Some Career Centurions

[Nathan Ross]

It wasn't just equestrians who reached the primipilate. The whole point of the primipilate, from the time of Claudius onwards, was to create new equestrians -- perhaps even a sort of military elite.

Sorry, I was a bit vague there - I meant that centurions who progressed beyond the primipilate to the procuratorship were probably those who entered the army by direct appointment as centurion (this is following Allen's 1908 (!) Advancement of Officers in the Roman Army - on the basis that those with higher positions list no posts below centurion. I don't know if any inscriptions have turned up in the last century that refute this. Of course, with such a busy cursus they could just have omitted the pre-centurion posts!)

"Papellius Clodius Quirinalis" is entirely unknown to me. (Can you quote the inscription, please?)

My typo - it's Palpellius. Here it is:

CIL 05, 00533
P(ublius) Palpellius P(ubli) f(ilius) Maec(ia) Clodius / Quirinalis p(rimus) p(ilus) leg(ionis) XX trib(unus) milit(um) leg(ionis) VII / C(laudiae) P(iae) F(idelis) proc(urator) Aug(usti) praef(ectus) classis dedit

The inscription's from Trieste. Robert McPake ('A Note on the Cognomina of Legio XX' Britannia 12, 1981) has this guy as the 'debauched and ferocious' commander of the Ravenna fleet who committed suicide in Tacitus (Annals XIII.30)

Normally, equestrians wishing a centurial career didn't bother to begin the tres militiae. These transfers after a single post may be connected with battlefield promotions (Trajan's Dacian Wars and Parthian War).

Also, I suppose the inscriptions don't tell us what grade of the centurionate they were moving to - the primi ordines presumably (cf Frere on Pontius Sabinus in Britannia 31, 2000). There may be all sorts of other factors that a bare listing of posts don't record - political or patronal links, marriage, even disgrace. Many reasons for an individual to want to move post, perhaps.

C Geminius Priscus is even more odd (CIL 05, 06478 )

No mention of centurionates in this one; he's just a ?Julio-Claudian equestrian.

That's true, I was just following a train of thought ... but I'd say Priscus is far from unexceptional. It's a really interesting inscription - that 'libero commeatu' might imply he was given official leave from one post (cohort praefect?) to take up another, otherwise why bother recording it? But what was the post - a 'special' tribunate in Rome? The order of the cursus makes no sense at all! Perhaps more going on here (again) than meets the eye...

All the jumping is in one direction, Nathan! Once you've made the Rome centurionates, you're on track for the primipilate.

Not all the jumping :wink: -

CIL 02, 04461
L(ucio) Aemilio / L(uci) fil(io) Gal(eria) / Paterno p(rimi)p(ilari) / praef(ecto) fabr(um) |(centurioni) leg(ionis) VII G(eminae) / |(centurioni) leg(ionis) I M(inerviae) |(centurioni) leg(ionis) VII Cl(audiae) / |(centurioni) leg(ionis) XIIII G(eminae) |(centurioni) coh(ortis) IIII u[r(banae)] / |(centurioni) coh(ortis) IIII pr(aetoriae) CCC(trecenario) |(centurioni) leg(ionis) II Au(gustae) / et p(rimo) p(ilo) ter donis donato / ab Imp(eratore) Traiano torqui/bus armillis phaleris / corona vallari bis / in Dacia semel in Par/thia / Atilia L(uci) fil(ia) Vera be/ne de se merito

Centurion in four legions, then went off for a stint in Rome in the urban cohorts and praetorians, then returned to the legions as centurion of II Augusta, then made primus pilus. And -

CIL 11, 06057
C(aio) Cestio C(ai) f(ilio) / Stel(latina) Sabino / trib(uno) coh(ortis) XIII urb(anae) / p(rimo) p(ilo) leg(ionis) I Adiutricis P(iae) F(idelis) / |(centurioni) leg(ionis) VIII Aug(ustae) ex trece/nario |(centurioni) coh(ortis) VIII pr(aetoriae) / |(centurioni) coh(ortis) XIIII urb(anae) |(centurioni) leg(ionis) II / Adiutric(is) Pia(e) Fid(elis) et leg(ionis) / VI Claud(iae) P(iae) F(idelis) donis donat(o) / ab Imp(eratore) Antonino Aug(usto) / hasta pura IIIIvir(o) i(ure) d(icundo) / patrono municip(ii) / plebs urb(ana) et honore us(i)

Centurion in two legions, then the urban cohorts and praetorians, then centurion again in VIII Aug before the primipilate. Perhaps in these cases there were just no primipilates available at the time Paternus and Sabinus left the praetorians, so they did another spell in the primi ordines while they were waiting? Or maybe there really was some sort of age or service minimum for the primipilate, and these two, having moved faster than most through the lower grades, had to serve another term as centurion before moving up?

- Nathan