Navy\'s status

[Praefectusclassis]

In G.Alföldy, 'Zu den Kriegsflotten' (review of D.Kienast, Untersuchungen zu den Kriegsflotten der Römischen Kaiserzeit), in: idem, Römische Heeresgeschichte. Beiträge 1962-1985, Mavors III (Amsterdam 1987), 46, Alföldy writes that 2nd century sailors had to take the tria nomina because they became Latini directly on enlistment. According to him auxiliaries stayed peregrini while in service.<br>
Might this imply that the navy's status was on the rise?<br>
<br>
Greets<br>
<br>
Jasper<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[Guest]

Salve,<br>
<br>
The use of the <i> tria nomina</i>, while often a sign of citizenship, does not provide a 100% proof indication of legal status. The use of an assumed or assigned military name, eg the naval soldier Apion writing his father that his new name is Antonius Maximus, may have been to prevent the other soldiers from struggling with unfamiliar types of names. In addition the strict division between arm of service and legal status was in practice more permeable. Legions did occasionally accept men of previously peregrine status when manpower needs were higher (with citizenship granted at enlistment or discharge) and citizens served alongside <i> peregrini</i> in the auxiliary forces and the navy. Freedmen, normally entitled to enlistment in the navy, were also recruited in the <i> auxilia</i> when the situation demanded it (eg after the <i> clades Variana</i>).<br>
<br>
D.B. Saddington, 'The sorts of names used by auxiliaries in the early principate' in: <i> Kaiser, Heer und Gesellschaft</i> (got my copy today) 163-178.<br>
<br>
The development of the status of military personel is a very difficult subject with apparently conficting indications that are not easily combined within a single model of explanation. In some respects the soldiers were profiting from measures that would increase their welfare (eg the reduction in deductions from pay in the course of the second and third century CE and the eventual grant of food and other goods against nominal or no fee) while others point to a deterioration (eg the changed formula encountered on the <i> diploma</i> which limits the citizenship to children born to the veteran after discharge and perhaps less perceptibly the decrease in net value of military pay between Domitian's rise and that of the Severans). The net result of the varying developments is difficult to gauge, though the military of the early third century period would have been best off with recent increases in pay (the generosity of their pay even recorded by troops in inscriptions) and improvements in service conditions.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Sander van Dorst<br>
<p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=sandervandorst>Sander van Dorst</A> at: 4/21/01 9:32:35 pm<br></i>