Aux to Legionare

[Chuck Russell]

were there any instances of Aux non roman men becoming citizenized roman legionares?

[arklore70]

Chuck,
none that I have discovered, but that does not mean that it could not have happened based on a military that was at least a bit of a meritocracy.

I have not encountered it in reading Cheesman, Watson, Connolly, Rodgers, or Goldsworthy.

After the legislation of 212 AD it would be more probable as the slate between Civus and Peregrinus was leveled for enrollment into the military.

Prior to 212 AD, there was a bit of divide between the Civus and the Peregrinus. In order for an Auxiliary trooper to be eligible he would had had to been meritoriously awarded civus romanorum prior to his completion of 25 years of service.

The question that plagues my mind is why would he want to leave his unit? If the unit had been awarded the Civus Romanorum in mass, they would be one heck of a unit, so why leave a good organization that everyone was part of a team. The glory and recognition they would receive for such a meritorious feat would be pretty big.

If it was awarded for an individual achievement, he'd be the big fish in a pond, most certainly a immunes of some nature, and enjoying the benefits and rewards, so why would he give up a good thing such as bragging rights? Why leave to be a small fish, in a bigger pond and have to start all over again?

Hope this helps...good question by the way.

Cheers,

Mike

[Tib. Gabinius]

Salve Chuck,
the regular way, serve the years the peregrini were inscribed (regular 20-26 years) there wouldnt be a chance to earn the citizienship and change to legion. Already the age of the men would provide it.

In some cases, several auxiliares or complete units earned the citizienship for their well done work.
That wouldnt ment, that they can change to unit as easy, but another kind of recompence the troops was to bring them to another unit.
That can mean another unit in the ranking of the troops itself (very intersting article to that in "Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Roms"), which means under different cohorts, legions and the inner of the legions (centuria and cohortes).
It may thinkable that an auxiliar with the right of a roman would be done in that way.
But i really dont know a case, what dont mean that there isnt one out there 8perhaps someone in here knows one case), but i never recognized one.
For more informations you can read also Domaszewski book, "Die Rangordnung im römischen Heer" which was new published in the late 60s and overworked.

And perhaps Alföldis "Die Hilfstruppen in germania inferior" will help a bit.
I know, all these is german, but out of that i just know some french works, which wont be more helpfull anyway

[Praefectusclassis]

very intersting article to that in "Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Roms"

That sounds interesting. Have a slightly more specific reference?

As to the question at hand, we do know of one case where a fleet soldier was promoted to a legion (because he was very unhappy in the Alexandrian fleet) through string-pulling of well connected friends & family. Then there are of course cases of legionaries being promoted to a higher rank in the auxilia, transferring from one unit into another. (E.g. Tiberius Claudius Maximus) and auxiliary alares were the source for provincial and Augustan singulares.
But outside of such promotions and for simple cohortales? I would know of no regular way, but connections and bribery could usually get you far in the Roman army.

[Tarbicus]

I made a websearch for "auxiliary to legionary" and came up with a broken link that has the following page cached but the actual link is broken. The cached page is:
Cached page from Vindolanda tablets online

5. Equestre is not a difficult reading except for the penultimate letter, which looks more like t than r. In view of what follows it must be a proper name and it is striking that the centurion named in No. 22.8 (250) also has the same cognomen; not an exceedingly common one. We hesitate to draw the conclusion that these are one and the same man because the person in No. 23 is centurion of the auxiliary cohors viii Batauorum (see note to line 6) whereas the man in No. 22 (250) is a centurio regionarius (see notes to lines 8-9) and must therefore be a legionary. It is possible, however, that the letters were written at different times and that the man was promoted (for an example of promotion from auxiliary to legionary centurion see P. Holder, AAT, pp.101, 384). On the form of the ablative see see Vol. 1., Ch. 5.

Does that apply to your question?

[Peroni]

I think this text refers to an auxiliary 'centurion', (usually citizens) being transferred to the position of Legionary centurion, rather than a regular provincial trooper being promoted to Legionary centurion.

(I also think they misread the tablet concerning the cohort numerical designation, AFAIK we have no record of the Batavian VIIIth cohort, especially from this period, It should read VIIII.)

Regards,

[Tarbicus]

" ... to his Cerialis ... ... and those letters which you (?) had received from Equester, centurion of the 3rd Cohort of Batavians, I sent (?) to you on 30 April (?) ... (2nd hand?) ... my mistress (?) ...(Back, 1st hand) To Flavius Cerialis, prefect of the 9th Cohort of Batavians, from Vitalis, decurion ..."

It says viiii in the actual page for the tablet which I found.

[url:2v8v9mnl]http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/4DLink2/4DACTION/WebRequestQuery[/url]

Note the greyed text, which I assume means those parts on the actual tablet were missing or unreadable.

What you say about the citizen status of the auxiliary centurion makes sense. Kind of a halfway result, maybe?

[Peroni]

Yes, this is TAB. II.263, the one that refers to the IIIrd cohort and places them near to Vindolanda at this time.

It's one of two published that does mention the IIIrd cohort (so far) the other being TAB. II.311 from Sollemnis to Paris

Regards,