Roman Army Salute??

[MatiusV]

I read a book recently which used the salute "We will do what is ordered and at every command we will be ready"
I can't find any other references to it... Does anyone know if this is factual and where I could find the relevant translation? :?:

[ParthianBow]

Welcome to RAT!
This is a topic which has been debated lots and lots.
If you use the search facility at the top right of the page, and insert the word 'Saluting', you'll find more than 120 posts about it...
This is a text which you might find useful:
Winkler, Martin M. The Roman salute: cinema, history, ideology. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2009. xi, 223 p. ISBN 9780814208649.

By the way, it's a forum rule to use your real name. To do this, go to User Control Panel, and edit your signature, adding your name so it appears at the bottom.
Enjoy RAT!

[Epictetus]

I'm a bit confused by the question. Are you referring to the physical gesture, such as discussed in this thread? Or are you asking about something verbal?

[MatiusV]

I was questionning the verbal part but found exactly what I wanted by searching...

Thanks All!

[Epictetus]

I was questionning the verbal part but found exactly what I wanted by searching...

Thanks All!

Great! But can you tell us what you found? Now I'm curious.

[Longovicium]

It's in Vegetius but I can't remember exactly where at the moment. I will locate it later if no one else posts!

[MatiusV]

Check the "Harry Sidebottom, Warrior of Rome: Fire in the East Pt. 1" thread in the reference and reviews section from August '08 for the answer!

[Robert Vermaat]

Check the "Harry Sidebottom, Warrior of Rome: Fire in the East Pt. 1" thread in the reference and reviews section from August '08 for the answer!

And the answer is????

[Nathan Ross]

Check the "Harry Sidebottom, Warrior of Rome: Fire in the East Pt. 1" thread in the reference and reviews section from August '08 for the answer!

And the answer is????

It's a phrase from the Dura papyri. Here's the relevant bit from the thread mentioned above:

Hi Caballo
Here it is
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dz3d ... dq=We+will
Cheers
Derek

- Nathan

[M. Demetrius]

From all the various discussions I've read about salutes and saluting, in the way of hand motions, it seems to me that we don't absolutely know for sure what motion they used, if any. There are a couple of good candidates, but nothing that makes any of them iron clad so that we can say "They did it like this...". (However, "Salute" is a variant of the word Salve, which we use all the time as a "hello", which of course comes, some say, from "Hail". Salutations can be just verbal, not hand gestures.)

The best guesses seem to be the right hand outstretched (with the palm in various positions, depending on which sculpture you look at, OR finger tips to the brow, but again. Nobody can know for sure until we find something that's more proof.

We do know that soldiers took all sorts of oaths, though, to obey the officers, serve the legion, pay homage to various deities, etc. But it's hard to say those are salutes.

[Nathan Ross]

We do know that soldiers took all sorts of oaths, though, to obey the officers, serve the legion, pay homage to various deities, etc. But it's hard to say those are salutes.

Actually, the phrase mentioned in the first post ("We will do what is ordered" etc) is something like an oath, and if we accept that the raised hand symbol on the signum represented the taking of an oath, such a gesture might be appropriate in this context.

For the same reason, though, the raised hand wouldn't work as what we think of as a 'salute' (in the greeting-or-obeying-a-superior sort of way) - a soldier isn't taking an oath every time he meets his commander, or even his centurion, and the gesture-conscious Romans wouldn't want to confuse these things!

While I like Tarbicus' suggestion (on another thread) that the hand touching the helmet (the 'Ahenobarbus' gesture) relates to a symbolic uncovering of the head before a higher power - but not a divine one - I think it's maybe safer to assume without other evidence that there was no 'military salute' in the modern sense. These things did not become common, as has been said before, until the eighteenth century, and the modern salute signifies the removal of the hat (the symbolic palm-flat-to-peak gesture relates to the introduction of the heavier shako headgear, which was harder to quickly remove. Most armies used the flat palm until the British Army (but not navy) changed to the 'palm forward' in the 1870s, emulating the Germans. Forget all those stories about knights raising visors and sailors with tarry palms!).

There's a lot in ancient literature about soldiers 'saluting' their emperor or commander, but this is more like 'acclaiming' or 'acknowledging' than an actual salute - this would probably be the waving or pointing gesture we see on Trajan's Column and elsewhere. Again, not a 'military salute'.

Here's an interesting thought, perhaps: this is from Tacitus, Histories I, on the events in the Praetorian camp during the civil war:

There was now no doubt about the feeling of all the troops in the camp. So great was their zeal, that, not content with surrounding Otho with their persons in close array, they elevated him to the pedestal, on which a short time before had stood the gilt statue of Galba, and there, amid the standards, encircled him with their colours. Neither tribunes nor centurions could approach. The common soldiers even insisted that all the officers should be watched. ...as soon as they caught sight of any of the soldiers who were flocking in, they seized him, gave him the military embrace, placed him close to Otho, dictated to him the oath of allegiance, commending sometimes the Emperor to his soldiers, sometimes the soldiers to their Emperor. Otho did not fail to play his part; he stretched out his arms, and bowed to the crowd, and kissed his hands, and altogether acted the slave, to make himself the master

What was 'the military embrace', I wonder? (to be fair, other translations give 'embraced him with their arms', but was there something especially soldierly about embracing like this?)

Otho's hand-kissing might be significant too - seems to be a gesture of obedience and respect, much like a salute. In the Octavius of Minucius Felix, one of characters 'salutes' a shrine of Serapis by blowing a kiss at it! Perhaps some enterprising reenactment group would like to adopt that one? :wink:

- Nathan

[M. Demetrius]

gave him the military embrace,

Oh, boy, there's another argument in the making, isn't it?

Hmm. I think we'll skip on the kiss-blowing, though. Sometimes people would get the wrong idea.