Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

soldier and civilian 493
Negev is revealed by a dossier of documents. Part, at least, of the unit was
recruited locally and it formed a stable social group; its members were naturally
involved in local transactions of houses and land, which would be
registered at the civilian record office in nearby Elusa; this land, owned by
the soldiers in a private capacity, was subject to normal taxation. 100 Such
landowning soldiers did not necessarily become soldier-farmers, whose
military activities might be curtailed by the rhythms of the agricultural year;
rather, they were like other men of status, rentiers who could cultivate their
lands through tenants or other dependants. From Egypt, there is evidence
both for the itinerant soldier Flavius Taurinus leasing out his property
through middlemen, and for Flavius Donatiolus, a member of the equites
Mauri scutarii at Hermopolis, leasing arable land from a local landowner. 101
Static units in Egypt reveal patterns of economic integration comparable
to Nessana. The fourth-century Abbinaeus archive provides evidence
for a local military commander as the recipient of petitions, in some cases
from civilians, who should not have been presenting their complaints to
him. The units stationed at Syene, Philae and Elephantine in the late sixth
century were the dominant members of local society, who combined nonmilitary
activities such as that of boatman with membership of their regiments.
These units might appear underemployed, with property and other
financial transactions and the supervision of the grain supply as their main
concerns, 102 but there were serious frontier threats in the fifth century from
the Blemmyes and Nobades, and the rural unrest in the Delta c. 600 for
which we have evidence is unlikely to have been unique. In Italy the
Byzantine army of occupation quickly dug itself into local society, providing
evidence for the coalescence of military, property and administrative
power. 103 Everywhere soldiers, and especially officers, will have been powerful
people whose influence inevitably undercut that of other patrons and
generated the disgruntled outburst of Libanius about the improper behaviour
of soldiers in the hinterland of Antioch. 104 His strong self-interest
needs to be remembered when assessing his complaints, and also the fact
that Antioch, an imperial residence for much of the fourth century, may
have been exceptionally affected by the spending power of officers’ salaries.
But soldiers could be victims as well as exploiters. Busas at Appiaria
was refused ransom by the town’s inhabitants, allegedly because one prominent
individual had seduced his wife. 105
Another positive aspect of the Roman army, at least in the east, where a
balance was maintained between internal and external recruits, was its continuing
power to civilize outsiders. In the west, where the Germanic noble
100 Isaac Limits of Empire 209; Nessana doc. 24 in Kraemer (1958).
101 Bagnall, Egypt 151 n. 12; Jones, LRE 662. 102 Jones, LRE 662; Whittaker (1994) 144–5, 263.
103 Brown, Gentlemen and Officers 101–8. 104 Cf. Bagnall, Egypt 173 and ch. 6;Lib.Or. xlvii.
105 Theophylact ii.16.7.
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