 Cited by Calderini, A., Dizionario dei nomi geografici dell' Egitto, i (1935), 95Google Scholar.

13 The usage is too well known to require documentation, but cf. especially OGIS 139, 16. The commoner ἐνοχλεῖν shows the same connotation. In SIG 552, for example (208 B.C), the envoys of Abae appeal to Philip V for ἀτέλεια, and he replies: γέγραϕα τῶι Ἡρακλείδηι μὴ ἐνο[χ]λεῖν ὑμᾶς

14 Instances in Preisigke s.v. κόπος; cf. P. Teb. 21, 10 (115 B.C.); BGU 844 (A.D. 83).

15 Cf. Bell, , Cambridge Ancient History, x (1934), 286 f.Google Scholar (also J. G. C. Anderson, ib., 743). The full discussion is by Lesquier, J., L'armée romaine d'Égypte d'Auguste à Dioclétien (1918), 233–243Google Scholar.

16 Rostovtzeff, , Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft im römischen Kaiserreich, i (1932), 278 f.Google Scholar, n. 27a. This phenomenon was the subject of a paper read by Mr. Bell at the Oxford Congress (supra, p. 1 and p. 41, n. 1).

17 Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 18; cf. Wilcken, Grundzüge, 333; A. C. Johnson, Roman Egypt (1936), 11.

18 Tacitus, , Annals, xiii, 51Google Scholar. On the tendency among the soldiers in the East to engage in trade cf. Rostovtzeff, l.c., and Excavations at Dura Europos, Report of VI Season (1936), 299–304.

19 I use the translation ‘tablet’ as a matter of convenience, without meaning to imply that wax tablets were used instead of papyrus. The range of use of πιττάκιον is very wide, cf. Preisigke, s.v.

20 This must be the meaning of τοῖς στρατηγοῖς in such a context. There were officials in the city government of Alexandria called strategoi but, if there was more than one at a time, no reference is ever made to them in the plural. A list of the στρατηγοι τῆς πόλεως is given by F. Bilabel, P-W, iv A, pt. 1 (1931), 247–249, s.v.; they are supposed to have had primarily police functions, but in the third century had a hand in tax collection also.

21 I have not found any other instance of this doubling of χωρίς, but as Dr. Kurt Latte remarked to me, it should be parallel to the doubling of numerals and other words with a distributive force. This usage has recently been cited as an Aramaism in the New Testament by Wensinck, A. J., ‘Une groupe d'Armaismes dans le texte grec des Évangiles,’ Mededeelingen d. kon. Ak. v. Wetensch. (Amsterdam), Afd. Letterkunde, 81, A, 5 (1936)Google Scholar, without citing any literature on the subject, but the idiom has Greek roots also (cf. F. Blass, Grammatik d. NT. Griechisch, 1902, 146) and can here hardly be regarded as due either to Semitic or to Egyptian influence.

22 Cf. now Charlesworth, M. P., The Virtues of a Roman Emperor (‘Raleigh Lecture,’ British Academy, 1937), 11 f.Google Scholar; Schubart, W., Klio, xxx (1937), 64Google Scholar. So in the East, imperial dedications are commonly made εὐσεβείας χάριν. In the case of the legionaries, their ἀσέβεια would consist also in their disregard for their oath of fidelity, as Professor A. D. Nock observed to me; but the idea is more general. The adjective ἀσεβεῖς is applied to rebels, for example, n Ptolemaic Egypt; cf. OG1S 90, 23 (196 B.C.); P. Amb., 39, 7–8 (late second century B.C.).

23 The same principia of the camp at Nicopolis are mentioned in BGU 140 (Wilcken, , Chrestomathie, 373, l. 9Google Scholar; A.D. 119). Other camps in Egypt had principia also; so, for example, the auxiliary camp at Syene, Wilcken, , Chrest., 41, iii, 10Google Scholar. The word principia may or may not have been the only technical term for the central group of public structures in a permanent camp (so argued by von Domaszewski, A., Neue Heidelb. Jahrb., ix (1899), 157–163Google Scholar, and Mommsen, T., Ges. Schr. iii, 128–133Google Scholar=Hermes, xxxv (1900), 437–442Google Scholar; but cf. Rowell, H. T., Dura Report, v (1934), 205Google Scholar), though it is unlikely that principia would be used in other than a military setting. For the praetorium in Alexandria the official residence of the prefect, cf. Wilcken, Grundzüge, 44 (citing P. Oxy. 471, 110; BGU 288, 14). For the later period cf. Calderini, , Dizionario, i, 138Google Scholar.

24 Hist. Plant., i, 3, 2; iv, 3, 3. The account is repeated by Pliny, Hist. Nat., xiii, IIIGoogle Scholar.

25 So Theophrastus, l.c.

26 Strabo, xvii, 838, etc.

27 Cf. Agatharchides, 34; Anth. Pal., ix, 414. Euripides, Cyc, 394; etc.

28 xiv, 650 B.

29 The greeting in the Atrium on the last day, again the regular Roman institution, is illustrated in an excerpt from the bypomnematismoi of Ulpius Serenianus in a conventus at Memphis, BGU 347, i (A.D. 171), 3/4: Ἐν Μέμϕει ἠσπάσατο τὸν λαμπρότατον ἡ[γεμό]να.

30 This was pointed out to me by Mr. A. S. Hoey, who kindly supplied me with the following references: Fast. Arv. et Amit. (Mommsen, CIL i2, 328Google Scholar); Dio li, 1, 1; Lydus, , De Mensibus iv, 80Google Scholar (=124 ed. Wünsch); cf. J. Gagé, Res Gestae Divi Augusti (1935), 180; Mél. d'arch. et d'hist., liii (1936), 64Google Scholar.

31 Cf. Fiebiger, , s, v. ‘Disciplina militaris,’ P-W v, 1176–1183Google Scholar and the illustrations collected in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, v, 1 (1934), 1324 fGoogle Scholar.

32 Epitome rei militaris, iii, 3.

33 Cf. PIR 2 ii, p. 23, no. 109, Momigliano, A., CAH x, 727, 738, 740Google Scholar.