08-25-2012, 12:20 AM
Nathan wrote:
vexillariis vicesimanis
It was a vexillation of the twentieth, not necessarily veterans.
Here is another definition from the "Smiths Dictionary of Roman Antiquities"
This is the linklink:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Ro...citus.html
The soldiers then demanded that the original arrangement by Augustus should be restored, and that they should receive a full discharge and the bounty at the end of sixteen years; while, in order to calm their wrath, Germanicus proposed to put an end to the disorders of which they complained, and to carry honestly into effect the second arrangement according to which they were to serve in the legion for sixteen years, and then being embodied under a vexillum by themselves to be relieved of all irksome labours, and to be required only to face the enemy in the field (Dion Cass. LIV.25, LV.23; Suet. Octav. 49; Tacit. Ann. I.17, 36, the proposal contained in the last passage being in these words: missionem dari vicena stipendia meritis; exauctorari, qui senadena fecissent, ac retineri sub vexillo, ceterorum immunes nisi propulsandi hostis). The vexillarii or vexilla legionum, then, were those soldiers who, after having served in the legion for sixteen years, became exauctorati, but continued to serve in a company with that legion, under a vexillum of their own, until they received their full discharge. Hyginus states the number attached to each legion as usually about hand or six hundred.
(I would have thought that these perhaps soldiers would have been exempt from a campaign of expansion where younger men would have been more suited but would have been expected to serve in extremis)
vexillariis vicesimanis
It was a vexillation of the twentieth, not necessarily veterans.
Here is another definition from the "Smiths Dictionary of Roman Antiquities"
This is the linklink:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Ro...citus.html
The soldiers then demanded that the original arrangement by Augustus should be restored, and that they should receive a full discharge and the bounty at the end of sixteen years; while, in order to calm their wrath, Germanicus proposed to put an end to the disorders of which they complained, and to carry honestly into effect the second arrangement according to which they were to serve in the legion for sixteen years, and then being embodied under a vexillum by themselves to be relieved of all irksome labours, and to be required only to face the enemy in the field (Dion Cass. LIV.25, LV.23; Suet. Octav. 49; Tacit. Ann. I.17, 36, the proposal contained in the last passage being in these words: missionem dari vicena stipendia meritis; exauctorari, qui senadena fecissent, ac retineri sub vexillo, ceterorum immunes nisi propulsandi hostis). The vexillarii or vexilla legionum, then, were those soldiers who, after having served in the legion for sixteen years, became exauctorati, but continued to serve in a company with that legion, under a vexillum of their own, until they received their full discharge. Hyginus states the number attached to each legion as usually about hand or six hundred.
(I would have thought that these perhaps soldiers would have been exempt from a campaign of expansion where younger men would have been more suited but would have been expected to serve in extremis)
Deryk