Settling Soldiers

[Lothia]

Ave Civitas,

I have a question on the process of settling retired soldiers.

I assume that when emperors signed retirement papers they were for mass retirements. Whole auxillia units perhaps who had completed their required years in uniform.

What I don't know is how?

When several hundred are retired at a wack and sent to populate a colonia, how was that done?

I can imagine a sudden need for new housing.
I then have some questions:

1. Were the soldiers sent there and then required to build their own homes? If they were, then where were they housed until a new home could be built?

2. Were soldiers sent to cities, put up in temporary camps while they collectively built their homes?

3. Were there sufficient housing available for these new settlers when they arrived (was someone sent there ahead of time to build the homes needed?

4. Were they all required to settle outside the city walls or were there enough insulae apartments available for them?

5. Were they just given plots of land and told here is your land, have at it.

6. In America during the great depression, there were workers who went out into the Wilderness and built farm houses, then moved the dispossessed into them.

Does anyone know where I can start looking for answers to these questions?j

Thank you very much.

Me.

[Carlton Bach]

THis is a tricky question, and I don't think you'll find easy answers. First of all, though, it is unlikely that entiure units often retired together after the Late republic (and then it was legions, not auxiliaries who got no land grants and citizenship only in exceptional cases).

We know that for Republican military settlements, entire cities were sometimes just dispossessed and sent packing, with the soldiers moving into the vacated housing. There were also planned settlements, but given the population density around the ancient Med I suspect even there, something must have been there before. As to who did the building, I know we find unit-stamped bricks in Principate-era coloniae, so the legions may well have been involved. For the Republic I don't know.

Keep in mind, though, that a Principate-era colony would not have been moved into in one great Oklahoma rush. Your normal post-Augustran legion would have an annual output of several hundred veterans (actually, biannual since retirement seems to have happened only every second year). The exact number depends on the survival ratio you assume, but taking 20 years of service, 5000 men real strength and an optimistic 75% survivors, that makes about 200 vets per legion per year. Not all of them settled in purpose-built coloniae (in fact, it's possible only a small minority did). Many probably just took their money grant in lieu of land or got a land grant (from imperial property, I guess) somewhere they could settle down on.

I imagine a Principate-era colonia being a multi-year project that first gets laid out and prepared by army engineers, with private contractors involved, and once the basic infrastructure is in place the first settlers move in. From then on it is gradually built up and filled up further, with soldiers and contractors (and veterans?) invpolved in the building and more vets moving in as housing comes onstream. A republican-era colponia, on the other hand, was probably the kind of greenfield development you envision. I could not well imagine the retired legion being put in place and told to build, given the tricky relationship between troops and strongmen. Rather, the provincials were most likely required to provide the basics, and the generous patron provided monesy for the bells and whistles.

[Lothia]

Ave Civitas,

Thank you for your prompt reply.

Your answer solved several problems for me. When I wrote this I was thinking of border cities, like Singidunum and Aquincum, where soldiers were settled to increase both the population and the security.

That units retired groups of soldiers at regular intervals in interesting and something I did not know.

Also, that contractors (they would be the publicani I suppose?) would have been given the task of building more housing is also interesting. It sounds like the decision to settle ex-soldiers in a specific place was a project planned years in advance with the housing prepared before their retirement was reached.

Thank you very much for your response. It has helped me a great deal.

Me.