LEGIONARY RECRUITMENT AND VETERAN
SETTLEMENT DURING THE PRINCIPATE
by J. C. MANN
Edited for publication by M. M. Roxan
Occasional Publication No. 7
First published 1983 by The Institute of Archaeology
Published 2018 by Routledge
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ISSN 0141-8505
ISBN 13: 978-0-905853-11-6 (pbk)
CONTENTS
This work began as a study of the settlement of legionary veterans during the principate. Its aim was to discover why legionary veterans were settled in colonies, when such settlements ceased to be made, and where the men preferred to settle when the choice was left to them. It soon became evident that this would not be achieved without a new and full study of legionary recruitment with particular reference to the growth of hereditary service.
Although this study derives from a PhD thesis submitted in 1956, the evidence accruing in the interval has not altered its general conclusions. It deals above all with geographical questions the geographical origins of recruits, the geographical distribution of veteran settlements. It is thus essentially a complement to, and in no sense a replacement of, the work of G. Forni; Il reclutamento delle legioni da Augusto a Diocleziano (Milan 1953) supplemented now by Estrazione etnica e sociale dei soldati delle legioni nei primi tre secoli dell impero, ANRW 2, 1, 339391. These works are vital for their exhaustive documentation and comprehensive bibliographies.
The evidence for legionaries is of greater interest and usefulness than that for men who served in other bodies of citizen troops, in that it allows much more to be deduced regarding official policies, and the preferences of the men themselves after discharge. Veterans from the City units were rarely officially settled outside Italy, nor did many of them voluntarily choose to do so, unless they were returning to their homes. It would be possible to produce a study similar to the present work for the auxiliaries and the fleets. Veterans from these formations were only exceptionally settled in colonies: otherwise it seems clear that their settlement patterns were closely similar to those of legionary veterans. The evidence regarding them would complement rather than contrast with that for legionary veteran settlement.
Veteran settlement and recruitment in the late republic are first discussed in discusses the same evidence chronologically, with some short reference to the developments of the fourth century, when the legions had ceased to exist in the form in which they are known in the principate.
Throughout, the dependence of this study on Ritterlings article Legio (in RE 12, 12) will be evident. This work, with the others just mentioned, with their bibliographies, clearly forms the essential basis for any research in this field. The bibliographical note lists only further works relevant to the present study.
The evidence, being mainly epigraphic, is inevitably unwieldy and also very uneven in geographical distribution. For the purposes particularly of , the only convenient method of presentation is in the form of Tables, which appear as a separate section at the end of the book.
The work was brought up to date, so far as possible, to about the end of 1978, after which the author was not able to continue working on the subject. Special thanks are due to John Wilkes, who organised publication, and above all to Margaret Roxan, who generously undertook the daunting task of reducing the work to order and seeing it through the press.
CHAPTER ONE
Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement in the Late Republic
According to Velleius, from the time of Mariuss sixth consulship only veteran colonies were founded by Rome. After referring to the colonies of the second century BC, he says: neque facile memoriae mandaverim quae nisi militaris post hoc tempus deducta est. There is no evidence to suggest that either the coloniae civium Romanorum or the Latin colonies founded down to the middle of the second century BC, or the colonies founded in Italy or overseas later in the same century were veteran colonies of the later type. Nor is this perhaps surprising, since the pre-Marian army was still, in theory at least, a national army, and such a person as a veteran, in the later sense, did not theoretically exist.
In some cases, it is true, provision was made for the re-settlement of men after service. Land in Samnium and Apulia was granted to certain men who had served overseas in the Second Punic war,
But while official settlements were rare, no doubt individual legionaries did sometimes prefer to remain in the provinces in which they had served, rather than return home. In many such cases they will have formed alliances with peregrine women, and the children of such alliances will naturally have been peregrini. No nuclei of Roman citizens will normally have been created as a result. Nor in most cases will the issue of such alliances have been highly Romanised. In other cases, men no doubt settled alongside emigrant Italian traders and financiers, and the men and their descendants will have been merged in conventus civium Romanorum. Probably, however, most men preferred to settle in Italy after service.
The problem of the discharged soldier first really appeared under Marius. Then for the first time they were able to make a concerted demand for recompense after service, and this took the form of demands for the assignment of land. As has been shown by E. Gabba, It seems unlikely that the proposal to settle them so far from their homes could have been made to secure their support, unless they were prepared to make the move of their own free will.
During the later republic, veterans generally sought for land rather than money grants from their generals, and the latter were generally prepared to make the effort to obtain land for them, when they wished to retain their support. The character of the men who composed the armies of the late republic is frequently described in the lowest terms, no doubt with some justification in many cases, where men were attracted to the colours mainly by the hope of booty and the promises of the rival commanders. In these cases, there can have been little serious desire to settle on a farm after service. No doubt many of them regarded the land allotted to them merely as a form of capital which could be easily realised. But not all legionaries were necessarily of that type. Like Mariuss men, a good proportion of later recruits must have been prepared to settle down as farmers after discharge, otherwise the practice of granting land would soon have ceased: instead it came to be regarded as the normal procedure.
