Auxiliary Units Named after Their Commanders: Four New Cases from EgyptAuthor(s): Michael P. SpeidelSource: Aegyptus, Anno 62, No. 1/2 (gennaio-dicembre 1982), pp. 165-172Published by: Vita e Pensiero – Pubblicazioni dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro CuoreStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41216604 .

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Auxiliary Units Named

after Their Commanders:

Four New Gases from Egypt

The recently published Latin Vienna papyrus P.Vindob. L 135, a debt certificate by a horseman of ala Paullini to a soldier of cohors A [ ] Habeti, written A.D. 27, is of considerable interest and has already been the subject of several excellent commentaries (1). Its importance for the nomenclature of the early Roman auxiliary regiments needs to be further stressed, though. The text reads:

1 L.Caecilius Secundus eques ala Paullini turma Dicaci C. Pompeio militi cohor(te) Ae. . .[.] Habeti (centuria) Betiti salut(em). Fateor me tibei debere dr(achmas) Aug(ustas) et Pt(olemaicas)

ducentas

5 quas tibi solvam stipendio proxumo et eorum usuras in menses singulos in dr(achmas) C a(sses) III sine ulla controversia. Extra alias dr(achmas) Aug(ustas) et Pt(olemaicas) CCCC

ob pigne- ra cassidem inargentatala et insi-

(1) H. Habraueb-R. Seider, Ein neuer lateinischer Schuldschein: P.Vin- dob. L 135. «ZPE » 36, 1979, pp. 109-120. J. Shelton, A Note on P.Vindob. L 135, « ZPE » 38, 1980, p. 202. J. F. Gilliam, Notes on a New Latin Text: P.Vindob. L 135, « ZPE » 41, 1981, pp. 277-280. I am grateful to Dr. H. Har- rauer/Wien for showing me the original and discussing it with me in Spring 1981 when I was teaching at the Universität Wien.

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166 MICHAEL P. SPEIDEL

10 gne inargentatimi et vaginam pugi- onis argenteum subiecto eboreo. Actum Alexandr(eae) ad Aegypt(um) IIX K(alendas)

Septe(mbres) C . S[allus]tio Crispo L.Lentulo Scipione co(n)s(ulibus) . . .[ ]. . . illis sçripsi quod litteras

15 ].[

(2.H.) [Aouxtoç] Koc[i]>t[t]Xtoç SsxovSoç inizz^ç ó npoyzypx^iií- [voç eXocßov ¿)ç Tipóx(siTou). (stouç) tS Tißepiou Kodcrocpoç SjeßacyTou £Tca(YopLévíov) ß.

The two regiments are mentioned by these names here for the first time. On account of their nomenclature they belong to a group of only four alae and apparently one cohort described on inscriptions by the name of their commanders in the genitive form, all of which belong to the reigns of Augustus or Tiberius (2). The considerable increase of our documentation for such names of units suggests as a working hypothesis that all alae and cohorts could be referred to in this way until at a certain time the government decided to abolish such names in order to avoid the inconvenience of having to rename a unit each time its commander changed.

Certainly, many units had permanent names from the beginning. Thus cohortes Ligurum are mentioned in Sallust's Bellum Iugurthinum (38; 77), and inscriptions from Augustus' and the early years of Ti- berius' reign mention such units as a cohors I Corsorum, a cohors Ubiorum peditum et equitum, a cohors Aug(usta) /, and a cohors II

(2) E. Birley, Alae Named after Their Commanders, «Ancient Society» 9, 1978, pp. 257-273. M. Speidel, The Eastern Desert Garrisons Under Augustus and Tiberius. Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Roms II, Köln, 1977, pp. 511-515. See also the excellent remark by Gilliam, I.e. 278, n. 5 about a commander's predecessor named in BGU 696. The commander of our ala is probably to be identified with one P.Vergilius Paullinus CIL V, 7567 = Dessau, 6747 = H. Devijver, Prosopographia militarium equestrium quae fuerunt ab Augusto ad Gallienum, 3 vols., Leuwen, 1976-1980, V 67. The commander of the cohort may be read as A(uli) Clue(ntii) Habiti and possibly be identified as of the family of A. Cluentius Habitus defended by Cicero in 66 B.C.: the same family, it seems, produced another equestrian officer in the third century A.D.: RIB 1545 & Devijver, I.e. C 210 and F 95. For the abbreviation Clue(ntii) cp. Des- sau 8653, a.

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AUXILIARY UNITS NAMED AFTER THEIR COMMANDERS 167

Classica (3). For alae there is considerably less evidence, but E. Birley directed attention to the famous inscription for C. Fabricius Tuscus from Alexandria Troas: he was praef(ectus) cohort(is) Apulae under Augustus and praef(ectus) equit(um) alae praet(oriae) under Germa- nicus (4). Hence even alae could have permanent titles and, no doubt, many did from the start (5).

The new evidence from our papyrus, raising the number of Egyp- tian units named after their commanders to three or more (6) suggests that even if units had a permanent title they could still, for convenien- ce or for flattery, be called by the name of their current comman- der (7). Convenient locally and in the short run, such names must have created confusion in Rome in the office of the Emperors' secretary ab epistulis who made the appointments for equestrian officers. Con- sequently, it was decided to end the practice of calling auxiliary regiments by the names of their current commanders (8). Our papy- rus now gives us a firm terminus post quern for that decision by its date of August 25, A.D. 27 (9).

(3) CIL XIV, 2954; CII X, 4862; CII III, 6687. (4) AE 1973, 501. For cohors Apula see also M. Speidel, Citizen Cohorts

in the Roman Imperial Army. New Data on the Cohorts Apula, Campana, and III Campestris, «TAPA» 106, 1976, pp. 339-348.

(5) Not too much weight needs be attached to the observation (Birley, I.e. 262) that in early inscriptions which record the careers of officers the name of the ala is often lacking, for the names of the legions are also occasionally lacking (e.g. CII X, 5583) yet the legions had permanent titles. Where the legion is named but not the ala it could be that the legion was considered more important or better known.

(6) To the evidence of our papyrus add that of the cohorts in Egypt: Spei- del (1977). The phenomenon is still somewhat doubted by Devijver, I.e. F 103, but cfr. Gllliam, I.e. and Birley, I.e.

(7) Similarly, legionary centuriae could be named after the centurion's name in the genitive form or, alternatively, with its permanent title after the pattern ' centuria noni hastati prioris ' (CIL III, 8047 = IDR II, 328) etc, cfr. A. Passerini, Legio in E. De Rttggiero, Dizionario Epigraphico, vol. 4, 1949-1950, pp. 549-629, esp. p. 565.

(8) Birley, I.e. 272. (9) P. A. Holder, Studies in the Auxilia of the Roman Army from Augustus

to Trajan, Oxford, 1980, 21, attempts to give a terminus post quern by other means, but his arguments do not convince: ala Gallorum et Thraecum Antiana is explained differently by W. Wagner, Die Dislokation der römischen Auxi- liarformationen, Berlin, 1938, 4 If; the inscription AE 1926, 82 more likely

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168 MICHAEL P. SPEIDEL

The increased number of auxiliary regiments in Egypt named after their commanders in the genitive form is significant, for it has been asserted that such units do not correspond to later regularly named units, i.e. the Egyptian cohors Nigri could not be the Egyptian cohors I Thebaeorum, and that instead one would have to look to units with adjectival commanders' names (like the Syrian cohors I Lepidiana) as their continuators (10). Now that we know at least three Egyptian units with the commanders name in the genitive but only one (ala Apriana) with the adjectival form as a possible conti- nuator, that assertion becomes even less likely. Moreover, there are parallels of Danubian units, also dropping commanders' names for regular titles, e.g. ala Capitoniana becoming ala I Claudia Gallo- rum (11).

C. L. Cheesman, in his still basic work on the auxilia of the Roman imperial army, had ventured an explanation why there are fewer cohorts named after their commanders then there are alae: Caesar's corps of Gallic cavalry had outstanding records of achievement and thus were exempted from Augustus' reorganization in this respect (12). If our above observations are correct, it is rather the other way round : the nomenclature for the cohorts was already established before Au- gustus (especially the ethnic names) and hence needed less attention, while the cavalry, originally organized in turmae, and only since the civil wars of Caesar and Augustus organized in alae (13), was still groping for nomenclature and made more use of the eventually im- practical names of the commanders.

refers to an ala Antiochensium, see Devijver I.e., Incerti 65; finally, if the genitive of a commander's name denotes a distinguished commander, ala In- diana may have adopted that name well after A.D. 21.

(10) Holdeb, I.e. ; GiLiiiAM, I.e.; more convincingly, considers ala Augusta and cohors Scutata.

(11) B. Gerov, Zwei neugefundene Militärdiplome aus Nordbulgarien, « Klio » 37, 1959, pp. 196-216, esp. p. 203. M. Speidel, Ala I Claudia Gallorum Capitoniana, in: Memoriam Constantini Daicoviciu, Cluj, 1974, pp. 375-379. See also Birley, I.e. on ala Pansiana becoming perhaps ala Gallorum et Thra- cum.

(12) G. L. Cheesman, The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army, Oxford, 1914, 25.

(13) Cheesman, I.e. 23 f., M. Speidel, A Spanish Cavalry Decurión in the Time of Caesar and Augustus, « Archivo Español de Arqueología », 53, 1980, pp. 211-213.

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AUXILIARY UNITS NAMED AFTER THEIR COMMANDERS 169

A third case of a unit named after its commander is found in the papyrus P.Berl. inv. 25050 recently published thus: (14)

Mar]tialis uet(eranus)[ ]0mnium[ ].i Apsarode[ ]re eius M Ua[l]er[

C]oh-II Claudiana[ prjoc-feci- M-Iulius.[ p]roc Aug(usti) Larti-[ ]erogauit manda[ ]s suas omnes[

10 ]-get et auferre [ ]id . . s - dissolueret[

]endere [ ]...[.]..[

The editor suggested that cohors II Claudiana was a hitherto unknown cohort carrying the (variable) surname Claudiana in honor of emperor Claudius II (A.D. 268-270). However, cohors II Claudiana is known as a unit of the Cappadocian army in the mid-second century (15), and that this unit is indeed meant in the papyrus be- comes clear from line 3 where the unexplained letters Apsarode[. . . . surely must read Apsaro de[gent , Apsarus being the main Cap- padocian fortress on the Black Sea near modern Batumi where ac- cording to Arrian's Periplus of the Black Sea (c. 6) five cohorts were stationed that recently have been identified as auxiliary, not legio- nary cohorts (16). Possibly line 3 of the papyrus reads even 'numer'i

(14) A. Bruckner and R. Marichal, Chartae Latinae Antiquiores, XI ¡II: Germany II, Zürich 1979, f. 61, n. 477.

(15) AE 1977, 802. (16) M. Speidel, The Roman Army in Asia Minor, New Epigraphical

Discoveries and Researches, « Acta of the Conference of the British Archaeo- logical Institute at Ankara», Swansea 1981, forthcoming. Legionary cohorts were assumed e.g. by H. T. Rowell, Numerus, RE 17 (1937) 1327-1341, esp. col. 1328, ff. 22, and by T. B. Mitford, Cappadocia and Armenia Minor: Histo- rical Setting of the Limes, ANRW II, 7, 2 (1980) 1169-1228, esp. p. 1202.

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170 MICHAEL P. SPEIDEL

Apsaro decentes] similar to an inscription referring to the same units as nwneror. tendentium in Ponto, Absaro (17).

The Berlin papyrus thus seems to be a letter originating in Cap- padocia and reporting about official and military events there. Its exact date during the first three centuries A.D. cannot be established, hence it loses much of its value for paleography (18). Cohors II Claudiana need not be added to the list of Egyptian army units, even though some Cappadocian soldiers or veterans may have come to the country and thus caused the letter to be sent.

Oour papyrus is the first instance where cohors II Claudiana is so named in Latin. Both cohors I Claudia and cohors II Claudia of Cappadocia are consistently called Claudia, not Claudiana, except for one Greek dedication that mentions a prefect of our unit as ë[7E<xpxov Gnupt¡c[ ]8locvy)£, which has even been read aizúpr¡q ß' [xX. Top]Stav^ç (19). Claudiana, however, as the lectio difficilior is likely to be the original name of both cohorts, and the confirmation that comes from our papyrus shows that the above- mentioned reading [Top]&Kxv7J<g must be abandoned (20).

Possibly there existed only one cohors Claudia or Claudiana in the beginning which then was split into cohors I Claudiana and

(17) CIL X, 1202 = Dessau, ILS 2660. For the word degere in military papyri see R. O. Fink, Roman Military Records on Papyrus (Cleveland, Ohio, 1971) index p. 538.

(18) Marichal L. C. (p. V) emphasizes particularly the palaeographical value of our papyrus. In the same way, his date (and emphasis on paleogra- phical value) of ChLA XI, 505 must be changed: the many Aurelii in that document certainly date it after A. D. 138; the prefect Vegetus is not the praefectus Aegypti Septimius Vegetus, but some other equestrian officer, per- haps L. Caecilius Vegetus of RIB 831 (PME C, 28): equestrian officers were frequently transferred from Britain to Egypt, cfr. H. Devijver, The Roman Army in Egypt, ANRW II, 1 (1974) 452-492, esp. p. 474.

(19) IGR IV, 642 with the parallel AE 1977, 802 (cfr. PME, E, 3), the reading |Top]8iavY¡c is the suggestion of W. Ramsay, The Social Basis of Roman Power in Asia Minor, Aberdeen, 1941, ff. 144. For cohors I Claudia see AE 1934, 107 (cfr. PME I, 120) and Not. Dig. Or. 38, 36. The career CIL IX, 2958 tribuno [coh. . . .Cla]udiae equitat(a)e [in Cappa]docia (cfr. PME, O, 2) could refer to either of the two cohorts, even though coh. II Claudia is not yet known as equitata.

(20) It still remains a possibility, though, that the name Claudiana is derived from Claudia as is in Tacitus, Hist. II, 85: Moesiae legionibus . . . octava erat ac séptima Claudiana.

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AUXILIARY UNITS NAMED AFTER THEIR COMMANDERS 171

cohors II Claudiana. At any rate, the existence of a cohors I Le- pidiana shows that cohorts named after a commander could be num- bered. The fact that both cohorts were in Cappadocia suggests a common history and therefore a common origin, but any suggestion as to who might have been the commander who gave the original cohors Claudii its name must remain speculation (21).

A fourth case of a unit named after its commander is apparent from an inscription at Dakke in Nubie of which only the following fragment is preserved (22) :

]TtOÇ aTpaT[L¿)TY3]c Sa]ßeivou xevTupi[oc]ç

At the left of the preserved text some further 24 cm of writing are possible, while at the right the inscription ended with the letters here indicated. It follows that the soldier will have given the name of his centurion at the beginning of a third line. The editor appa- rently took the words Saßeivou xevTupiaç to mean « of the centuria of Sabinus » ; yet of the many hundred examples of indications of centuriae and turmae the name of the commander always follows the word for the unit, never precedes it: centuria Sabini, never Sabini centuria (23). Consequently, our inscription, perhaps a proskynenia, will have read:

]tIOÇ CTTpaT[lii)TY)]ç [ampTQç 2oc]6slvou X£Vfupl[a]ç [ ].

Thus at Dakke there must have been stationed, at an early time, a detachment of cohors Sabini, which is not too surprising, since at the same place is known a detachment of cohors Facundi, and the two cohorts may actually be the same units under different com-

(21) If speculation be allowed, one may perhaps look to Asia Minor itself, and there possibly to Ti. Claudius Balbillus (H. G. Pflaum, Les carrières pro- curatoriennes équestres, Paris, 1960, p. 34 if., n. 15).

(22) W. Ruppel, Der Tempel von Dakke, Cairo, 1930, p. 34 f. no Gr. 44. (23) I know of no exception, but even if there existed one, the over-

whelming probability speaks against Sabini centuria.

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172 MICHAEL P. SPEIDEL

mandera (24). It is even possible that Sabinus the commander of the cohort, is identical with the famous Iunius Sabinus who in an inscription from Philae mentions his victories against the Ethiopians as commander of a cohors Ituraeorum at Syene (25). If so, we would have proof that a cohort with a regular ethnic name could be referred to by the name of its commander.

Admittedly, the identity of the two Sabini cannot be proven and remains a conjecture, but the presence of men of a cohors Sabini at Dakke during the reigns of Augustus or Tiberius seems assured, and such a cohort is now to be added to the rosters of auxiliary cohorts having served in Egypt.

University of Hawaii Michael P. Speidel

(24) W. Ruppel, I.e. p. 43, Gr. 54; cfr. Speidel (1977), above, note 2. (25) In an article entitled Nubia's Roman Garrison, to be published in

ANRW II, 10, 1, I argue that the units stationed at Syene provided the men for the garrisoning of Nubia. For cohors II Ituraeorum at Dakkese e Ruppel 4 and 72. For the discussion of the identity of Iunius Sabinus see E. Bernand, Les inscriptions grecques de Philae, vol. II, Paris, 1969, No. 159, and Devijver (above, note 2) vol. II, p. 1010.

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