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

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

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<strong>The</strong> Emperor as commander-in-chief 69<br />

command of the army and their popularity with the soldiers as<br />

protection against revolt (Campbell 1984:17–156; chapter 7 this<br />

volume; significance of the emperor’s public image—Zanker 1988).<br />

THE EMPEROR WITH HIS TROOPS<br />

118 Epictetus (1st–2nd C.AD), Discourses, 1. 14. 15<br />

For they (the soldiers), on entering military service, swear an oath to<br />

value the safety of the emperor above everything…<br />

119 Suetonius (1st–2nd C.AD), Augustus 25. 1<br />

After the civil wars he (Augustus) did not address any of the soldiers as<br />

‘comrades’ in either speeches or edicts, but always ‘soldiers’, and indeed<br />

did not permit any other form of address to be used even by his sons or<br />

stepsons who held military commands. For he thought that the former<br />

term was too flattering for the demands of military discipline, the<br />

peaceful nature of the times, and his own majesty and that of his house.<br />

It is not clear when the term ‘comrades’ was first employed after this in public<br />

documents or speeches, but it was in common use during the civil wars of AD<br />

68/69, and thereafter was the normal mode of address. In instructions issued<br />

to provincial governors about the wills of soldiers, Trajan speaks of the justness<br />

of his feelings for his ‘excellent and outstandingly loyal fellow-soldiers’ (text<br />

no. 263).<br />

120 Dio (2nd–3rd C.AD), 56. 42<br />

<strong>The</strong> senate and the equestrian order, their wives, the praetorians, and<br />

virtually all the others who were present in the city at that time, attended<br />

and participated in the funeral ceremony (of Augustus). When the body<br />

had been placed on the pyre in the Campus Martius, first all the priests<br />

walked round it, then the equestrians, both those belonging to the order<br />

and the others, and then the praetorian guardsmen ran round it and<br />

threw onto it all the military decorations which any of them had ever<br />

received from him for bravery. <strong>The</strong>n, as the senate had decreed, the<br />

centurions lifted their torches and set fire to the pyre from underneath.<br />

121 Velleius Paterculus (1st C.BC–1st C.AD), 2. 104<br />

At the sight of him (Tiberius) there were tears of joy from the soldiers<br />

as they ran up to him and welcomed him with tremendous and<br />

unprecedented enthusiasm, eagerly taking him by the hand and unable

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