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+--- Thread: Who is who in the First Century AD Roman century? (/showthread.php?tid=5356)
Who is who in the First Century AD Roman century? - Caius Fabius - 04-10-2006
I have several references in my library, but they differ in details. I am looking for more references. Here are some of the questions I am trying to answer.
1. If there are 80 men in a century, does that include the centurion?
2. What positions were in each century? Centurion, Optio, Tesserarius,?
3. Did each century have some sort of signum? Each Maniple?
4. Did the contubernia have ranked leaders?
5. How many slaves in a century?
6. How many mules per century?
7. How many carts per century?
Sander van Dorst has a great webpage about some of this, but how many actual first person writings do we have? I am having trouble finding references.
8. Where did the Optio and Tesserarius sleep?
9 Did double pay and 1 1/2 pay soldiers segregate themselves from the regular miles?
What actual first century AD writers wrote about the Roman Army in the first century AD? ... Josephus, I have a couple of translations.... who else, and what do they say?
How many actual military campsites do we find that are dated to the first century AD, without later traces obscuring the record? Masada?
Re: Who is who in the First Century AD Roman century? - Matthew Amt - 04-11-2006
Wow, you just want everything, don't you! (Hee hee!) It would be great to see solid answers for all those, but I have the feeling most of them are unknowns or variables.
I know I've seen solid evidence that legionary cavalrymen were still carried on the roles of the century they were drawn from, though I don't know if that implies that they still bunked with their century or in separate cavalry quarters. And of course I don't have a good reference for that--it was probably from a surviving muster role, maybe Egyptian papyrus.
Also note that Hyginus (or Psuedo-Hyginus, if you prefer) states clearly that each century puts up only 8 tents (besides the centurion's tent), not 10, as two tentfuls are assumed to be on sentry duty at any time. This could actually mean that not every contubernium had its own tent and mule on the march, since that would make excess baggage. To make things more complicated, barracks blocks don't always have 10 pairs of rooms for the men--the number apparently varies from 8 to 14!
Isn't research great?
Matthew
Re: Who is who in the First Century AD Roman century? - Kate Gilliver - 04-11-2006
Cavalrymen on books of centuries - there's a tombstone of a legionary cavalryman from Lincoln? (sorry, RIB's in work and I'm not) which has him still listed as belonging to a century.
I'll no doubt cause a stir, but on 5-7 my response would be who knows, you can debate it til the cows (but not the mules) come home.
8 - interesting question but I'm afraid my first response was 'sounds like the first part of a joke'!! Seriously though - it is an important question - are the so-called 'centurion's quarters' actually the century's officers' quarters?
Kate
Re: Who is who in the First Century AD Roman century? - Praefectusclassis - 04-11-2006
As to duplicarii and sesquiplicarii rankers in itself, that seems to have been a development of the first century. So when are we talking about (not that we know the moment of changeover :wink: - Flavian era?) It seems that at first all the specializations were honor/immunes jobs only, without real rank & pay differences. This has been deduced from the fact that many early tombstones show the signs of signiferi, but the soldiers called themselves simply miles. Examples:
Panuius
Caius Valerius Secundus
Quintus Luccius Faustus
Yes - Caius Fabius - 04-11-2006
Yes, that is my quandry, we just don't really know, but since there is continual ongoing research, hopefully, someday, we'll know more. I find my
books are always a year or two (at least) out of date. I was reading "Psuedo-Hyginus" last week, trying to understand his version of the camp, and especially guard duty and guard mount. Definately interesting. So many groups are recreating 1st Century AD, AD30-80, but.... with such limited information. No, I am not going to get into correct marching commands, tunic color, and when the specific additional pay started, let alone wondering if the centurion actually paid his assistants extra, from his own income, for doing certain technical tasks...... at least not on this thread.... :lol:
Mainly I am trying to see what other first person ( in period) sources people recommend....
Re: Who is who in the First Century AD Roman century? - Crispvs - 05-17-2006
I can't add much from primary sources but that last time I was in Caerleon I noticed that the four exposed barrack blocks each have twelve pairs of rooms and a VERY extensive residence for the centurio with many rooms. An easy answer to explain the extra two pairs of barrack rooms seemed to be that the optio, signifer, tesserarius and cornicern/tubicern may have occupied these rooms, with two of them to each pair of rooms rather than their men's eight men per pair of rooms space allowance. I occurred to me that each of these junior officers may have had administration to carry out which might require desks and thus more space per person, quite aside from the privilages of rank. This is all fine and good of course but it is all supposition. It also does nothing to explain the extraordinary number of rooms in the presumed centuriones' quarters.
Crispvs