Dragooned

[hmillstein]

I'm working on a novel that, at this point, involves a Jew (not necessarily from Judea, could be anywhere in the diaspora, who gets dragooned (forcibly inducted) into the Roman 5th legion (prior the battle of Bahunna Wood, 28AD). Is such a thing plausible? What about his volunteering to join the legion?

[Nathan Ross]

Is such a thing plausible?

All Roman citizens were in theory eligible for conscription into the army, although in practice volunteers provided all the necessary manpower in all but a few recorded instances.

There are some suggestions (in Josephus, for example) that Jews were not eligible for military service - perhaps because many miitary rituals involved sacrificing to the Roman gods and the genius of the emperor - although a certain number of Jews apparently did become soldiers (see below).

Unless they were citizens, however, they would have served in the auxiliary cohorts. Quite a few Egyptian Jews seem to have enlisted in the navy at Alexandria, and some may have moved from the classis into the regular army. Military service was rewarded with citizenship, so the sons of Jews who had enlisted as auxiliaries would become citizens and could then enlist in the legions.

This paper has quite a bit of useful information on the subject:

Sons of Israel in Caesar's Service