Roman auxiliaries in Britain
Encyclopedia
The overall size of the Roman
forces in Roman Britain
grew from about 40,000 in the mid 1st century AD to a maximum of about 55,000 in the mid 2nd century. But the proportion of auxiliaries in Britain grew from about 50% before 69 AD to over 70% in c. 150 AD. By mid 2nd century, there were about 70 auxiliary regiment
s in Britain, for a total of over 40,000 men. These outnumbered the 16,500 legionaries in Britain (three Roman legion
s) by 2.5 to 1. This was the greatest concentration of auxilia in any single province of the Roman Empire
. It implies major continuing security problems, and this is supported by the (thin) historical evidence. After Agricola
, the following Emperors conducted major military operations in Britain: Hadrian
, Antoninus Pius
and Septimius Severus
.
The deployment of Roman military forces in Britain in the early 2nd century may be summarised as follows:
Of the auxilia units stationed in Britain, none was originally native British, as was the custom; not to deploy units in their home country or region. However, the majority came from the geographically and culturally close areas of northern Gaul
and lower Rhineland
e.g. Batavi
, Tungri
. Although local recruitment resulted in a growing British element in these regiments, the Batavi at least continued ro recruit heavily in their native area and inscription evidence supports the view that many regiments had an international membership.
An important deployment of auxilia regiments in Britain was to garrison the forts and milecastle
s on Hadrian's Wall
, outpost forts and supply routes. This focus switched to the Antonine Wall
in Scotland for the period it was held; however, a number of forts in the Lowland area of Scotland were garrisoned throughout the 2nd century.
offer a unique glimpse into the everyday lives of auxiliary soldiers stationed in northern England in the period 85-122, just before the construction of Hadrian's Wall. These documents (573 of which have been published to date), consist of letters and memoranda written on wooden tablets to and from the auxiliary soldiers garrisoning the fort of Vindolanda
(Chesterholm). The documents mainly relate to the Cohors I Tungrorum, a regiment originating among the Tungri
tribe of the Ardennes
region (Belgium/France/Luxembourg). The tablets have survived decomposition due to being deposited in anaerobic conditions.
The Tablets range from official unit reports and memoranda to the unit commander to personal correspondence. Of special interest are unit status reports (renuntiae). One such shows the milliary I Tungrorum as under-strength, with only 752 instead of the official 800 men on its rolls. This document also shows the flexibility of unit deployments: a detachment of 337 men is reported as stationed at another fort and 46 men on escort duty (singulares) with the provincial governor's staff. Further smaller detachments were at six other locations. In general, the Tablets show the Roman Empire was far more bureaucratised than previously thought, with likely millions of written documents generated every year by the army alone.
The Tablets are also of a more personal nature, with social letters between soldiers and their families and friends. They also established beyond reasonable doubt that Roman soldiers (at least auxiliaries) wore underpants (subligaria) and used a disparaging nickname for their British hosts: Brittunculi. In Latin, the suffix
-unculus is both diminutive and pejorative: the term translates as "pathetic little Brits". The author was probably not referring to the provincial population as a whole, but specifically to young trainee recruits to the regiment. Even so, the remark implies that indigenisation of the regiment was far from complete at that time. The seemingly common use of the Tablets implies that they may have been the normal writing material in the northwestern Empire, instead of the papyrus
normally used in the Mediterranean.
NOTE: Double-strength (milliary) regiments in bold type.
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
forces in Roman Britain
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
grew from about 40,000 in the mid 1st century AD to a maximum of about 55,000 in the mid 2nd century. But the proportion of auxiliaries in Britain grew from about 50% before 69 AD to over 70% in c. 150 AD. By mid 2nd century, there were about 70 auxiliary regiment
Regiment
A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...
s in Britain, for a total of over 40,000 men. These outnumbered the 16,500 legionaries in Britain (three Roman legion
Roman legion
A Roman legion normally indicates the basic ancient Roman army unit recruited specifically from Roman citizens. The organization of legions varied greatly over time but they were typically composed of perhaps 5,000 soldiers, divided into maniples and later into "cohorts"...
s) by 2.5 to 1. This was the greatest concentration of auxilia in any single province of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. It implies major continuing security problems, and this is supported by the (thin) historical evidence. After Agricola
Gnaeus Julius Agricola
Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a Roman general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Britain. His biography, the De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, was the first published work of his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus, and is the source for most of what is known about him.Born to a noted...
, the following Emperors conducted major military operations in Britain: Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
, Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius , also known as Antoninus, was Roman Emperor from 138 to 161. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty and the Aurelii. He did not possess the sobriquet "Pius" until after his accession to the throne...
and Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus , also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of...
.
The deployment of Roman military forces in Britain in the early 2nd century may be summarised as follows:
| Britannia | 11 (1) | 45 (6) | 56 | 10,688 | 25,520 | 36,208 | 3 | 16,500 | 52,708 |
Of the auxilia units stationed in Britain, none was originally native British, as was the custom; not to deploy units in their home country or region. However, the majority came from the geographically and culturally close areas of northern Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
and lower Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
e.g. Batavi
Batavi
Batavi - Latin for Batavians - is an open source webshop under the GNU General Public License. The development of Batavi started in 2007 inspired by a preliminary osCommerce 3.0 version, a version that seemed to be never finished by the osCommerce team...
, Tungri
Tungri
The Tungri were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part Gaul, during the times of the Roman empire. They were described by Tacitus as being the same people who were first called "Germani" , meaning that all other tribes who were later referred to this way, including those in...
. Although local recruitment resulted in a growing British element in these regiments, the Batavi at least continued ro recruit heavily in their native area and inscription evidence supports the view that many regiments had an international membership.
An important deployment of auxilia regiments in Britain was to garrison the forts and milecastle
Milecastle
A milecastle was a small fort , a rectangular fortification built during the period of the Roman Empire. They were placed at intervals of approximately one Roman mile along several major frontiers, for example Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain , hence the name.Along Hadrian's Wall, milecastles were...
s on Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
, outpost forts and supply routes. This focus switched to the Antonine Wall
Antonine Wall
The Antonine Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. Representing the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire, it spanned approximately 39 miles and was about ten feet ...
in Scotland for the period it was held; however, a number of forts in the Lowland area of Scotland were garrisoned throughout the 2nd century.
Vindolanda Tablets
The discovery in the 1970s, and continuing unveiling of, the Vindolanda TabletsVindolanda tablets
The Vindolanda tablets are "the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain". They are also probably our best source of information about life on Hadrian's Wall. Written on fragments of thin, post-card sized wooden leaf-tablets with carbon-based ink, the tablets date to the 1st and 2nd...
offer a unique glimpse into the everyday lives of auxiliary soldiers stationed in northern England in the period 85-122, just before the construction of Hadrian's Wall. These documents (573 of which have been published to date), consist of letters and memoranda written on wooden tablets to and from the auxiliary soldiers garrisoning the fort of Vindolanda
Vindolanda
Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth...
(Chesterholm). The documents mainly relate to the Cohors I Tungrorum, a regiment originating among the Tungri
Tungri
The Tungri were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part Gaul, during the times of the Roman empire. They were described by Tacitus as being the same people who were first called "Germani" , meaning that all other tribes who were later referred to this way, including those in...
tribe of the Ardennes
Ardennes
The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests, rolling hills and ridges formed within the Givetian Ardennes mountain range, primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, but stretching into France , and geologically into the Eifel...
region (Belgium/France/Luxembourg). The tablets have survived decomposition due to being deposited in anaerobic conditions.
The Tablets range from official unit reports and memoranda to the unit commander to personal correspondence. Of special interest are unit status reports (renuntiae). One such shows the milliary I Tungrorum as under-strength, with only 752 instead of the official 800 men on its rolls. This document also shows the flexibility of unit deployments: a detachment of 337 men is reported as stationed at another fort and 46 men on escort duty (singulares) with the provincial governor's staff. Further smaller detachments were at six other locations. In general, the Tablets show the Roman Empire was far more bureaucratised than previously thought, with likely millions of written documents generated every year by the army alone.
The Tablets are also of a more personal nature, with social letters between soldiers and their families and friends. They also established beyond reasonable doubt that Roman soldiers (at least auxiliaries) wore underpants (subligaria) and used a disparaging nickname for their British hosts: Brittunculi. In Latin, the suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
-unculus is both diminutive and pejorative: the term translates as "pathetic little Brits". The author was probably not referring to the provincial population as a whole, but specifically to young trainee recruits to the regiment. Even so, the remark implies that indigenisation of the regiment was far from complete at that time. The seemingly common use of the Tablets implies that they may have been the normal writing material in the northwestern Empire, instead of the papyrus
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
normally used in the Mediterranean.
Regiments deployed in Britain
| Agrippina Miniata I Hispanorum Asturum II Asturum Augusta Gallorum Petriana c.R. Augusta Gallorum Proculeiana Picentiana Gallorum II Gallorum Sebosiana Gllorum et Thracum Classiana I Pannoniorum Sabiniana I Pannoniorum Tampiana I Thracum I Tungrorum Hispanorum Vettonum Augusta Vocontiorum |
I Alpinorum peditata I Aquitanorum II Asturum eq IV Breucorum I Augusta Bracarum III Bracaraugustanorum I Baetasiorum c.R. I Batavorum eq I Celtiberorum I Aelia classica I Ulpia Cugernorum c.R. I Aelia Dacorum I Delmatarum II Delmatarum IV Delmatarum I Frisiavonum |
II Gallorum veterana eq IV Gallorum eq V Gallorum VI Gallorum I Hispanorum eq I Aelia Hispanorum eq I Lingonum eq II Lingonum eq III Lingonum eq IV Lingonum eq I Menapiorum I Morinorum I nauticarum I Augusta Nerviana Germanorum eq I Nerviorum II Nerviorum |
III Nervorum IV Nerviorum II Pannoniorum V Raetorum I Sunucorum I Thracum II Thracum veterana VII Thracum I Tungrorum II Tungrorum c.L. eq I Vangionum eq I Vardulorum c.R. eq II Vasconum c.R. I Hamiorum sagitt |
NOTE: Double-strength (milliary) regiments in bold type.