Later Roman Military Punishments

[Nathan Ross]

much may depend upon whether soldiers were true honestiores or whether they simply enjoyed similar privileges. Do we have a reference for that?

This seems to be at the root of the problem.

I was searching for some clarification, and found this, from Richard Baumann:

Crime and Punishment in Ancient Rome pp101-102

As Baumann puts it, the serving soldier occupied 'a grey area between honestiores and humiliores'; he also mentions a relaxation of military discipline under Severus, and the attempts to reintroduce the disciplina augusti under Alexander, which proved fatal for Ulpian...

The following note about the 'patchy nature of the soldier's privileges' seems to relate to what we've been discussing here too: while soldiers are apparently immune from 'torture' (in a judicial sense), the jurists do not seem to consider that 'castigation' of a soldier counts as such, even if involves the same sort of treatment that would be thought of as torture if it was done to a decurion!