01-04-2019, 03:42 PM
As Robert says, it was common for centurions to be transferred between legions. In the pre-Claudian period these transfers were apparently arranged by provincial governors, and always seen to have been between legions in the same province, or in neighbouring provinces.
Later the process was arranged by the central government in Rome and could involve many successive transfers to legions all over the empire - in one case, a centurion was transferred to 17 different legions in the course of a long career! The best source on all this is JR Summerly's thesis Studies in the Legion Centurionate.
It was unusual for lower ranking men to be transferred, and this only seems to have happened as an emergency expedient. What did happen at times - and perhaps increasingly from the mid 2nd century - was for detachments of different legions (vexillationes) to be combined into ad-hoc field forces, operating together during a particular campaign. The size and composition of these detachments seems to have varied greatly.
In one instance, we know of a vexillation sent to reinforce another legion in (probably) peacetime: Hadrian's address to the men of III Augusta at Lambaesis in c.AD128, recorded on an inscription, mentions that "two years ago you gave a cohort and five men from each centuria to the fellow third legion" - the word used (supplementum) suggests these were intended as reinforcements for the legion, perhaps a depleted III Cyrenaica based in Egypt, Palestine or Arabia at that point.
Later the process was arranged by the central government in Rome and could involve many successive transfers to legions all over the empire - in one case, a centurion was transferred to 17 different legions in the course of a long career! The best source on all this is JR Summerly's thesis Studies in the Legion Centurionate.
It was unusual for lower ranking men to be transferred, and this only seems to have happened as an emergency expedient. What did happen at times - and perhaps increasingly from the mid 2nd century - was for detachments of different legions (vexillationes) to be combined into ad-hoc field forces, operating together during a particular campaign. The size and composition of these detachments seems to have varied greatly.
In one instance, we know of a vexillation sent to reinforce another legion in (probably) peacetime: Hadrian's address to the men of III Augusta at Lambaesis in c.AD128, recorded on an inscription, mentions that "two years ago you gave a cohort and five men from each centuria to the fellow third legion" - the word used (supplementum) suggests these were intended as reinforcements for the legion, perhaps a depleted III Cyrenaica based in Egypt, Palestine or Arabia at that point.
Nathan Ross
