Cohors I Aelia Dacorurn and the Birdoswald garrison Cohors I Aelia Dacorum seems originally to have been raised after the conquest ofDacia by Trajan, and transferred immediately to Britain. The cohort worked on the building of the Vallum, as attested by a building stone recording the cenrury of Aelius Dida of cohors I Dacorum (RIB 1365). Their first known garrison was at Bewcastle where they are again attested simply as cohors I Dacorum (RIB 991). The editors of RIB suggest that the Bewcastle inscription is Hadrianic because Aelia is omitted. It has been suggested that units may have received such honorifics when milliary status was granted (Maxfield 1981, 234), and it is thus possible that the unit was upgraded after being posted to Britain. If, however, the fort at Bewcastle was built for this cohort (Austen 1991 b, 43-4), then the size of the fort suggests that the unit already had a milliary establishment. It is possible that the title Aelia was granted late in the reign of Hadrian or early in that of Antoninus Pius, at the same time as the same honour was accorded to cohors I Hispanorum Garrett and Stephens 1987, 62). The only diploma (elL xvi, 93) to record the cohort dates to 146, and gives the style I Aelia Dacorum. This diploma does not give a milliary symbol either for this cohort or for others which are known to have been of this strength such as cohors I Fida Vilrdullorurn. However, this does not mean that these units were not milliary; Birley (1966b, 61) points out that only in diplomas where some units are referred to specifically as milliary should the absence of such a reference be considered significant. (A newly discovered diploma does give the full title (M Roxan personal communication).) The only epigraphic source to accord the cohort its full style, coh(ortis) mil(liaria) I Ael(ia) Dacor(um) is from Lambaesis in Africa (Numidia). This gives the career of the equestrian officer Ti Claudius Proculus Cornelianus, who served his militia secunda as tribunus of the cohort, probably during the reign of Antoninus Pius (Ptlaum 1955, 126; 1961,367, no 164 bis; AE 1956, no 123). The cohort is recorded at Birdoswald on a remarkable series of inscriptions (RIB 1872, 1874-94, 1896, 1898, 1904, 1909, 1912, 1914, 1918; Wright 1969, 194). These are bracketed in date by the building inscription found during 1929 (Birley 1930b), recording the construction of a hOl'reum in 205-8 (RIB 1909) 195 and an altar dated by the imperial honorific Probiana to 276-82 (\Vright 1961, 194). Most of the inscriptions are altars dedicated to Iupiter Optimus Maximus (hereafter IOM), and it has been suggested (Davies 1969, 79) that they originate from a ceremonial burial deposit on the parade ground. The group seems to be a dispersed example of this kind of deposit, which has been found in situ at Maryport (RIB 815-837; Wenham 1939; Jarrett and Stephens 1987). The Maryport altars were buried at different times and a number are unweathered (ibid, 28). It has been suggested that the altars were dedicated at the votorum nuncupatio on 3rd January each year. Honourable burial (ibid, 21) would either take place on the dedication of the new altar, or at a periodical lustrum (Davies 1968, 79). The Birdoswald parade ground may have lain between the Wall and the river on the east side of the fort (Bidwell and Holbrook 1989, 85, 95), and the clearance of the area in order to accommodate this facility may account for the complete eradication of the Turf Wall. Many altars were found either reused in the fort or further afield, but five were found at Willowford (RIB 1876, 1887, 1889, 1890, 1896), and one at Underheugh (RlB 1891). Two of these altars, one (RlB 1880) found in the cliff above Underheugh, and the other ploughed up 'nearer to milecastle 49 than to Birdoswald fort' (Wright 1961, 193), may have been found in their original positions (Daniels 1978, 198). The earliest inscription of the cohors I Aelia Dacorum IOM series may be RIB 1884; an altar which was rediscovered in 1990 (Tomlin 1991, 309). This records a tribunus called Domitius Honoratus. Tomlin (ibid) suggests that if this was L. Domitius Honoratus, prefect of Egypt under Severus Alexander, his tribunate would have been around the reign of Septimius Severus. If so, there is evidence for two Severan tribuni, the other being Aurelius Julianus who built the horreum between 205 and 208. During Julianus' tribunate at Birdoswald his infant son, Aurelius Concordius, died at the age of one year and five days and was buried in the fort cemetery (RIB 1919; Wilmott 1993). Subsequent altars can be dated by the imperial honorific titles granted to the unit, and one (RIB 1875) by reference to a consulship. These are tabulated in Table 11. In addition to the altars a building inscription from the porta principalis dextra (RIB 1914) records the cohort working during Modius Julius' governorship of Britannia Inferior (219) under the tribunus Claudius Menander. All but one of the datable inscriptions recording the name of the cohort give tribuni as commanding officers, and the names of 17 such officers are now known (RlB; PHaum 1955, 126; Wright 1961, 194; Wright and Hassall 1974, 463; Tomlin 1991, 309). The latest datable inscription from the site (RIB 1912), a building dedication of 297-305 (which does not name the cohort), gives one Flavius Martinus, a centurion, as the praepositus in temporary command. Three other centurions in such positions are listed on the cohors I Aclia Dacorum altars: Aurelius Saturninus (RIB 1876), Julius Marcellinus of legio II Augusta (RIB 1880), and L Vereius Fortunatus of legio VI Victrix Pia Fidelis (RIB 1907). Marcellinus' appointment affords one of two known examples of cemurions from Britannia Superior being employed in the northern province (Holder 1982, 70). During the reign of Maximinus Thrax (235-8), the cohort was under the command of a former evocatus of the cohors I Praetorianorum, Flavius Maximianus (RIB 1896). Command of an auxiliary unit for a praetorian is by no means unprecedented, and three such commanders were stationed at various times at Bewcastle (Austen 1991, 47). Such postings were an alternative to promotion to the position of legionary cemurion (Breeze 1974,251--4). The precise date of 237 for RIB 1875 demonstrates that the tribunus Aurelius Faustus was probably Maximianus' direct successor, and that the former praetorian thus commanded in 235-6. Two names from the reign of Postumus (259-68) are known: the tribuni Probius Augendus and Marcius Gallicus. Cohors I Aelia Dacorum did not use a milliary symbol on any of its surviving inscriptions at Birdoswald. The Cornelianus inscription at Lambaesis clearly demonstrates that the cohort was milliary during the reign of Hadrian, and milliary status is implied by the fact that the unit commanders at Birdoswald were predominantly tribuni, but it still seems peculiar that among so many inscriptions the full title is never given. It is possible that the unit was operating at less than full strength, possibly with a detached vexillation, throughout the third century. Birley (1966, 61) lists four known milliary cohorts which were split in this way. An example of this is cohors I Tungrorum which is cited as milliaria in the British diploma of 103, but not in those of 122 and 124, in which several other cohorts are listed as milliary. The reason for this was that a cohors I Tungrorum milliaria vexillatio was serving in Noricum, and was listed among quingenary cohorts in a Hadrianic diploma for that province. By 158 the vexillation had rejoined its parent unit, which was again recorded as milliary on the diploma of that year (but see now Novwen 1996). The same kind of split is attested for cohors II Tungroru11l (Birley 1935). hOllorijicldatilJg ANTONINlANA !v1AXIMINlANA cos Perpetuus [+Cornelianus] GORDIANA POSTUMIANA POSTUMIANA TETRICIANORUM PROBIANA date 213-222 235-238 237 238-244 259-268 259-268 ?259-268 270-273 276-282 An inscription from Carrawburgh of II Tungroru11l which lacks a milliary symbol has been published by Davies (1968) as the first evidence other than the diplomas to reflect this practice, and other examples have been cited (Davies 1977, 8), including cohors I Hispanorum at Maryport, commanded by tribuni from 123 to 130 and by praefecti thereafter Garrett and Stephens 1987,61-2). If I Aelia Dacorum was a halfcohort of this kind it does not necessarily mean that it would have a quingenary strength. Davies suggests (ibid, 109 n 17) that cohors XX Palmyrenoru11l at Dura Europos may have been a cohort which had lost a vexillation which never returned. The files of the unit demonstrate that its remaining six centuries and five tur11lae mustered a thousand or more men, suggesting that the size of the centuries and turmae, and not their number, was increased to make up the deficiency. The fact that tribuni were still in command might be due to the fact that the cohort had been milliary, and the status of the commander remained the same as it traditionally had been. This might not be as odd as it seems, as commanders of quingenary cohorts were often referred to as tribunus during the third century (Davies 1977, 16). The author is grateful to Margaret Roxan for pointing out that cohors I Vallgionum, named as milliary on several diplomas, is also given on inscriptions from Risingham (RIB 1215, 1216, and 1217) without a milliary symbol, but with tribuni in command. At Benwell, however, the same cohort is commanded by a praefectus when not at full strength. At High Rochester cohors I Fida Vardullorum occasionally omits the milliary symbol (RIB 1271 and 1285). It seems likely, as Margaret Roxan suggests (personal communication), that the symbol could be omitted simply because the status of the unit was well enough known and established, and in other words that the cohort retained its milliary status, whether it was retained at full strength or not. The final reference to cohors I Aelia Dacorum is in the Notitia Dignitatum (Hassall 1976, 113). Though the date of the British section of this document is in doubt (Wdsby 1982, 129-45), a consensus would view it as dating from the later fourth century (Holder 1982, 19). Two other units are recorded from the site. The horreum inscription (RIB 1909) records cohors I 9, BIRDOSWALD IN THE THIRD AND EARLY FOURTH CENTURIES 197 Thracum Civium Romanwn assisting I Aelia Dacorum with the building. There is no evidence as to whether this quingenary cohort was brigaded with I Aelia Dacorum in garrison, or whether it was simply assisting with the building (Breeze and Dobson 1987, 256). The latter option seems most likely: the building inscription cites the Dacian cohort first, and is flanked by the devices of the palm and Dacian falx (CouIston 1981), which appear on another inscription of I Aelia Dacorum alone. These symbols appear to have been the devices of I Aelia Dacorum, and their presence on the horreum inscription would seem to suggest the Dacians as the senior partners in the enterprise and the 'home unit'. Secondly, among all of the parade ground altar series, beginning very soon after the building of the horreum, no further mention is made of the Thracians, though no alternative third-century garrison for this unit has been discovered (Holder 1982, 121-2). The other unit associated with the fort are the Venatores Banniel1ses (RIB 1905). These are now accepted as an irregular unit of third-century date (Breeze and Dobson 1987, 258; Holder 1982, 126), rather than as a group of hunters from the cohort as the editors of RIB suggested. The use of the fort name as part of the unit title, similar to the explorawres Bremenienses and Habitancenses at High Rochester and Risingham respectively, and also the cuneus Frisionum Aballavensium at Burgh by Sands, suggests that this unit was specific to Birdoswald.
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