Roman military bookkeeping

Abstract

This work is divided into two parts. Part I examines the system of documentation practised in the Roman Army from the foundation of the Empire to the accession of Diocletian. This examination includes a discussion of the administrative personnel and their functions and of the documents they issued and received. In Chapter I the orderly-room staffs are considered in ascending order of seniority. This method has the advantage of proceeding from the simple to the complex, and is perhaps better adapted than the opposite order for illustrating the gradual elaboration of the organization. In Chapter II complete texts, with variant readings, are given of the more important documents, in the order in which they might appear in the documentation of an imaginary soldier from the day when he first considers enlistment to the day of his discharge. These documents fall into three broad categories. One contains those which belong to the period when the soldier is a recruit or would-be recruit, and consists of letters of recommendation, posting orders, etc. The second includes matriculae of various types, the acta diurnal, pridiana, and other administrative documents. The third category is limited to financial documents, mainly soldiers' pay accounts and military receipts. Part II contains, besides the notes to the first part, a summary catalogue of Roman military documents, arranged in order of the media on which they were written, papyrus, parchment, wax tablets, bronze tablets, and ostraca. Inscriptions on stone are excluded. The catalogue includes not only such documents as are obviously official, but also a number of others which bear indirectly upon the general problem.