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

Veterans 209
of military life could at any time be supplemented by the generosity of the
emperor.
It is obscure why Valens cited the edict. Perhaps some imposition had been
placed on him or his home; or if the restoration ‘tax-collector’ is correct, he
may have been trying to give up this post which he had accepted earlier,
presumably in the expectation that it would be profitable. Tax farmers bought
from the state the right to collect certain taxes and then tried to recoup their
outlay and make a profit.
341 ILS 9059=FIRA 1. 76, tablet, Arsinoite nome, Egypt, AD 94
(Exterior face, names of nine witnesses in the margin)
In the consulship of Lucius Nonius Calpurnius Torquatus Asprenas
and Titus Sextius Magius Lateranus (AD 94), 2 July, year 13 of Emperor
Caesar Domitian Augustus, Conqueror of the Germans, month of
Epeiph, the eighth day, at Alexandria in Egypt: Marcus Valerius
Quadratus, son of Marcus, of the tribe Pollia, veteran, honourably
discharged from Legion X Fretensis, declared that he had had a copy
made and authenticated from the bronze plaque, which is affixed in
the Great Caesareum, as you climb the second flight of steps beneath
the portico on the right, beside the temple of the marble Venus, on the
wall, on which is written the text which is set out below:
Emperor Caesar Domitian Augustus, Conqueror of the Germans, son
of the divine Vespasian, chief priest, in the eighth year of his tribunician
power (AD 88–89), acclaimed imperator sixteen times, censor in
perpetuity, father of the fatherland, declares: I have decided to proclaim
by edict that the veterans among all of you (i.e. soldiers) should be free
and exempt from all public taxes and toll dues, that they themselves, the
wives who married them, their children, and their parents, should be
Roman citizens with every proper legal right, that they should be free
and immune with total exemption, and their parents and children
mentioned above should have the same legal rights and the same status
in respect of total exemption, and that their land, houses, and shops
shall not [ _ _ _ ] against their will and without payment (?) [ _ _ _
(Interior face)
[ _ _ _ ] of veterans with their wives and children mentioned above
(whose names) have been inscribed in bronze, or if they were unmarried,
with those whom they married afterwards, limited to one wife for each
man, and who served at Jerusalem in Legion X Fretensis and were
honourably discharged when their service was completed by Sextus
Hermetidius Campanus, legate of the Emperor with propraetorian
power, on 28 December, in the consulship of Sextus Pompeius Collega
and Quintus Peducaeus Priscinus (AD 93), and who began their military