Essential Essays for the Study of the Military in First-Century Palestine

Soldiers and the New Testament Context

Christopher B. Zeichmann

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781532656385, 9781532656392
• eBook ISBN: 9781532656408
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Though the Roman Empire has been a hot topic within New Testament studies in the twenty-first century, its military aspect has--strangely--been almost entirely neglected. This volume will fill that lacuna by reprinting pivotal, but difficult to access, essays on the topic from the past forty years. The book will help bring scholars up to speed on what Roman military experts have been saying on the matter and give a sense for key developments within the field over the last forty years. The contents of this book include a variety of pivotal essays, though most are difficult to find without access to a major research library.

1

The Roman Army1

T. R. S. Broughton

Acts has several references to the Roman army, and in the background of the story there is always a dimly perceived and changing mass of tribunes, centurions, and soldiers who sometimes limit the freedom and sometimes preserve the lives of the Christians who are in the foreground.

To describe the details which happen to be mentioned without explaining the system to which they belong seemed undesirable, if not impossible, nor is there any one book, at least in English, to which reference could conveniently be made. The following paragraphs therefore give (i.) a general description of the Roman military organization in the first century, (ii.) a discussion of the units of the Roman army in Syria and Palestine, (iii.) a note on the three most difficult references to military units in Acts.

The Organization of the Roman Army in the First Century

(a) The Legion—The Regular army was divided into legions varying in number with the military needs of the Empire. The strength of a legion was about 6000 men divided into ten cohorts (σπεῖραι); these in turn were each divided into three maniples and six centuries. The tactical unit was the maniple, the administrative unit the cohort. There was also a body of legionary cavalry numbering in the first century 120 horse.2 The commander of all forces in Syria was the imperial legate, but each legion also had as commander a legate of the senatorial order. With him were a group of subordinate officers, beneficarii, stratores, cornricularii, as an office staff. The legionary tribunes, six in number, whether senatorial, laticlavi, or equestrian, angusticlavi, combined military and administrative duties such as going the rounds, taking care of the list of soldiers in the corps, etc. They were usually young men doing military service at the beginning of their official career. In Greek they are regularly called χιλίαρχοι. The camp prefect, who also had a staff, was usually a veteran from the centurions primipili, thoroughly acquainted with the details of the service, and could in certain cases perform the duties of the legate of the legion in the latter’s absence.

Of the subordinate officers the most important was the centurion, who was in command of a centuria, nominally of 100 men. There were 59 to a legion, and the first century had double the usual number of men. The centurions were ranked in a regular hierarchy from the primus pilus, who took part in the councils of war, to the hastatus posterior of the tenth cohort. This hierarchy represented the usual order of promotion. The centurions had closest contact with the soldiers of the line, and regulated duties, immunities, and punishments, so that the discipline of the legions depended chiefly on them. Officers subordinate to the centurions were the optiones, imaginiferi, vexilarii, etc. From these the centurions were promoted. Centurions were transferred from cohort to cohort and legion to legion as they were advanced in the service.3 In general the centurion’s opportunity for promotion ended with appointment to the post of primus pilus or of camp prefect.

The legionary soldier was ipso facto a Roman citizen, levied from a Roman town, or given Roman citizenship upon his entry into the service. The legal term of service was twenty years, but legionary soldiers were often kept in service for longer periods, particularly in the first century A.D. The centurions, whose position was more advantageous, often stayed still longer. The soldier’s pay was probably a denarius a day, out of which he had to equip himself, secure any simple luxuries, or bribe the centurions for remissions of duties.4 At the end of his service he received with his discharge a sum of money and a piece of land either in Italy or, as was more usual in the Empire, in soldier settlements in the provinces. Colonies were often set out in frontier lands with the double purpose of defence and development. In the east, however, the legions were resident in lands long since settled and developed; so soldier colonies were less numerous, and in general the veterans, of whom many were orientals by birth, soon merged into the people about them.5

After the Augustan reorganization the method of recruitment of the legions was in some measure local. At least the eastern and the western portions of the Empire became largely separate areas of recruitment, Africa, whic...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: The Roman Army
• Chapter 2: The Roman Army in Judaea under the Procurators
• Chapter 3: The Beginning of the Roman Defensive System in Judaea
• Chapter 4: The Roman Army in the Galilee
• Chapter 5: Jewish Military Forces in the Roman Service
• Chapter 6: Sons of Israel in Caesar’s Service
• Chapter 7: ‘Romans Go Home’?
• Further Reading: Annotated Bibliography