Dr Nic Fields - AD69: emperors, armies & anarchy

procul hinc, procul este, severi

Ovid Amores 2.1.3

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Pen & Sword Military
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Copyright Nic Fields 2014

ISBN 978 1 78159 188 8
eISBN 9781473838147

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Caricature credits

: Caricature of Nero by the author, based upon a rough sketch of the head of Nero and signed TVLLIVS ROMANVS MILES (Tullius Romanus, soldier), which was found in the basement of the Domus Tiberiana on the Palatine Hill, Rome.

: Caricatures of Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasianus by Pedro Llorente, based upon various busts of the aforementioned emperors.

(* = depleted by the dispatch of vexillationes to Italy)

Rome

Praetorian Guard (sixteen cohortes )

urban cohorts (four cohortes )

e classicis legio (perhaps sailors recruited from classis Misenensis )

2. Organization of a Neronian legion

Legio

The chief tactical unit of the Roman army, the legio was divided into ten cohortes , all of which, during the Iulio-Claudian era, were officially 480 strong. Attached to a legio was a body of mounted legionaries, known as the equites legionis and 120 strong.

Cohortes I X

The primary tactical unit of the Roman army, the cohors was subdivided into six centuriae of eighty men. Each centuria was led by a centurio who was assisted by an optio, signifer , and tesserarius .

Centuria

The centuria was the smallest unit of the Roman army. An administrative arrangement that served no tactical purpose, a centuria was divided into ten contubernia , tentfuls. Each contubernium consisted of eight men, contubernales , who messed and slept together, sharing a leather tent on campaign and a pair of rooms in a barrack block. In the period from Augustus to Nero, a legio had sixty centuriae .

VITELLIANS

Full legions: I Italica, V Alaudae, XXI Rapax

Vexillationes: II Augusta, VIIII Hispana, XX Valeria Victrix (from Britannia), I Germanica, IIII Macedonica, XV Primigenia, XVI Gallica, XXII Primigenia (from Germania)

FLAVIANS

From Pannonia: VII Galbania, XIII Gemina

From Moesia: III Gallica, VII Claudia p.f., VIII Augusta

HQ of Antonius Primus

I n the harrowing year of four emperors, Otho, whose principate is a byword for its unpeaceful brevity, struck gold coins that proudly displayed the sugary words PAX ORBIS TERRARVM Peace of the World on their reverse side. Nothing, of course, was said of the blacker side of the picture, since one rightly expects the message on coinage, like other political propaganda, to concentrate on heartening uplift. Still, what is remarkable about Othos coinage is the total dissociation of its inscription from what was really going on at the time of its issue. The truth was otherwise. To the contrary, there was no peace, and we can only assume that the message of the new emperor in Rome, who was not long for this world, to the populations of his vast and heterogeneous empire was a pious hope, unless of course it was wishful thinking or just a downright lie.