tribuni militum

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Personally, I think that 2-3 years is a bit too short per post on average, as it means that the equestrian "junior officer career" would have lasted less than a decade.

But do we know that posts were held consecutively? Assuming that appointments were quite hard to come by, it would have been a lucky man who could move directly from one post to the next. Could there not have been gaps in between each post, thus extending the 'military' career by several more years?

Yes, that's entirely true - and there's evidence (from the Augustan period) that posts were not held consecutively. However, it still seems a somewhat short public career to me.

It's also important that the 2-3 years estimate comes from, IIRC, detailed analysis of career patterns in the Eastern legions... but career patterns in the West were probably different.

Interesting! Why would they be different, and in what ways?

<rider>I haven't done much close analysis beyond the Tiberian period, so this is all from others (Devijver, principally) - and, as I'm moving house - I don't have the references on me.</rider> The general theory is that many junior officers in the East tended to hold only one post, the military tribunate, officers in the West being more likely to have extended officer careers. There's some a priori justification for this as well: most officers tended to stay in either the East or the West, and there were more units in the West, especially on the Rhine/Danube frontiers, thus making career progression easier. It's not unknown for officers to be posted far afield though...

blue skies

Tom