A Cavalry Regiment from Orléans at Zeugma on the ... - Kaveh Farrokh

A <strong>Cavalry</strong> <strong>Regiment</strong> <strong>from</strong> <strong>Orléans</strong> <strong>at</strong> <strong>Zeugma</strong> on the Euphr<strong>at</strong>es: The Equites Scutarii Aureliaci
Author(s): Michael P. Speidel
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 27 (1977), pp. 271-273
Published by: Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn (Germany)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20181472 .
Accessed: 08/12/2011 19:33
Your use of the JSTOR archive indic<strong>at</strong>es your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available <strong>at</strong> .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service th<strong>at</strong> helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use inform<strong>at</strong>ion technology and tools to increase productivity and facilit<strong>at</strong>e new forms
of scholarship. For more inform<strong>at</strong>ion about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
http://www.jstor.org
Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn (Germany) is collabor<strong>at</strong>ing with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

A CAVALRY REGIMENT FROM ORLEANS AT ZEUGMA ON THE
EUPHRATES: THE EQU ITES SCUT ARII AURELIACI
The military importance of <strong>Zeugma</strong>, now Belkis, <strong>at</strong> the ma?or crossing over the Euphr<strong>at</strong>es
is well established for the time of the princip?te by the brilliant researches and recent
public<strong>at</strong>ions of J.Wagner. Wagner's very rich archaeological m<strong>at</strong>erial comprises among
other major discoveries
1111 Scythi
a series of tile stamps pointing
ca <strong>at</strong> <strong>Zeugma</strong> <strong>from</strong> the mid-first century
to the permanent loc<strong>at</strong>ion of I eg i o
onwards. Another valuable find are
tombstones of three of the four Pannonian legions, proof th<strong>at</strong> the town was a base for the
European crack units in the Parthian expedition of Septimius Severus in A.D. 197 ff. or th<strong>at</strong>
of Caracal la in A.D.
2) '
215 ff.
In A.D. 256 Shapur I took and burned <strong>Zeugma</strong>. The setback the town suffered is well
illustr<strong>at</strong>ed by the near complete lack of finds <strong>from</strong> the subsequent periods. The legion, too,
had left: the Notitia Dignit<strong>at</strong>um (Or.33,23) loc<strong>at</strong>es it <strong>at</strong> Oresa far to the Southeast. The
Roman-Persian frontier having moved further East, <strong>Zeugma</strong> no
of the frontier army, witness the troop list of the Duke of Syria
longer accomod<strong>at</strong>ed
a garrison
in the Notitia Dignit<strong>at</strong>um.
Still, as the East-West road crossed the river here, the town's military significance
must have
remained considerable. Indeed, a chapter of the fourth-century military history of <strong>Zeugma</strong> can
3)
be traced with help of a funeral inscription published by Wagner thus:
Aur(elius) Benedictus / n<strong>at</strong>(us) pro(vincia) Cappa(docia)Ma(acae) /
Termas Basilicas, su/pervix(it) an(nis) X et amb(ulavit) in/sco(lam)
me(nses) II, deinde f<strong>at</strong>o /suo sup(er<strong>at</strong>us est). Vi<strong>at</strong>(or) iter qu[i] / carpes
res(ta) et relege, miser (ere)/Benedicto
me (o) et refma / me.Fla(vius)
Uccaius cent(ur?o) de Aurelia(no) co(n)s(ule) / pos(uit) titulum filio
suo bene m?rito.
Aurelianus, according to this reading, would be the consul of A.D. 400, yet the abbre
vi<strong>at</strong>ion of his name to Au re I i a is startling. Wh<strong>at</strong> is more, the preposition de can hardly
1) J?rg Wagner, Seleukeia am Euphr<strong>at</strong>/<strong>Zeugma</strong>, Wiesbaden 1976 ( = Beihefte zum
T?binger Atlas des Vorderen Orients B/10).
2) The first Parthian expedition of
Septimius Severus of A.D. 195 must be excluded,
for one of the soldiers, carrying the name
Septimius died with eight years of service but
because of his name he will not have been recruited before A.D? 193, the year of the
accession of Septimius Severus.
3) Ibid. 262 and pl<strong>at</strong>e 52.

272 M.P.Speidel
indic<strong>at</strong>e a consul<strong>at</strong>e. Nor were there still centurions in the Roman field army by A.D. 400.
The second but last line therefore must read
Fla(vius) Uccaius cent(enarius) de Aureliacos
The indic<strong>at</strong>ion of one's unit with the preposition de is commonplace in the L<strong>at</strong>er
Empire, the substitution of the accus<strong>at</strong>ive for other cases a widespread fe<strong>at</strong>ure of the dis
integr<strong>at</strong>ion of classical L<strong>at</strong>in. The Aurel iaci are an elite
cavalry
form<strong>at</strong>ion known <strong>from</strong>
the Notitia Dignit<strong>at</strong>um (Oc. 7,201) as equ i tes scutarii Aureliaci in the rank of a
vexill<strong>at</strong>io comit<strong>at</strong>ensis under the orders of the Count of Britain. Uccaius
4)
Celtic, hence the Au re I i ac i had come <strong>from</strong> the Western part of the empire
more years earlier, for Uccaius' son who died with ten years of age was already
' name is
- ten or
born in
the East. The first inscription to mention this unit, our text establishes the name Aurel iaci
beyond
doubt as
independent <strong>from</strong> the British numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum <strong>from</strong>
which it was thought to derive. It reveals as the unit's former garrison place the ci vi tas
Aurelianensium, modern-day Orl?ans: a comparable
case are the milites Ma u r i
O s i s m ? a c i (Oc. 37,17) st<strong>at</strong>ioned among the Osismi, also in north-western Gaul.
With due caution one may reconstruct the history of the unit as follows: raised <strong>at</strong> the turn
of the third century <strong>from</strong> among the b<strong>at</strong>tle cavalry of the ?quit?s scutarii it was
st<strong>at</strong>ioned <strong>at</strong> Orleans as part of the mobile forces of the exercitus Gallicanus; it left
Gaul for the Orient, perhaps under Magnentius, together
with a number of other crack
cavalry regiments of the area, including the ?quit?s c<strong>at</strong>afrac tari i Ambianenses,
Biturigenses, Pictavenses, and Albigenses which had been st<strong>at</strong>ioned <strong>at</strong> Amiens,
Bourges, Poitiers, and Albi. As a unit of the field army the Au re I i ac i during their stay
in the East were st<strong>at</strong>ioned somewhere in the interior, perhaps for many years <strong>at</strong> <strong>Zeugma</strong>, now
far removed <strong>from</strong> the frontier. Finally,
Britain to strengthen the forces of the comes Britanniarum.
around the turn of the fourth century the unit came to
The results of this account, if correct, are manifold. For the history of the irregular
units (numeri) of the princip?te it is noteworthy th<strong>at</strong> the British numerus Maurorum
4) Cf. A.Holder, Alt-Keltischer Sprachsch<strong>at</strong>z III, 1907, 12ff.
5) D.Hoffmann, Das sp?tr?mische Bewegungsheer und die Notitia Dignit<strong>at</strong>um, D?ssel
dorf, 1969, 171.
6) This connection has already been made, apparently
by Ihm, in: Thesaurus Linguae L<strong>at</strong>inae s.v. Aurelianenses.
7) Hoffmann,
I.e. 483ff.
on purely linguistic grounds,

A <strong>Cavalry</strong> <strong>Regiment</strong> <strong>from</strong> Orleans <strong>at</strong> <strong>Zeugma</strong> on the Euphr<strong>at</strong>es 273
Aurelianorum
can no
longer be taken to have been promoted into the field army under
the name Au re I i ac i . The military history of Gaul during the early fourth century
acquires a new unit and its loc<strong>at</strong>ion, <strong>at</strong>testing to the defense in depth of all Gaul and
revealing the str<strong>at</strong>egic role of Orleans. For the history of Britain we gain insight into
a
larger than previously thought commitment of the empire to the defense of the island
<strong>at</strong> the end of the fourth century. As for <strong>Zeugma</strong> on the Euphr<strong>at</strong>es, we see now the town
recuper<strong>at</strong>ed sufficiently by the mid-fourth century to acquire the protection of an elite
unit of the field army.
University of Hawaii Michael P. Speidel
8) Hoffmann, 171. For the numerus Maurorum see e.g. M.Speidel, The Rise of the
Ethnic Units in the Roman Imperial Army, ANRW 11/3, 1975,202-231, esp. p.210.