Citizenship on completion of Auxilia service/Tribe

[JeffF]

During the era when Auxilia would earn their citizenship upon completion of service what Roman tribe (or tribes) would (or could) they be enrolled in?

thanks,

Jeff

[D B Campbell]

That's a very interesting question, Jeff. As far as I know, the answer is: "we don't know".

The diplomas, recording the grant of citizenship, do not specify a tribe. But, as the tribe was only significant (afaik) in voting assemblies, the majority of auxiliary veterans perhaps didn't need one.

There's an interesting document of Octavian (BGU II 628), in which he grants veterans entry into the tribe of their choice, but they were perhaps envisaging a return to Rome, where enrolment in a tribe would have been necessary for voting purposes.

[Epictetus]

It’s possible that even these new citizens had no idea to which tribe they belonged. As support for this idea it has been mentioned that the curiae were subdivisions of the tribes – ten to each tribe. In some festivals, particularly the Fornacalia in February, the people were supposed to gather by curiae, and hence by tribe. However, by the time of Ovid (see Fasti 2.531+) many people had no idea to which curiae they belonged, nor which curia was part of which tribe. Because of this the last day of the festival was called the “Feast of Fools.”

Note, though, that every citizen was deemed to have a place in this tribal / curial system, even if he did not know what it was. So even the “fools” who didn’t know where they belonged were still allowed to participate.

[JeffF]

The reason I'd asked was that in reading a Roman Army fiction book there was a comment that citizenship to time completed Auxilia invovled automatic enrolment in one of the four urban tribes. I'm always interested in what is fact and fiction in those novels.

thanks,

Jeff