Later Roman Military Punishments

[Renatus]

Callistratus, in Book 48 of the Digest:

28. On Judicial Inquiries, Book VI (2) It is not customary for all people to be beaten with rods, but only free men of inferior station (teniores homines); those of higher rank (honestiores) are not to be beaten with rods.

I'm not sure how closely the latin phrase (honestiores vero fustibus non subiciuntur) matches that used to describe the punishment of soldiers.

The opening words of the passage, 'Non omnes fustibus caedi solent', match the phrase describing the punishment of soldiers very closely.

Getting back to your earlier question, I suppose that much may depend upon whether soldiers were true honestiores or whether they simply enjoyed similar privileges. Do we have a reference for that? That said, it is the case, I think, in all armies that the soldier submits himself on enlistment to a different disciplinary regime to that applying when he was a civilian. The point is made in two instances at least in the Digest: Dig. 49.16.2 in which Menander states that soldiers' crimes or offences are either peculiar to the military or common to other men and the two are prosecuted differently, and Dig. 48.19.14 in which Macer states that some offences, which carry no penalty or a relatively light one in the case of a civilian, are punished more severely in the case of a soldier.