Flouting a ban to return to Italy - info?

[ParthianBow]

It's recorded at various times that legionaries who survived various defeats were banned from ever returning to Italy, c.f. the few men who survived the battle of the Teutoberg Forest in AD 9.
Dio says this of them:
'Some of the prisoners were afterwards ransomed by their relatives and returned from captivity; for this was permitted on condition that the men ransomed should remain outside of Italy. This, however, occurred later.' - Cassius Dio, 56.22.4.

Does anyone know if there are other references to such bans, and if so, whether any mention was made of what the punishment would be for a man who broke this ban, and returned to Italy? I think the punishment might well have been death, but I'd like to know if there's any evidence for this.

Thanks in advance for any information.

[Gunthamund Hasding]

Ben just very short, I believe not the ones who survived were banned from entering Italy but only the ones captured, I also think they lost their citizen rights, there was a topic a while ago about this but I can't find it right now

[ParthianBow]

Thanks, Gunthamund.
It's interesting that this distinction was made - in other words, the men who'd been taken prisoner were of lower status than those who had escaped the battle. More cowardly in the Romans' eyes, perhaps?

Does anyone else have any more information?

[Carus Andiae]

Thanks, Gunthamund.
It's interesting that this distinction was made - in other words, the men who'd been taken prisoner were of lower status than those who had escaped the battle. More cowardly in the Romans' eyes, perhaps?

Does anyone else have any more information?

Just speculation, I'm afraid, but... Perhaps the idea was that a legionary should fight to the death. Those who were captured should have gone down fighting rather than submit. Those who escaped might have been assumed - rightly or wrongly - to have fought their way out.

[ANTONIVS MAGNVS]

What about the return of Roman soldiers taken prisoner in Parthia? They were given back along with the lost standards. I don't recall reading anything about them not being allowed to return to Rome.

[Renatus]

If I remember my Roman law correctly, if a citizen was taken prisoner, his citizen rights were held in abeyance pending his possible return. If he escaped or was released and re-entered the Empire, his rights were restored to him under the doctrine of postliminium. Whilst he was in captivity he was deemed to be a slave and one of the features of slavery was that he could not make a Will. As a Will speaks from death, what would happen to his estate, if he died in captivity? The Romans had a way around this, a legal fiction known as the fictio legis Cornelia. By this fiction, he was deemed to have died at the moment of captivity. Thus, he had not actually been captured, he had never been a slave and his Will was valid. I love it!

[Nathan Ross]

As Michael suggests, I think it was probably the ignominious status of slavery - how could a man held prisoner by barbarians be anything but a slave? - that led to the loss of status, rather than just surviving the battle.

Then again, do we know that it was the Romans themselves that prohibited the ransomed captives from returning home? Does Dio's comment suggest that perhaps it was the Germanic captors making this proviso? It would depend whether anything in the original text makes it clear who was giving the 'permission'...

[john m roberts]

Supposedly the Roman survivors of Cannae were formed into two legions and sent to Sicily for garrison duty and were forbidden to return to Italy. The surviving soldiers of Fulvius Centumalus, also defeated by Hannibal, were sent to join them. These soldiers petitioned Marcellus to take them into his army that was about to besiege Syracuse. Marcellus asked the senate and was granted permission on the proviso that they were to receive no honors or rewards, no matter how well they fought. I don't believe they were ever allowed to return.

[Renatus]

a legal fiction known as the fictio legis Cornelia

CORRIGENDUM: fictio legis Corneliae