12-09-2004, 01:51 PM
'Arcani' just means 'secret' (or 'secret people'!) in Latin, and might therefore refer to all sorts of things. There were indeed various bodies approximating a 'Roman secret service', although none of them (unless we accept the 'arcani' of Marcellinus) were called by this name. Military intelligence (i.e. outside of the borders of the empire) would have been gathered by the aforementioned Numeri Exploratum - Companies of Scouts - that were based on the frontiers, particularly in Britain. There were also the Speculatores, who, as the name implies, had an intelligence-gathering function.<br>
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Slightly more nefarious, perhaps, were the Frumentarii - 'grain men' - originally sent out by the legions to gather food supplies. As they travelled a lot and were licensed to make enquiries, they acquired both a covert espionage function and a nasty reputation for corruption. The Frumentarii were probably instituted by Domitian - by Diocletian's day they seem to have become extremely unpopular, and that emperor dissolved them. Their replacements were the 'Agentes in Rebus' (General Agents), whose bland-sounding name covered their real role as imperial messengers and (perhaps) spies. Some people make the Agentes out to be a sort of Roman Gestapo, but their main secretive duty seems to have been in opening other peoples' mail, to check that provincial officials weren't abusing their privileges in using the imperial postal service. There was also - in the later empire - the Corps of Notaries (Notarii), a civil-service body whose members seem to have been used for sensitive diplomatic missions, possibly including espoionage. <p></p><i></i>
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Slightly more nefarious, perhaps, were the Frumentarii - 'grain men' - originally sent out by the legions to gather food supplies. As they travelled a lot and were licensed to make enquiries, they acquired both a covert espionage function and a nasty reputation for corruption. The Frumentarii were probably instituted by Domitian - by Diocletian's day they seem to have become extremely unpopular, and that emperor dissolved them. Their replacements were the 'Agentes in Rebus' (General Agents), whose bland-sounding name covered their real role as imperial messengers and (perhaps) spies. Some people make the Agentes out to be a sort of Roman Gestapo, but their main secretive duty seems to have been in opening other peoples' mail, to check that provincial officials weren't abusing their privileges in using the imperial postal service. There was also - in the later empire - the Corps of Notaries (Notarii), a civil-service body whose members seem to have been used for sensitive diplomatic missions, possibly including espoionage. <p></p><i></i>
Nathan Ross
