01-24-2016, 03:13 PM
(01-24-2016, 11:58 AM)Renatus Wrote: Maxfield evidently reads this section of the career chronologically and places the award in his tertia militia.
Hmm, it seems she does. Epigraphy isn't really my strong point, obviously, but it still seems unusual - all of the career inscriptions I've seen, I think, either place the award of dona in conjunction with the post or office held, and immediately following it, no matter what the direction of chronology, or place it at the end of the list of military posts.
An example of the latter would be Statius Priscus, listed by Maxfield alongside Dexter. He has his vexillo militi donato a divo Hadriano in expeditione Iudaico at the end of the list of military posts, which has led some people (mistakenly, I think) to assume that Cohors IV Lingonem participated in the campaign - one historian even supposes, confusing Segedunum and Segontium, that the Lingones were brought to Judea due to their experience of mountain warfare gained in North Wales!...
Anyway, Maxfield's point is the difference in dona for different steps of the tres militiae - but would a fleet prefecture count as militia quarta? As there seem to be no other examples of individuated Hadrianic awards to equestrian officers beyond Priscus and Dexter, can the apparently single upward step in Dexter's dona be used as evidence that he was still doing his militiae tertia at the time? If it's equivocal, then surely a senior command based in Syria is a more likely choice for a Judean award than a more junior one in Cappodocia?
Nathan Ross
