The Roman Army, 31 BC–AD 337: A Sourcebook

8 Veterans
DISCHARGE AND BENEFITS
By decision of Augustus the Roman state had accepted responsibility
for veterans’ superannuation, paid either in cash or as a plot of land,
which might be allocated individually or as part of an organized military
colony. It seems unlikely that these rewards can have been confined to
praetorians and legionaries, as the number and significance of the
auxiliaries increased. In any event, all veterans could look forward to a
relatively privileged status in comparison with the rest of the lower
classes, since they were exempt from certain taxes and personal services
and immune from some punishments. Furthermore, there were benefits
that came with long and satisfactory service and eventually with
honourable discharge itself. Auxiliaries and sailors received citizenship
for themselves and existing children, and also the right of marriage
(conubium) with one woman, even if non-Roman, which, although it
did not make the wife a citizen, meant that future children would be
citizens. Praetorians also received the right of conubium; for discussion
of other difficulties in the position of praetorians and legionaries, see
texts nos 328–9 and 341.
The evidence for much of this is contained on small bronze folding
tablets, described by modern scholars as diplomas or diplomata, which
from the second century onwards contained a copy of the imperial
authorization of the discharge of soldiers from various auxiliary units
in a province, stating: the name of the emperor, the military units
concerned, their location, their commanding officer, a definition of the
privileges conferred, the date, the name of the individual soldier, the
location of the master copy in Rome, and a list of witnesses to the
diploma’s accurate transcription.
Diplomas were first issued probably by Claudius to individual
auxiliaries to show that they had been granted the benefit of citizenship
(a traditional prize for those who provided sterling military service for