Auxiliary Cohorts and their titles

[popularis]

If the name really is 'Cispadanensium'...Perhaps it was originally one of the Roman volunteer citizen cohorts?

This one was bugging me, because it wasn't one of the early volunteer citizen cohorts I'd heard of. A quick check in Spaul (Cohors2, 2000, p.464) suggests that the unit was probably Cohors I Cisipadensium, and was from Syrtis Major (the African one, not the Martian one, google isn't helpful here ), in Africa Proconsularis.

The unit is an early one though - as the relatively narrow geographical range of the name implies - and is generally only attested in the 1st century (cf. Spaul). But there's a mid-late second century inscription (CIL 6.3529) that mentions a "cohors Afrorum in Dacia", which could only realistically be this unit, and a dedication to the emperor Maxentius in AD235 from a cohors I cispandensium (CIL 3.14429).

For the truly interested, Spaul references an article which discusses the unit: "Roxan, M.H. and Weiss, P. (1998), Die Auxiliartruppen der Provinz Thracia. Neue Militär-diplome der Antoninenzeit, Chiron 28, 371-420".

blue skies

Tom