The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History - Karatunov.net

10
The Roman A rmy
the overall picture of each province. Another form of epigraphic record, from
both corporate and personal sources, is the dedication of altars to the multiplici
ty of gods to be found in the Empire . Several altars are of ten found out s i de
fort s , u su a lly around the parade gro u n d , but some military ded i c a ti ons have
come to light from towns and citi e s , as soldiers passed thro u gh or were stationed
there for a variety of reasons. Generally speaking, it was not until the late
Empire that soldiers were billeted in towns, but a military presence was not totally
excluded from civilian locations. For instance, some soldiers were detailed
to guard markets and keep order, whereas others were attached to the governor
of the province as part of his entourage. A personal dedication can sometimes
provi de inform a ti on on the movem ents of the soldier ’s unit, t h o u gh cauti on
should be exercised since individuals could operate on personal business or official
orders without the implication that the whole unit was involved. Similarly,
a few soldiers on patrol could set up an inscri pti on far from their bases. O n e
such example has been quoted above in connection with the military career of
Valerius Maximianus, and another example is known from Africa, where a few
soldiers on patrol a long distance from their base left behind a stone inscription.
Single inscriptions unassociated with any other finds should not be taken as an
indication of the presence of a whole unit in garrison or a fort somewhere in
the vicinity, but only of the presence of a body of troops for a short time on a
s pecial mission . But in particular wh en several altars are discovered around a
fort naming the same unit, archaeologists can be certain that the unit was stationed
at the fort for some time.
Sculpture
Artistic representations of individual soldiers and the army in action are found
in the corpus of sculptural evidence from the Roman Empire. Most Roman military
tombstones display a portrait of the deceased, not to be interpreted as an
acc u ra te dep i cti on of the soldier, but styl i zed according to an accepted , E mpirewide
pattern. Cavalry tombs from a wide variety of regions all over the Emp
i re usu a lly show the hors eman with full gear and horse tra pp i n gs , s pear in
hand, and a crouching barbarian tribesman under his horse’s hooves. Legionary
tombs usually display great detail about military dress and equipment. One of
the most famous examples is the tombstone of Marcus Caelius (ILS 2244), the
fifty-three-year-old senior centurion of the Eighteenth legion (legio XIIX) who
was kill ed in ad 9 in Germ a ny, in the infamous disaster of Q u i n cti l ius Va ru s
wh en three legi ons were annihilated in the Teutober gerw a l d . Ma rcus Cael iu s
had a brother called Publius who survived him and set up his funerary memorial.
The text indicates that if the remains of Caelius were ever found, his bones
could be interred at the spot wh ere the stone was set up (ossa inferre licebi t) .