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Centurion - his role in the early empire
#1
Sorry if I'm spamming but could someone please help me with Centurion's roles outside his main roles - commanding, training etc.

I remember reading somewhere about them being transferred between legions, being detached to conduct training of auxiliaries, commanding military administration in some regions or smaller posts. Is this true? What other jobs might they have?
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#2
Pre-Claudius, I believe, centurions could be appointed as praefecti, to command auxiliary cohorts. Claudius instituted the tres militiae, which set up a three-tier system of officer appointments for equestrians (the lower aristocracy) and effectively shut the centurionate out of higher command positions (a centurion remained equal - it seems - in rank to a cohort prefect, but there were two parallel streams of promotions).

After Claudius, centurions could still be appointed as praepositi ('leaders') of irregular auxiliary units called numeri. But only the rank of primus pilus gave them access to higher commands.

Centurions could be transferred between legions as a promotion, although in the earlier empire this seems to have been arranged by the governors of the provinces and so the transfers only occured between legions in the same province, or in neighbouring provinces. Later (perhaps Nero onwards?) these transfers could be more wide ranging - by the 2nd century centurions were regularly being transferred between legions at the opposite ends of the empire, sometimes repeatedly.

The centurionate, though, was more than just a rank - it was a sort of military caste. The centurionate conferred great privilege, and upon retirement they often took up leading roles in their communities. They were also used for a variety of additional duties: assistants to provincial governors, ambassadors to barbarian tribes, messengers, spies, assassins and more mundane administration roles.

You may be interested in this thesis, which is very detailed but contains much useful information on careers within the centurionate:

Studies in the Legionary Centurionate
Nathan Ross
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#3
What about the office or rank of centurio regionarius mentioned here - http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/4DLink2/...anks.shtml Was this a post held by an army centurion as it says so on this site? The same question applies to other posts they might hold - were they just detached from their unit? Would it not cause some trouble if couple of regular centurions left their centuries without a leader? Or was it so that there might be more centurions then needed per century?

And also, I'm very much interested in the rank of the Cornicularius - is it the same as that of Cornicen - the hornblower, or an entirely different one?
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#4
Quote:What about the office or rank of centurio regionarius

Yes, that's from the Vindolanda letter I mentioned above (full text) [* - just realised I didn't mention it here - it was in a different thread!... :wink: ]

Annius Equester seems to have been in charge of some aspect of administration in the Carlisle district - maybe recruitment. It's interesting, though, that we don't know what post 'Brigonius' was supposedly applying for, nor why he needed the recommendation of two cohort prefects (presumably) to get it! He may just have been a local man who wanted to be a soldier, or perhaps he was trying for a post in some local office and Equester was the man to talk to.

Centurions do seem to have been detached from the army for various duties like this. There were supernumerary centurions, presumably attached to the legion or cohort but without a field command role. Alternatively (bearing in mind the often-depleted state of units in the field, as shown by the strength report from Vindolanda) some units may just have had more centurions than they needed!


Quote:And also, I'm very much interested in the rank of the Cornicularius - is it the same as that of Cornicen - the hornblower, or an entirely different one?

Cornicens were hornblowers. Cornicularii were chief secretaries, or the heads of offices, to military and civil officers from cohort prefects up to provincial governors. They would have had various administrative duties, were recruited from the army, and ranked depending on the seniority of the office or unit to which they belonged. There's a theory that they wore a horn-shaped emblem (cornu) somewhere or other, but there's no real evidence for that beyond conjecture!
Nathan Ross
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