By AD 200 there were thirty-three legions in service, permanently stationed in nineteen of the thirty-eight provinces of the empire.98 Furthermore, in those provinces that escaped a legionary presence, there were often small detachments of auxiliary troops based in forts whose job it was to keep order and supervise roads and other installations. There were also troops in attendance on the governor, acting as bodyguards and messengers. Some provinces were closer to a permanent war footing. Britain had to find room for three legions, and around ad 210 there were legionary bases at Caerleon (Isca), Chester (Deva) and York (Eburacum), as well as many smaller forts for auxiliary troops in its garrison of some 50,000 men.99 Throughout the empire legionary bases were sited where it suited the Roman army’s requirements, often at important road junctions and river crossings in areas with potential for commerce and trade. Most of these locations have been more or less continuously occupied thereafter, and many have remained or become important centres in the modern world, like Ara Ubiorum (Cologne) and Bonna (Bonn) in Lower Germany, Moguntiacum (Mainz) and Argentorate (Strasbourg) in Upper Germany, Castra Regina (Regensburg) in Raetia, Vindobona (Vienna) in Upper Pannonia, Acquincum (Budapest) in Lower Pannonia, Singidunum (Belgrade) in Upper Moesia, Melitene (Malatya) in Cappadocia, Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem) in Syria Palaestina, Legio (Leon) in Spain. In the west, legionary troops were generally quartered in purpose-built camps (normally containing a single legion, sometimes with auxiliary troops), and garrison towns grew up with the legions. In the east, garrisons tended to be based in existing, long-established cities, such as Cyrrhus, Zeugma and Samosata, though some bases did influence the development of towns (e. g. Melitene and Satala in Cappadocia).100
The siting and development of legionary bases mark the ebb and flow of Roma:n military activity, and changes in the balance of power. At these army centres there will have been constant excitement and activity with the coming and going of troops, and a definite military ambience about life and culture. In time of war this will have been much more dramatic. During the northern wars, Marcus Aurelius made his headquarters from AD 171 to 173 at Carnuntum on the Danube, the legionary base of legion
XIV Gemina and the residence of the governor of Upper Pannonia, and later at Sirmium on the River Save. Imperial business with all its panoply of officials and administration and numerous petitioners followed him.101
The army had the job of consolidating Roman control after conquest. This was often a violent process that could go on for many years, as the government established a framework of administration and taxation and set about recruiting the local population. There may have been revolts and dislocation, and it is likely that the Romans built the legionary base at Nijmegen in Germany in response to the revolt of the Batavi in ad 69. Simmering discontent with Roman rule in Judaea ended in the revolt of AD 66 to 70, which was suppressed only after a fuH-scale war and the stationing of legion X Fretensis in Jerusalem itself.102
After consolidation had been completed and major opposition suppressed, the army remained as an army of occupation. The troops had a significant role as peacekeepers within the provinces, both in maintaining internal security and in putting down the kind of low-intensity violence that the Romans usually ascribed to banditry.103 In many provinces soldiers were widely dispersed in a large number of relatively small detachments in forts and small camps. For example, in Egypt soldiers were stationed in many towns and villages, with a substantial concentration at Alexandria, the seat of the governor, making the important political point of a highly visible Roman presence on the ground.104 In general, the troops aimed to supervise and control movement of people and to protect roads and other lines of communication. Small forts perhaps temporarily garrisoned as the situation required could guarantee communications and also provide intelligence information. In the eastern provinces, as noted above, detachments of legions were often stationed in small towns, involving the army more closely in everyday activities. The army of occupation operated in the first instance to protect the rulers, not the ruled, and it was the army that enforced the political domination of Rome and, if necessary, ensured by whatever means necessary that government decisions were carried out.105
Therefore the army’s presence, whether or not external war was threatening, was likely to intrude in the lives of the local provincial population. Because of the inadequacy of local control of law and order, a state of affairs for which the Romans themselves were partly responsible, soldiers frequently acted in a police role. This evolved easily from their duties in guarding roads and tollhouses. In fact the stationarii (a kind of seconded road guard) expanded their role and acquired a doubtful reputation as tax collectors and supervisors of the imperial post.106 At the local level soldiers supported government officials and became enforcers of their decisions, in some cases quite improperly. Lucilius Capito, rascally procurator of Asia under Tiberius, had used soldiers to enforce his commands.107 Trajan, in reply to a request from Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, for permission to carry on using soldiers to guard public prisons, said that as few soldiers as possible should be called away from their usual military duties. But it is clear that soldiers were likely to be used in this kind of police job.108
From this it was a short step to a situation where soldiers detained or arrested small-time criminals and hoodlums at the behest of those in authority. It made sense for the military authorities to try such men, and in practice the case would be delegated to the man in charge of a detachment of soldiers, often a centurion. A number of legal cases recorded on papyri in Egypt suggest that at least in this province - and there is no reason to suppose that the same was not true in other provinces - centurions informally exercised an effective legal authority and arrived at de facto remedies for litigants. The cases deal with, among other things, assault, theft, tax collecting and the criminal activities of administrators. Centurions were asked to bring individuals to justice, to carry out searches, or to provide some kind of protection.109 The litigants were presumably unable or unwilling to exercise their full legal rights, and hoped for a quick settlement. It is interesting that they or their legal advisers humbly supplicated Roman centurions as figures of power and authority, the representatives of a mighty army. Clearly local people would want to keep on the right side of them. In practice, centurions, backed up by the soldiers they commanded, administered a kind of rough justice. They brought the operation of the central government right into village life, and emphasized the apparently all-seeing presence of the Roman army. In this, as in so many activities, the army was both a source of potential benefits and also a threat.
World History
