10-23-2005, 03:18 PM
Another interesting observation is that very few wives and no kids at all are specifically mentioned on auxiliary diplomas after the early 140s.
Soldiers are thought to have not had the right for an official marriage during their service, and mostly were enlisted when too young to be already fathers.
Auxiliary diplomas from Claudius to the early 140s still name the veterans wives and kids if they had any. Thus the inofficial families they must have had during their service were retrospectively legalized. Nice for the auxiliaries. Maybe not as nice for the legionaries for whom we do not know of a similiar privilege.
Anyway, Antoninus Pius did an end to that practice.
But, we still find (rarely) special formulas on some diplomas even beyond that date that list wives and kids. It seems that these were for officers (centurios or decurios) with families they had "registered" with the governor before they entered service. After their service they then got the privileges and were named on the diploma. There is by the way strong evidence that this privilege was not restricted to officers, but also offered to the common soldier. Not many cases though, most common soldiers will have been too young to fit into that special category.
And we know of at least one diploma where the Roman citizenship was also granted to the parents and siblings of the soldier (who still continued to serve to get his 25 years completed), but no wive and kids are mentioned - Eck & Pangerl, Chiron 33, 2003, 347ff
Takes a lawyer's brain to come up with this. And legal documents they were :lol:
A.
Soldiers are thought to have not had the right for an official marriage during their service, and mostly were enlisted when too young to be already fathers.
Auxiliary diplomas from Claudius to the early 140s still name the veterans wives and kids if they had any. Thus the inofficial families they must have had during their service were retrospectively legalized. Nice for the auxiliaries. Maybe not as nice for the legionaries for whom we do not know of a similiar privilege.
Anyway, Antoninus Pius did an end to that practice.
But, we still find (rarely) special formulas on some diplomas even beyond that date that list wives and kids. It seems that these were for officers (centurios or decurios) with families they had "registered" with the governor before they entered service. After their service they then got the privileges and were named on the diploma. There is by the way strong evidence that this privilege was not restricted to officers, but also offered to the common soldier. Not many cases though, most common soldiers will have been too young to fit into that special category.
And we know of at least one diploma where the Roman citizenship was also granted to the parents and siblings of the soldier (who still continued to serve to get his 25 years completed), but no wive and kids are mentioned - Eck & Pangerl, Chiron 33, 2003, 347ff
Takes a lawyer's brain to come up with this. And legal documents they were :lol:
A.
