03-22-2020, 08:47 PM
(03-19-2020, 01:18 PM)James Ryan Writer Wrote: a Centurion who is badly injured in battle and is sent home to Rome to recover...he can't return to his old unit.
If he's that badly injured the journey would probably kill him quicker than the wound... But very few centurions or other soldiers came from Rome itself, even by the late Augustan era.
Centurions were regular soldiers, whether raised from the ranks or directly commissioned, and the legion would be their home; if they were injured, they would probably be cared for at the legion hospital (or most likely in their own quarters - centurions were wealthy men and had plenty of slaves to look after them), for however long it took them to recover. They would only leave the legion if they were transferred or invalided, in which case their fighting days would be over. There would be other officers who could deputise for those temporarily incapacitated - most legions appear to have had more centurions than centuries that needed commanding, the extra men being staff officers or other supernumerarii.
It's possible, I suppose, that a centurion might be sent away from camp for a rest cure - perhaps to a local hot spring, where he could make offerings for a speedy recovery. Dedicatory inscriptions from centurions and other soldiers are fairly common at spa bathing facilities, I believe, including my favourite Roman inscription, from Aquae Flavianae in North Africa!
Nathan Ross
