08-08-2014, 12:34 PM
Quote:after 325 AD, an ordinarius is not a centurion. Previous to this there was a centurion ordinarius.
Aha, I see. I can't suggest much in that case - while there are insciptions mentioning the centurio ordinarius, they're impossile to date accurately. One (AE 1990, 866) is certainly post-Diocletian, and the rest are probably around the same period.
Problem is, it's quite possible that 'ordinarius' just became a synonym for centurion in the frontier units after the opening decades of the fourth century, just as 'centenarius' and 'ducenarius' seem to have done in the auxilia and scholae.
However, I don't see any suggestion that the ordinarius ranked below a centurion after that date. In the Egyptian papyri we have ordinarii acting just as centurions formerly acted; in the rank listings given by John Lydus and the Perge fragments, ordinarius appears near the top of the list, just where we would expect centurion to have appeared in a list of principiate ranks. To turn him into a decanus would involve drastically scaling down the unit structure to allow a commander of ten men far greater importance, or suggesting that somebody else (primicerius? campidoctor?) occupied the centurion's role.
Nathan Ross
