10-02-2013, 04:48 PM
Quote:Is there not a tombstone that states the infantryman it belongs to was a member of the Xth cohort of his Legion, and isn't that tombstone dated to the 4th Century?
Just wanted to return to this point for a moment.
I was just looking at some of the inscriptions to II Italica Divitensis from the Via Flaminia, possibly dating from Constantine's advance on Rome in AD312. I notice that one of them, from Ocriculum, apparently mentions the cohort number as well:
AE 1982, 00258 (Ocriculum): D(is) M(anibus) Val(erius) Iustin/us miles legionis s/ecund(a)e Italic(a)e Divite/nsium civis R(a)etus / militavit annis V / vixit an(n)is XXV co(ho)r(ti)/s VII Secundus fra/tiri patri carissim/o bene merenti / memoriam feci/t
Does this mean that he was from the 7th cohort of his legion? If so, it perhaps means the Constantinian vexillation-legion that presumably evolved into the palatine legion Divitenses Seniores of the ND was, like the contemporary Herculia legions, organised into the traditional ten cohorts in the early fourth century...
Nathan Ross