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Military forces in the senatorial provinces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

E. Ritterling
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Extract

The commentary on the notable inscription of Hadrian's time from Ishekli (J.R.S. xvi, 1926, p. 74, no. 201) does not, it would seem, give adequate consideration to the fact that under the Empire permanent military garrisons were regularly stationed even in proconsular provinces administered by the Senate, although such garrisons consisted of no more than one or several auxiliary regiments. A few instances that I happen to have at hand may be mentioned here by way of illustration.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , 1927 , pp. 28 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © E. Ritterling 1927. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 28 note 2 We cannot tell from the document (CIL v, 5127, add. p. 1082) in what province was situated the community of Roman citizens whose duoviri proposed that honours be paid to a certain M. Sempronius Fuscus, praefectus cohortis Baeticae; he was apparently from Bergamum and the occasion was his impending recall from the post, till then held by him, in which he had rendered services to that community. To all appearance we have here another case of an officer stationed in a proconsular province; his predecessors in the post are mentioned and the Emperor was to be petitioned in the interest of that community to appoint a no less competent successor. The unusual name coh. Baetica may have been a popular designation of the corps as the standing garrison of the province of Hispania Ulterior; if so, the community in question is perhaps to be sought for in that province.

page 28 note 3 Just then the head of the province of Bithynia was not a proconsul sent by the Senate but a special commissioner of the Emperor: this fact, however, makes no fundamental difference so far as the military units stationed in the country are concerned. Plainly these would consist of troops which had for some time previously formed the local garrison, and this is confirmed by the memorials of the coh. VI equestris; cf. also those of other soldiers in the province (e.g. I.G. Rom. iii, 9, 59, 1390), who can scarcely have served in a legion.

page 28 note 4 Cf. the complete restoration of this text by Keil, J., Jahreshefte, xxi, 1921, p. 261Google Scholar, and the comments of Rostovtzeff, Soc. and Econ. Hist, of R.E. (1926) p. 593, note 38.

page 29 note 1 We need not here broach the question of the origin of the name of cohortes I-III Aug. Cyrenatcae, or whether Sulpicius Quirinius as procos. Cyrenarum under Augustus carried out his successful campaign against the Marmaridae and the Garamantes with only the troops of his own province.

page 29 note 2 In the province of Africa, which ranked with that of Asia, the presence of several military units was clearly necessary owing to the repeated disturbances, internal and external.

page 29 note 3 Groag, P.W. s.v. Rutilius, col. 1258.

page 30 note 1 The inscription furnished no support to Groag's conjecture (loc. cit.) that two cohorts under Aemilius Pius formed part of the army of Mucianus.

page 30 note 2 The function can scarcely have been entrusted to Gallicus in this particular instance on account of his repute as a commanding officer; it is far more likely to have been among the duties regularly discharged by one of the proconsul's praetorian legates.

page 30 note 3 Cf. my paper in Wiener Studien xxiv, 1901, p. 131 fGoogle Scholar.

page 30 note 4 Their significance is totally misapprehended by Chapot in his otherwise excellent book, La province rom. d'Asie, p. 370 ff. They are now collected by Cagnat, I.G. Rom. iv, 728, 729, 730, 732, 733 (= C.I.L. iii, 369), 734, 735, 736, 737, 738. Add C.I.L. iii, 7051, from the neighbouring Dionysopolis: M. Iulius Capito beneficiari(u)s Galli pr(a)efecti mile(s) = I.G. Rom. iv, 757. Further, the person honourned in I.G. Rom. iv, 756, Q. Plautius Venu[stus?] may well have been a Roman officer of the neighbouring garrison. Cf. also ibid. iv, 690, where a στρατιώτης was elected a member of the γερουσία of the city of Sebaste near Eumenia as early as A.D. 98-99.

page 31 note 1 The word here is evidently not, as Atkinson assumes it to be (J.R.S. XVI, p. 77), a military technical term used in a specific sense, but denotes in a quite general way the body of troops previously named, as would have been self-evident to anyone who looked at the monument. Otherwise the word could not have failed to have some additional qualification indicating what numerus was referred to.

page 31 note 2 What this had been cannot as yet be determined; possibly it was the coh. I Montanor. (c.r.) which was stationed in Moesia superior in A.D. 100, and is known to have been in Syria Palaestina in A.D. 139 (Dipl. cix, CIL iii, 2328, 70), for the other military units in Palaestina with which we are acquainted had almost all belonged at an earlier period to the armies of the East.

page 31 note 3 Did this coh. vi Hispanor. also belong at some time to the garrison of Eumenia ? Later on it was probably stationed in Arabia, where the Not. Dign. (xxxvii, 26) mentions an ala sexta Hispanorum. The name of ala was given, from the 4th century onward, to many cohorts of the earlier empire.

page 31 note 4 Cf. my paper Wiener Stud, xxiv, 1901, p. 137Google Scholar.

page 31 note 5 ibid. p. 133. It is just the non-appearance of the cohort at the later period among the regiments of what had formerly been Cappadocia which leads us to believe that the coh. I. Raetorum was not the predecessor but the successor of the I Sugamhrorum as the garrison of Eumenia. Taken by themselves, the three Greek inscriptions mentioning the I Raetorum furnish no evidence sufficient to fix their date.