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

Veterans 213
wars, when peace had been established, settled them in colonies.
Similarly, the divine Augustus, when peace had been imposed
throughout the world, settled as colonists the soldiers who had served
in the armies of Antony and Lepidus along with men of his own legions,
either in Italy, or in the provinces. For some of these he founded new
cities after enemy settlements had been wiped out; in other cases he
settled soldiers in old towns and called them colonists. Moreover, cities
which had been founded by kings or dictators and which the civil wars
had drained of manpower, he re-founded as colonies and increased
their population, and sometimes their territory.
Hyginus Gromaticus traces the history of colonial foundations; in the earlier
type Julius Caesar settled legions in their existing military framework (cf. Appian,
Civil Wars 2. 139–41); under Augustus, certainly after 27 BC, whole legions
were no longer discharged simultaneously, and smaller groups of men were
settled, often in existing communities. This is a rare explicit comment by an
ancient writer on the sometimes complex motives for Augustus’ colonial
foundations. Veterans of Antony and Lepidus who received land from Augustus
were probably settled in the provinces.
343 Siculus Flaccus (2nd? C.AD), On the Status of Land (Thulin
1913:126–7)
Furthermore, there is the term ‘bronze tablet with double entries’. This
originated as follows. Men settled as colonists by the divine Julius Caesar
took up military service again under Augustus. When the wars were over
they returned victorious to reclaim their lands; however others received
land in place of those soldiers who had died. Consequently, in these
centuriae there may be found the names both of those who had been
originally settled as colonists and of those who afterwards took their place.
344 Augustus, Res Gestae, 28
I founded colonies of soldiers in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, both Spanish
provinces, Achaea, Asia, Syria, Narbonese Gaul, and Pisidia. In addition
Italy has twenty-eight colonies founded under my authority which in
my lifetime were very distinguished and populous.
For Augustus’ expenditure on colonies founded in 31 and 14 BC, see texts nos
18–19. After Actium he may have discharged between 40,000 and 50,000 men
from his own legions (discussion in Brunt 1971:332–42; Keppie 1983:73–86).
The twenty-eight colonies mentioned by Augustus cannot include all those which
had been founded or reinforced between 41 BC and AD 14; it is likely that he
means those founded immediately after Actium and perhaps later in his reign.