Tetrarchic Promotion and Transfer

[Nathan Ross]

Is there any evidence for the promotion and transfer of troops between legions and provinces, particularly in the centurionate, during the Tetrarchy and after? There are several career inscriptions from the late second and earlier third centuries showing men being transferred from one end of the empire to the other, but I can't find anything from much later.

The Aurelius Gaius inscription, while not that of a centurion, probably dates from c300 and describes transfer between legions on the Rhine and Danube, and wide-ranging travels (of mobile vexillations, presumably) that would seem to disregard the territorial divisions between the different tetrarchs.

Is there anything else?


Thanks - Nathan

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Nathan,

Are you looking for the transfer of units (of which there is evidence I think) or transfer of individuals between units?

What's your timeframe? Just the Tetrarchy or the whole of the 4th c.?

[Nathan Ross]

Hi Robert - sorry, yes, I meant the transfer of individuals from one unit to another. For example, Aurelius Gaius moved from I Italica in Moesia to VIII Aug in Germania, then back to Iovia Scythica in Moesia again, suggesting there was no division between the military structures of different territories of the tetrarchy.

In particular I'm after evidence of late IIIrd-IVth century centurion's careers - men being promoted from the ranks in Danubian legions to the centurionate in Rhine legions, for example, or British ones, or Syrian or whatever. This sort of thing is frequent in previous centuries; how was it affected by the tetrarchic divisions in the empire and the changes in the legions themselves?

Evidence for later practice would be good too - a divided empire wasn't limited to the tetrarchs after all.

Thanks - Nathan