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Roman Military Pay from Caesar to Diocletian*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

R. Alston
R. Alston
Affiliation:
King's College London
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Extract

In a recent issue of this Journal, M. Alexander Speidel published a new document concerning Roman military pay, a receipt from Vindonissa dating to A.D. 38. This document, he claims, provides the missing link, which allows him to present a table of pay rates for legionaries and auxiliaries from Caesar to Diocletian and prove finally the proposition resurrected by M. P. Speidel that soldiers of the auxiliary cohorts were paid five sixths of the annual pay of legionaries. From a re-examination of the texts and documents traditionally used as evidence for the pay rates of the Roman military, I conclude that, although we can establish the rates of legionary infantry pay from the date of the increase under Caesar until A.D. 197, we have little evidence for legionary pay rates in the third century and, since most of the documents provide us with figures which are unknown proportions of the annual pay of the soldiers concerned, the evidence for auxiliary pay is not sufficient to allow the calculation of exact pay rates for any period. There are, therefore, no grounds for believing either the five-sixths theory as elaborated by M. Alexander Speidel or, indeed, any of the many other theories that have been proposed. Nevertheless, the documentation can be interpreted to establish likely minimum figures for auxiliary pay rates in the first century A.D. This interpretation of the documents suggests that there was, in fact, no difference between the rates of pay of auxiliary and legionary infantry and the cavalry of the legions and alae, a controversial conclusion that has previously been avoided for reasons central to much of Roman imperial military historiography.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 84 , November 1994 , pp. 113 - 123
Copyright
Copyright ©R. Alston 1994. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Speidel, M. A., ‘Roman army pay scales’, JRS 82 (1992), 87–106Google Scholar; Speidel, M. P., ‘The pay of the auxilia’, JRS 63 (1973), 141–7Google Scholar, reprinted in idem, Roman Army Papers 1 (1984), 83–9; idem, ‘The captor of Decebalus, a new inscription from Philippi’, JRS 60 (1970), 142–53, reprinted in idem, Roman Army Papers I (1984), 173–87. The Speidels have been supported by Jahn: Jahn, J., ‘Zur Entwicklung römischer Soldzahlungen von Augustus bis auf Diocletian’, Studien zu Fundmünzen der Antike 2 (1984), 53–74Google Scholar; idem, ‘Der Sold römischer Soldaten im 3 Jh.n.Chr.: Bemerkungen zu ChLA 446, 473 und 495’, ZPE 53 (1985), 217–27.

2 Apart from the works cited in n. 1, there is a large bibliography on this issue. The main works are: von Domaszewski, A., ‘Der Truppensold der Kaiserzeit’, Neue Heidelberger jahrbücher 10 (1900), 218–41Google Scholar; Marichal, R., L'occupation romaine de la Basse Egypte. Le statut des auxilia (1945)Google Scholar; Passerini, A., ‘Gli aumenti del soldo militare da Commodo a Maximino’, Athenaeum 24 (1946), 145–59Google Scholar; P. A. Brunt, ‘Pay and superannuation in the Roman Army’, PBSR 18 (1950), 50–75; Marichal, R., ‘Le solde des armées romaines d'Auguste à Septime-Sévère d'après les P.Gen.Lat.i et 4 et le P.Berlin 6.866’, Annuaire de l'lnstitut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves 13 (Mélanges Isidore Lévy) (1953), 399–421Google Scholar; R. Marichal (ed.), ChLA x.410; Watson, G. R., ‘The pay of the Roman army: Suetonius, Dio and the quartum stipendium’, Historia 5 (1956), 332–40Google Scholar; idem, ‘The pay of the Roman army: the auxiliary forces’, Historia 8 (1959), 372–8; Jones, A. H. M., Later Roman Empire (1964), III, 187–8Google Scholar; Develin, R., ‘The army pay rises under Severus and Caracalla and the question of the annona militaris’, Latomus 30 (1971), 687–95Google Scholar; Breeze, D. J., ‘Pay grades and ranks below the centurionate’, JRS 61 (1971), 130–5Google Scholar; Kaimio, J., ‘Notes on the pay of Roman soldiers’, Arctos 9 (1975), 39–46Google Scholar; Duncan-Jones, R. P., ‘Pay and numbers in Diocletian's army’, Chiron 8 (1978), 541–60Google Scholar, reprinted in idem, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy (1990), 105–17; Boren, H. C., ‘Studies relating to the stipendium militium’, Historia 32 (1983), 427–60Google Scholar; Wierschowski, L., Heer und Wirtschaft. Das römische Heer der Prinzipatzeit als Wirtschaftsfaktor (1984)Google Scholar.

3 See also Livy VII.41.8. For further discussion of the issues surrounding these texts, see Crawford, M. H., Roman Republican Coinage (1974), 621–4Google Scholar; idem, ‘Money and exchange in the Roman world’, JRS 60 (1970), 40–8. The most probable reconstruction of rates of pay before the increase under Caesar is by Rathbone, D. W., ‘The census qualification of the assidui and the prima classis’, in van der Spek, R. J. (ed.), De Agricultura. In memoriam Pieter Willem de Neeve (1993), 121–53Google Scholar, though Boren, op. cit. (n. 2), produces a plausible alternative.

4 For the continuation of the three-payment system see RMR 71 and 72.

5 RMR 70; BGU 11.423.

6 Herodian VI.8.8. Both this passage and Herodian IV.4.7 refer not to pay but to σιτηϱέσιον, food, and Develin, op. cit. (n. 2) (cf. van Berchem, D., ‘L'annone militaire dans l'empire romain au IIIe siècle’, Memoires de la Société Nationale des Antiquaries de France 10 (1937), 117–202Google Scholar), interprets the passages to mean that some or all of the food that the soldiers had previously had to pay for was provided free from the time of this increase. Whittaker, C. R. (ed.), Herodian (1969)Google Scholar, note on 111.8.5, shows that σιτηϱέσιον was used by Herodian as an equivalent of ‘pay’.

7 MacMullen, R., ‘The Roman emperor's army costs’, Latomus 43 (1984), 571–80Google Scholar, provides a high estimate for the number of units of basic pay required by a legion. He estimates that each legion would require 6,622 units of basic pay. Thirty-three legions would, therefore, require 218,526 units of basic pay. MacMullen's estimate for the number of auxiliary troops is also high, 258,000 men.

8 Tac., Ann. IV.5.

9 M. Alexander Speidel's equivalent rates are 225 denarii, 300 denarii, 600 denarii, 900 denarii, and 1,800 denarii.

10 RMR 9 and 58,x 10, 37, and 68. Fink is over-cautious inseparating RMR 9 and 58

11 See P.Oxy.VII. 1022 = RMR 87.

12 Kaimio, op. cit. (n. 2).

13 One would normally expect a consular date but a date by regnal year is not exceptional in Latin military documents. The abbreviation Do(mitiani) is unusual but if the emperor was not specified, we would expect just an iii. The reading of the text is clear.

14 M. P. Speidel, ‘The pay of the auxilia’, op. cit. (n. 1).

15 According to the Speidels, this document attests four legionary payments of 297 drachmae. Four payments of 297 Alexandrian drachmae amount to annual receipts of 297 denarii (i, 188 Alexandrian drachmae), 99 per cent of 300 denarii, the rate of legionary pay after A.D. 83.

16 M. Alexander Speidel, the original editors, and I agree as to the function of this document but Speidel regards the document as fundamentally different from the Egyptian texts.

17 Suet., Dom. 7, notes a limitation on deposits imposed by Domitian to ensure that usurpers could not obtain cash merely be taking over the legionary bank. This limitation may account for the withdrawal of the surplus.

18 M. Alexander Speidel explains the level of payment in RMR 70 as payment of the annual auxiliary infantry rate of 250 denarii (1,000 Alexandrian drachmae), five-sixths of 300 denarii, plus a bonus of 6¼ denarii (25 Alexandrian drachmae). His explanation of ChLA x.446 is similar. This payment is the auxiliary stipendium of 750 denarii (3,000 Alexandrian drachmae), five-sixths of 900 denarii (Speidel's rate for the period between the increases of Caracalla and Maximinus Thrax), plus a bonus of 31¼ denarii (125 Alexandrian drachmae). There is no evidence for the existence of such bonus payments and, therefore, no evidence for the size of such payments. Extraordinary payments, such as donatives, were paid as single payments and not, administratively at least, absorbed into the stipendium.

19 The only possibly contentious reading of the text is the et in the final line but the drawing and photograph of the text show the cross of the ‘t’ and, therefore, et seems the most likely restoration.

20 ILS 2487.

21 Speidel suggests this since no alae Raetorum are known.

22 M. Alexander Speidel explains the 343,300 as a combination of pay units of 600 and 700 denarii, 700 denarii being Speidel's preferred rate of pay for the legionary cavalry, and several combinations of these figures produce 343,300. Combinations of 600 and 700 denarii can, however, be used to make every multiple of 100 over 3,000 and, if half pay units are used, every multiple over 1,500.

23 Duncan-Jones, op. cit. (n. 2), calculates that 116 troops were stationed in the ala at Thmou in 298 and it is likely that there had been little change in the size of the garrison since then.

24 P.Oxy. XVI.2046.

25 R. P. Duncan-Jones, ‘The Choenix, the artaba and the modius’, ZPE 21 (1976), 43–52.

26 Duncan-Jones, op. cit. (n. 2).

27 Drexhage, H. J., Preise, Mietenl Pachten, Kosten und Löhne im römischen Ägypten bis zum Regiemngsantritt Diokletians (Vorarbeiten zu einer Wirtschaftsgeschichte des römischen Ägypten 1 (1991), 24fGoogle Scholar. Egyptian prices were probably significantly lower than prices elsewhere.

28 R Alston, Soldier and Society. A Social History of the Roman Army in Egypt (forthcoming).

29 Tac., Hist, IV.19.

30 It is possible that cavalry rates of pay were reformed by Caesar so that annual cavalry pay could be expressed in multiples of seventy-five denarii, thus making 375 denarii, 450 denarii, 525 denarii, 600 denarii, and 675 denarii attractive options.

31 Breeze, op. cit. (n. 2). M.P.Speidel, ‘The captor of Decebalus’, op. cit. (n. 1), argues that Maximus received legionary cavalry pay with an additional 50 per cent because of his rank in the legion, and, after transfer, he received double auxiliary cavalry pay.

32 The documentary evidence does not contradict or support this proposal since all the figures are unknown fractions of pay. The payment to the cohort in P. Panop. Beatty 2 of 65,500 denarii could be made to fit the proposal since 145.5 units of 450 denarii (one third of the annual legionary pay of 1,350 denarii), amounts to 65,475 denarii. The relationship between the pay of the cavalry of the alae and legions and the pay of the cavalry of the cohorts is not known.

33 Hyginus, Ps.-, De Munationibus Castrorum I, 25Google Scholar. The legionary infantry had eight men to a tent, the auxiliaries ten.

34 See Alston, op. cit. (n. 28).

35 The Polybian evidence presents a slight problem but the Roman legionary cavalrymen of this period were an anomaly because of their elevated social status.

36 Marichal, R., L'occupation romaine de la Basse Égypte. Le statut des auxilia (1945), 35–7.Google Scholar

37 Brunt, op. cit. (n. 2).

38 E. Birley, a dominant figure for a generation of Roman military historians, has made numerous explicit statements of this methodology: see Birley, , The Roman Army Papers 1929–1986 (1988), esp. vii.Google Scholar

39 Breeze, D. J. and Dobson, B., Hadrian's Wall (1976), 172–4Google Scholar, construct model pay rates using a 1:3 ratio for auxiliary to legionary pay on the premise that it was not credible that ‘a man in an ala was paid as much as or more than a legionary’.

40 The flexibility of the Roman army can also be seen in the pattern of dispersal of a unit's troops (P.Hamb. 1.39) and the variations in numbers of troops between units of the same type or even in the same unit over time. See Bowman, A. K. and Thomas, J. D., ‘A military strength report from Vindolanda’, JRS 81 (1971), 62–73Google Scholar; P-Brooklyn 24; RMR 47; 48; 50; 62; 63; 64.