Carnuntum and Epigraphy

It is one of history's sadder ironies that of the writings which have survived from Roman Republic and Empire, wholly or in part, the greater portion of these artifacts are funerary or commemorative in nature,¹ and this is especially true in considering the Danube Frontier. In attempting to explore the lives of individual soldiers, whether Legionaries or Auxiliaries, foot-soldiers or officers, it is more often than not that scholars are forced to rely on the burial markers and monuments to these soldiers to discern any significant insight. This approach is, by its very nature, profoundly limited, and presents a number of difficulties and issues to the historian striving to build any form of understanding on the subject. For most inscriptions, the message is brief and often without greater context, giving only the individual's name and position in the military or social structure; the age of the soldier, their pay, or the number of years served are not universal, but neither is such information uncommon. In other instances, a simple message wishing peace for the dead may be included, but for the most part, given the cost of producing stone-graven inscriptions, these messages were as short and utilitarian as possible. Because of this, dating the inscriptions can prove particularly problematic, and in the absence of broader context, such as the names of consuls or emperors at the time of death, historians are forced to rely on such cues as the style in which individual letters are carved or the ways in which words are spelled or abbreviated. In many instances, the rough dates or periods to which scholars assign these inscriptions are subject to debate and revision. In examples of older, more established, or simply more well-connected individuals, the tombstones may include purely aesthetic decoration, more extensive inscriptions, or representative images of the deceased in some respect. All of these provide further clues towards deciphering what can be known of these soldiers' lives and their roles in their communities.

In the face of these difficulties, it is important to note that this approach is not without some benefits, both to the work of the individual scholar and to the broader scholarship. At once, historians of the subject have been forced to hone to a knife's edge their interpretive capacities and their familiarity with styles of carving in different periods and locales. The funerary monuments and inscriptions may often prove to be generic, but through such repetitive details may a grasp of broader trends and facts be established; if the greater number of legionaries' tombstones include the legion to which they belonged in life, the age at which they enlisted, and how long they served, then not only can their age at death be discerned, but through comparison the soldier's average lifespan, and at times how hazardous or safe it was to serve within any given legion. Carnuntum provides an extensive corpus of such artifacts for scholars to examine, and around which those scholars have constructed their understandings of such trends. One such example is Robert L. Dise's use of a funeral memorial to acknowledge and challenge a published perspective in dating; it is his assertion that the memorial of a soldier of the legio I adiutrix being dated to the first century A.D. is in error, and he draws from both the soldier's title, b(eneficarius) leg(ati) co(n)s(ularis), and to his origins in Savaria to make his argument; in the case of the former, he points out that this form of address did not come into use until the reign of Trajan, and in the case of the latter, that the legion mentioned did not recruit from Savaria until the same period.² This usage of the funerary monument in furtherance of an argument is common.

Another example of the use of funerary artifacts in the exploration of trends is seen in Saller and Shaw's "Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves." In this essay, the authors address the broader questions surrounding soldiers and families across the empire, and draw on the Danube frontier in this context. They explore the role of family in soldiers in Pannonia by using funerary iconography; for their purposes, the funerary artifacts are divided along the lines of its dedicators, being family or comrades, and whether the icons depict the family as a whole, or the solder alone and in detail. They found that of the tombstones sampled, markers dedicated by the family were more likely by far to depict the family as a whole, where those dedicated by peers universally depicted the soldier alone. They also make the point that this is comparable with the other frontiers.³ In "Pre-Flavian Forts and their Garrisons," Valerie A. Maxfield addresses differing forms of representation, with a specific example being the lorica segmentata in funerary depictions; the author points out that these are rare among tombstones, and provides an example of a more common depiction in the tombstones of the brothers Sertorii, who are both depicted in lorica squamata, or chainmail.⁴

Outside of corpus of funerary inscriptions, scholars do have opportunities to examine the rarer religions dedications paid for by soldiers; as a rule, such artifacts are connected with higher-ranking, and by extension wealthier legionaries, and therefore may provide more information on the dedicators. One such example is the sandstone pilaster discovered during the early excavations at Carnuntum; dedicated to the Iuppiter Dolichenis, this artifact also contains information on the career and times of the soldier responsible for its dedication, Amandianus of the legion XIIII Gemina. In "The Career of a Legionary," Michael P. Spiedel examines the artifact with the intention of re-evaluating its translation and thus arguing for a different interpretation.⁵ The pilaster contains information on the soldier's rank, the legion in which he serves, and datable information by mention of the emperor Maximus Thrax. Spiedel goes through the inscription, line by line, to re-interpret and engage the scholars Domaszewski and Mommsen on its meaning. A comparable effort is undertaken by J.E. Lendon in "Contubernalis, Commanipularis, and Commilito in Roman Soldiers' Epigraphy: Drawing the Distinction." In this instance, the author examines inscriptions from across the empire in comparison, reinterpreting the meaning of specific words, such as contubernalis and commanipularis; the author explores the subtle distinctions in their implications, specifically the degree to which the terms indicate 'membership' within a unit and, by extension, how these units were understood.⁶ This understanding of the legion is also a subject of investigation for Ramsay MacMullen in "The Legion as a Society," which expands on the questions of how soldiers related to each other in terms of units and ranks, and the psychology of the legion more broadly.⁷

If you would like to read more about the historiography of Carnuntum, Bryan Boyette's paper on the subject may be downloaded here