Original scientific paper
Salonitani extra fines Dalmatiae (IV) The Salonitans in military service (part one)
Dino Demicheli
; Department of Archaeology,University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper deals with 10 inscriptions that confirm Salonitans in military service outside of Dalmatia in the period from the 1st to the 5th century. For this discussion were selected the soldiers who belonged to the class of ordinary citizens and who in the military hierarchy were most able to reach the rank of centurion. The inscriptions mention a total of 15 soldiers Salona origin who performed their military service in various provinces. These are mostly veterans (cat. nr. 1, 2?, 5, 7, 8, 9), while only for four soldiers we can say that they died during their active
service (cat. nr. 3, 4, 6, 10). Most of the monuments here interpreted were the tombstones, with a prevalence of stelae. Only one monument was not a tombstone, and it is a roster of the VII legion from the military fortress in Upper Moesia on which we find six veterans of Salonitan
origin. Most of the monuments can be dated to the 2nd and 3rd century, i.e. to the period in which Dalmatia had no legionary army and the legionaries who were at that time located in Salona were usually related to the duties of the consul's office where they have been sent from
the neighboring provinces. Although the most reliable criterion for determining the Salonitan origin is a mention of the city itself, in the discussion entered those soldiers for whom their parents erected the tombstones in the Salonitan area. In Salona relatively high number of military inscriptions is found, so we considered only those that could be related to Salonitan origin, but for them there is still not enough evidence that they served out of Dalmatia.
Among these soldiers, two centurions achieved the most notable careers. They were M. Herennius Valens (cat. nr. 1) and T. Flavius Pomponianus (cat. nr. 2) whose military careers can be dated from the Flavian to the Hadrianic period. Both of them were recruited in Dalmatia and left that province with the legion IIII Flavia felix. After achieving the enturionates in this legion they continued to develop their career reaching multiple centurionates. While most of the Herennius’ centurionate transfers were realized in Dacia, we presume that omponianus accomplished most of his transfers in the East, probably in Cappadocia. In the discussion there are given some new remarks on chronology and places of their transfers from one legion to another. We presume that Pomponianus’ transfer from legion XII Fulminata in Cappadocia to legion XIIII Gemina could be realized in Cappadocia itself, since there might be possible that the vexillation of XIIII Gemina came to Cappadocia along with XV Apollinaris. In the same way
we can explain his earlier transfer from IIII Flavia in Upper Moesia to XVI Flavia in Cappadocia, but in this case there exist the epigraphic evidence for the vexillation of IIII Flavia felix in the East. If we accept that he was a centurion in the vexillation of XIIII Gemina in Cappadocia, we can easily explain his last transfer to II Traiana which is already confirmed in the East. Although the other inscriptions in this article don’t have so many information to discuss, some of the soldiers mentioned on them had very interesting duties: a speculator and a commentariensis
in the office of provincial governor in Salona (cat. nr. 3); a beneficiary (cat. nr. 4, 5?); a centurion (cat nr. 6); cornicularius praefecti (cat. nr. 7); subadiuva officii inlustris praefecturae (cat. nr. 10). For this latter it is interesting to say that he had died in Ravenna in 437 and after 56 days buried in Salona.
Keywords
Salona; Dalmatia; inscriptions; Roman army; centurions; legionaries; mobility
Hrčak ID:
148898
URI
Publication date:
8.9.2015.
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