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Exploratores (paper request)
#1
I'm looking for a paper on exploratores:

A. Ezov, The Numeri exploratorum Units in the German Provinces and Raetia, Klio 79 (1997) 161-177

which seems to difficult to track down... Does anybody have a copy, or failing that, know what the paper covers?

Five units of exploratores are listed in the Notitia (although two of these could well be duplicates of one another), and I'd like to expand my commentary on them, but there doesn't seem to be all that much information known about them. 

Austin & Rankov's "Exploratio: Military and Political Intelligence in the Roman World from the Second Punic War to the Battle of Adrianople" no doubt has something, but at 85 quid it is well out of my "satisfy my curiosity" budget...

Cheers, Luke
Luke Ueda-Sarson         
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#2
I don't know where you are based but I deduce from the local time on your profile that it is not in the UK. Here it would be easy to get a copy of the paper through one's local library and Austin & Rankov could be borrowed through the Inter-library Loan Service but things may be different where you are. If all else fails, you can buy a copy of the paper by going to Google Scholar and entering 'numeri exploratorum'. This will give you a link to a page of de Gruyter's website which deals with the paper and from which you can order a copy. If you are not associated with a relevant institution, it will cost you 30 euros, $42 or £23.
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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#3
(01-17-2016, 06:20 PM)Renatus Wrote: I don't know where you are based but I deduce from the local time on your profile that it is not in the UK. Here it would be easy to get a copy of the paper through one's local library and Austin & Rankov could be borrowed through the Inter-library Loan Service but things may be different where you are. If all else fails, you can buy a copy of the paper by going to Google Scholar and entering 'numeri exploratorum'. This will give you a link to a page of de Gruyter's website which deals with the paper and from which you can order a copy. If you are not associated with a relevant institution, it will cost you 30 euros, $42 or £23.

I'm in Japan, at Osaka University. I can't even get the usual history articles through JSTOR here, and interlibrary dealings cost over 30 dollars each, or so I understood the one time I tried.  We aren't really set up for western history here...

And as for buying such a simple paper; don't get me started (or do!) - that is the antithesis of what academic research should be about!  I admittedly have bought the odd book on the strength of a citation, but only if it was one going cheap, but paying so much for 7 pages is crazy, especially as copying for research purposes is completely fine in the first place.  So the only reason to pay that money is basically to extort the geographically challenged, like me.

Unfortunately, historical journals are still for most part commercial (unlike many in the sciences, and which are thus not published for profit), so the puplsihers are, at last, in it for the money.

Anyway, rant over!

Would anyone like to opine if a unit important enough (= big enough?) to both have their officer included in the Notitia and be named "exploratores" would have been an entire unit of "scouts" (whatever that may mean)? Or would the name more likely be commerative?  I'd incline toward the former, but that raises the question of how large a unit is such a numerus, anyway?...  And if the later, commorative of what?


Cheers, Luke
Luke Ueda-Sarson         
[Image: Herculiani.png]
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#4
(01-18-2016, 01:14 PM)lukeuedasarson Wrote: And as for buying such a simple paper; don't get me started (or do!) - that is the antithesis of what academic research should be about! 
 
I wholeheartedly agree.

(01-18-2016, 01:14 PM)lukeuedasarson Wrote: Would anyone like to opine if a unit important enough (= big enough?) to both have their officer included in the Notitia and be named "exploratores" would have been an entire unit of "scouts" (whatever that may mean)? Or would the name more likely be commerative?
  
Originally I think they might have been exploratores. But, looking at various other names of units such as ballistarii, scutati, etc., I'm inclined to think that the origin of such a unit might have been a small nucleus of specialists, which was then refitted into a common infantry unit. But of course this is a very old discussion which we might never solve to satisfaction.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#5
(01-18-2016, 01:29 PM)Robert Vermaat Wrote: But of course this is a very old discussion which we might never solve to satisfaction.

Yes indeed! Looking at the first page of the Ezov paper on the de Gruyter website, it looks like it's mainly dealing with 2nd-3rd century numeri exploratorum. In only seven or eight pages, I doubt there's much beyond that... but it does sound interesting nonetheless.

Looking through the various inscriptions to these units from earlier centuries, there are a few things worth mentioning (or repeating!): exploratores units (usually numeri, although there's also an ala exploratorum pomariensium in Mauretania) seem to be based solely on the frontiers - and I think this continues into the ND.

They could be stationed together with regular auxiliary units (as at Risingham or High Rochester), or on their own (as seems to have been the case with the numerus exploratorum (Germanicianorum) Divitensium (Antoninianorum/Alexandrianorum), probably based in the fort opposite Cologne during the third century, before the Constantinian rebuilding. The latter seem to have been a relatively higher class unit, based on the honorific titles and the fact that at one point they were apparently commanded by an equestrian prefect doing his militiae quarta.

On the other hand, at least one auxiliary unit (VIIII Batavorum in Raetia) seems to have gained the additional title exploratorum at some point, but lost it again before it appears in the ND as cohortis novae batavorum.

So perhaps the name originated with units of (irregular?) scouts, but, as Robert suggests, later acquired a sort of kudos as a specialist designation and was applied to more regular troops stationed on the frontiers in a scouting role?

I was intrigued to find an inscription to one man, Audacius Quietus, who besides being a soldier of the numerus exploratorum Batavorum at Cologne, also apparently served as the governor's boatman! (barcarius consularis)...
Nathan Ross
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#6
(01-18-2016, 03:12 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote: They could be stationed together with regular auxiliary units (as at Risingham or High Rochester), or on their own (as seems to have been the case with the numerus exploratorum (Germanicianorum) Divitensium (Antoninianorum/Alexandrianorum), probably based in the fort opposite Cologne during the third century, before the Constantinian rebuilding. The latter seem to have been a relatively higher class unit, based on the honorific titles and the fact that at one point they were apparently commanded by an equestrian prefect doing his militiae quarta.

On the other hand, at least one auxiliary unit (VIIII Batavorum in Raetia) seems to have gained the additional title exploratorum at some point, but lost it again before it appears in the ND as cohortis novae batavorum.

So perhaps the name originated with units of (irregular?) scouts, but, as Robert suggests, later acquired a sort of kudos as a specialist designation and was applied to more regular troops stationed on the frontiers in a scouting role?

I was intrigued to find an inscription to one man, Audacius Quietus, who besides being a soldier of the numerus exploratorum Batavorum at Cologne, also apparently served as the governor's boatman! (barcarius consularis)...

Thanks for these - time to do some inscription trawling, I see...

As an aside, I wouldn't conclude from the apparent absence of VIIII Batavorum's exploratorum title in the ND indicating that it had therefore lost the title. The ND gives very abbreviated units names: so many units in it that are recorded epigraphically have a longer form in an inscription than they do in the ND...  Take the Cornuti in the eastern section. This would appear to have lost not only its "seniores" label in the ND, but also its "Iovii" (or similar) appellation as well. I could easily spin a tale of how it may have lost the latter, but not so easily the former. The easier conclusion is that the unit's name is just abbreviated.  The ND itself shows so many cases of a long form in one section, and an abbreviated form elsewhere. Case in point: Prima Flavia Gallicana Constantia in one place, Prima Flavia Gallicana in another, plain Constantia in yet another.

As a further aside, as you state above, VIIII Batavorum isn't even recorded as such in the ND: its officer is recorded as the Tribunus cohortis nova batavorum batavis, so it only gets that far by way of textual amendation. A safe amendment in this case - but only because we know a lot about the unit's name from sources external to the document - who would have queried "nova" in the absence of that knowledge?

(PS - is there any way to intercut a previous writer's comments with one's own? I can't figure out how to do this...)

Cheers, Luke
Luke Ueda-Sarson         
[Image: Herculiani.png]
My "Notitia dignitatum" compilation shield patterns page
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#7
(01-20-2016, 11:40 AM)lukeuedasarson Wrote: the apparent absence of VIIII Batavorum's exploratorum title in the ND indicating that it had therefore lost the title.

I think there are later inscriptions that also lack the title, but they too could have left off for brevity, of course! Thanks for the point about the amendation in the ND though.


(01-20-2016, 11:40 AM)lukeuedasarson Wrote: is there any way to intercut a previous writer's comments with one's own? I can't figure out how to do this...

I only know of a rather laborious process: add two extra line spaces beneath the quote box in your 'reply', copy it (including the two extra spaces) and then paste the whole box again. After you've pasted as many copies of entire original message as you want, edit each one to leave only the comment to which you want to respond. If anyone knows of a less clunky way to do this, I'd be interested to hear of it!
Nathan Ross
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#8
(01-20-2016, 02:16 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote:
(01-20-2016, 11:40 AM)lukeuedasarson Wrote: is there any way to intercut a previous writer's comments with one's own? I can't figure out how to do this...

I only know of a rather laborious process: add two extra line spaces beneath the quote box in your 'reply', copy it (including the two extra spaces) and then paste the whole box again. After you've pasted as many copies of entire original message as you want, edit each one to leave only the comment to which you want to respond. If anyone knows of a less clunky way to do this, I'd be interested to hear of it!

My method would be as follows. Say there was a post in which there were three passages that I wished to respond to. I would quote the whole post and then put a 'close quote' at the end of the first passage. I would then add my response to that passage. I would then copy the previous posters name, pid and dateline from the beginning of his post, including the square brackets, and paste this at the beginning of the second passage, again adding a 'close quote' at the end. I would then add my response to that passage. I would repeat this process for the third. As I went through, I would delete the parts of the post that I was not responding to. I am not sure if this is any less laborious than Nathan's method but it works for me.
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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#9
(01-18-2016, 01:14 PM)lukeuedasarson Wrote: And as for buying such a simple paper; don't get me started (or do!) - that is the antithesis of what academic research should be about!  I admittedly have bought the odd book on the strength of a citation, but only if it was one going cheap, but paying so much for 7 pages is crazy, especially as copying for research purposes is completely fine in the first place.  So the only reason to pay that money is basically to extort the geographically challenged, like me.

Unfortunately, historical journals are still for most part commercial (unlike many in the sciences, and which are thus not published for profit), so the puplsihers are, at last, in it for the money.

You can use this website: http://www.sci-hub.io/
Ildar Kayumov
XLegio Forum (in Russian)
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#10
(01-20-2016, 06:39 PM)Ildar Wrote: You can use this website: http://www.sci-hub.io/

Thanks to Ildar, I now have a cppy of the paper, and I note that the citation I followed to it had the starting page wrong, so it's over twice as long as I thought it was.

I haven't had time to read it properly yet, although I do note the author believes VIIII Batavorum held the exploratorum title briefly :-)

The paper's 5 main conclusions are very handily summarised on the last page - excellent practice. Number 5 is there is no evidence they were in way "elite" (as opposed to having a specific rask-defined function).

Cheers, Luke
Luke Ueda-Sarson         
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