Anthony Birley on Officers and Troops Accompanying the British Governor Statius Priscus to Armenia

Empire Under Hadrian.  Red lines show the relative distance from Britain to Judaea and Armenia.

From the very beginning of my research into L. Artorius Castus, I was assured by Dr. Linda A. Malcor and his colleagues, Antonio Trinchese and Alessandro Faggiani that there was no evidence to support the notion that Statius Priscus could have brough LAC and some troops with him when he went from Britain to Armenia.  I took this at face value and did not at the time pursue it.  I did search for any attested British vexillations that may have moved to the East from Britain, but did not find any (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-case-for-origin-of-deserters-war-in.html).  As our archaeological record preserves only a fraction of what once existed in terms of inscribed Roman stones, this did not necessarily prove that detachments were not, in fact, taken from Britain to the East.  It simply showed us that we lacked the evidence "carved in stone" to prove it.  

The other day, as I was looking to finally eliminate ARMENIOS as a possible reading for the fragmentary ARM[...]S on the LAC memorial stone, I happened across the following piece by Anthony Birley.  Birley (through private communication, prompted by Roger Tomlin's choice of ARMENIOS for LAC) agreed that ARMENIOS was the right answer.

From Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 2:40 AM:

"Roger has probably solved this. A pity I didn't see his book before I wrote my article ("Viri militares...")."

The book Birley is alluding to is Tomlin's BRITANNIA ROMANA: ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS & ROMAN BRITAIN, Oxbow Books, 2018/2020.  LAC's stone is discussed on pp. 155-158. 

Now, ironically/foolishly, I did not even bother to inquire what "Viri militares" was!  But as I was going through the long list of Roman military historians and Latin epigraphers who now prefer the ARMENIOS reading, I ran into this reference again.  I thought to myself, "Hmm... maybe I should find and read this one now!"

As it happens, it is an important article, later incorporated into a book as a separate chapter. I have cut and pasted below the relevant passages.  My analysis of what Birley has presented (and were he still alive I'm sure he would concur) is that the examples he cites of men and foprces who might have could gone with Priscus from Britain to Armenia is highly suggestive, but not completely conclusive. Still, that Birley believed that in some extraordinary cases this could have happened - and, indeed, probably did - lends some weight to the possibility that the British governor might have taken LAC and some legionary detachments as well.  

If there can be considered precedents for LAC and some troops being taken from Britain to the East, and we combine this with his being made procurator with the power of the sword over a Liburnia that had been founded only a few years after the Roman victory in Armenia, then we must allow ARMENIOS to stand as a possible reading for ARM[...]S on the LAC stone. Tomlin once said "My guess is that 9 out of 10 Liburnians would have heard of 'Armenia', but only 1 out of 10 'Armorica'." His statement echoed the well-known fact that Armorica does not otherwise appear on a single single inscribed stone, and is attested only a few times in literary sources - most of which post-date LAC's floruit.  On the other hand, Armenia or honorific titles based on Armenia are found a great many times in both media.   

NOTE:

Ref. Birley's discussion of the Legio IX Hispana below, Tomlin comments:

"Do you know Rosemary Sutcliffe's The Eagle of the Ninth? A splendid historical novel based on the old view that the Ninth disappeared soon after Hadrian's accession, somewhere in Scotland. But Eric Birley, by considering the careers of some of its officers, showed that it must have survived longer than this – see 'The Fate of the Ninth Legion' (in R.M. Butler (ed.), Soldier and Civilian in Roman Yorkshire (1971), 71–80) – and suggested that it was transferred first to Lower Germany and ultimately became the legion destroyed at Elegeia in AD 161. Since he wrote, another scrap of evidence has turned up for its presence at Nimwegen (attached).

So I think people would accept much of what Tony Birley says, but not that Severus actually took the legion with him from Britain. Tony admits 'it is uncertain whether it was still in Britain when he arrived', and I would have thought the absence of evidence from Hadrian's Wall is decisive. We don't know that it disappeared at Elegeia, but this has always been an attractive idea."

***

Viri Militares Moving from West to East in Two

Crisis Years (Ad 133 and 162)

Anthony R. Birley

[Chapter 4

The Impact of Mobility and Migration in the Roman Empire

Proceedings of the Twelfth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Rome, June 17-19, 2015)

E-Book ISBN: 9789004334809

Publisher: Brill

Print Publication Date: 15 May 2019]

Two second-century governors who moved from one end of the empire

to the other in unusual career moves deserve highlighting. Both recall the

appointment of Corbulo to his special command in the east in AD 54, but

no literary source resembling Tacitus survives to describe the contemporary

reactions. In the early 130s, Sextus Julius Severus (cos. 127) was summoned

to Judaea by Hadrian, from Britain, where he was governor, to suppress the

revolt of Bar Kochba, as specifically recorded by Cassius Dio. Judaea, which

had only recently become a two-legion province, thus gained an ex-consul as

governor; but it was not a ‘normal’ posting to follow the command of a threelegion

province, such as Britain.17 Almost thirty years later the Parthians, who

had been threatening war in the last months of Antoninus Pius’ reign, invaded

the empire.18 The result was a disaster for Rome at Elegeia: according to Dio it

involved the destruction of a legion with all its officers and the suicide of the

Cappadocian legate, M. Sedatius Severianus (cos. 153), called by Lucian “that

stupid Celt” (stupid because he had fallen under the influence of Alexander

the false prophet of Abonuteichos, a Celt because he was from Poitiers).19 To

tackle the new eastern crisis, the man who was clearly recognised by Marcus

Aurelius and Lucius Verus as their most competent general, M. Statius Priscus

(cos. ord. 159), was summoned from Britain, shortly after he had arrived there.

Each of these governors evidently took selected officers with them. In both

cases the emperor of the day chose as commander to deal with the crisis men

who were at the opposite end of the empire, surely a sign that the best qualified

military man of the time was generally assigned to govern Britain.

Sextus Julius Severus seems to have taken at least two equestrian officers

with him from Britain to Judaea. Three or four centurions may also be supposed

to have transferred with him at this time. But before discussing these

cases, it should be noted that he may have taken with him to Judaea a whole

legion, IX Hispana, although it is uncertain whether it was still in Britain when

he was governing the province. IX Hispana was once thought to have been

destroyed in Britain early in Hadrian’s reign, when there were certainly heavy

Roman losses there.25 But consideration of the careers of several of its officers

has made this hardly plausible: there are three former tribuni laticlavii whose

service in it should be significantly later than the years 117–119, and a legate L.

Aninius Sextius Florentinus, who, after commanding IX Hispana, became proconsul

of Narbonensis, then governor of Arabia, where he is attested in 127, so

is unlikely to have left the legion much before 124.26 This leaves unresolved the

moment of the legion’s own departure from Britain. Its latest datable record

there is an inscription of AD 108 at York.27 Its whereabouts thereafter are uncertain,

but it could have been taken to the east initially to fight in the Jewish war,

from 133 to 136, after which it could have been transferred to Cappadocia. A

possible date for that (final) move is AD 137. Even if no further trouble was

expected from the Alani, against whose threatening movements the historian

Arrian (Flavius Arrianus) had been active as governor of Cappadocia in 135,

as his Ektaxis set out in detail, he could well have urged Hadrian to reinforce

the province.28 The disappearance of IX Hispana could then conjecturally

be assigned to the disaster at Elegeia in 161, when, as mentioned above, an

unnamed legion of the Cappadocian army was destroyed with all its officers,

and the governor Sedatius Severianus took his own life.29

As the Burnum inscription shows, Sextus Julius Severus conducted the campaign

with success, receiving the highest military honours open to a senator,

the ornamenta triumphalia. Dio’s account, preserved in epitome,30 gives some

details of his operations. He suppressed the rebels with relentless efficiency,

picking them off in small groups. He destroyed “fifty of the Jews’ most important

outposts and 985 of their most famous villages”; and 580,000 men are said

to have been killed on the Jewish side. Dio does not record Roman casualties,

which were substantial.31

Among those who served under him one may note three future governors

of Britain: Q. Lollius Urbicus, legatus imp(eratoris) Hadriani in expedition(e)

Iudaica, who may be regarded as the general’s ‘chief of staff’; probably the general’s

son Cn. Julius Verus as tribunus laticlavius of X Fretensis; and M. Statius

Priscus, then just prefect of a cohort.32 Sextus Julius Severus no doubt remained

in Judaea until the war was ended, in 136.33 He was then apparently appointed

to yet another governorship, of Syria, although this has been doubted; if it

is accepted, this is further evidence for the satisfaction with which Hadrian

regarded him.34 At all events, the distinguished career in the emperors’ service

of his son Julius Verus, indicates that imperial favour for this family of colonial

Romans continued into the next two reigns.35

As for the men whom Sextus Julius Severus probably took with him from

Britain to Judaea, to start with one may discuss two equestrians. The first was

the future great commander of the 160s, M. Statius Priscus Licinius Italicus

(cos. ord. 159), in the early 130s still only a Roman knight, in his prima militia as

prefect of a cohort.

The second case of a man of equestrian rank evidently taken to Judaea,

probably at this time, is conjectural. It concerns Marcus Censorius [C]ornelianus,

known only from an altar he dedicated to Iuppiter Augustus at the fort of

Maryport on the north-west coast of England...

On this interpretation the equestrian officer, whose presence at Maryport

can confidently be dated to Hadrian’s reign, accepted a centurionate in the

Jerusalem legion, prima facie a downgrading, but in fact a career move for

which there are plenty of parallels. Whether he took part of the Cohors I

Hispanorum with him is uncertain.41

One may also postulate three or perhaps four centurions whose careers

suggest that they went from Britain to Judaea at this time with Sextus Julius

Severus...

1. Quintus Albius Felix, who served in the British legion XX Valeria Victrix, was

decorated by Hadrian, surely for service in the Jewish War...

2. Pon(. . .) Magnus is recorded from Hadrian’s Wall sector 46–46b, in charge

of a building party: [co]h(ortis) II 7 (centuria) Pon(. . .) Magni, datable a fortiori

to the 120s.43 He is very likely the same man as Pontienus Magnus, chief centurion,

p(rimus)p(ilus), of X Fretensis in AD 150...

3. Gaius Ligustinius Disertus...

4. T. Quintius Petrullus...

As a postscript on centurions, one may note that in contrast to the paucity

of Greek cognomina among the Hadrianic centurions from the centurial stones

along Hadrian’s Wall, three of the Antonine centurions in Scotland have them:

Sta(tilius?) Telesphorus, at Carriden,51 Antonius Aratus at Castlecary,52 and

Glicon at Croy Hill.53 (The latter might of course be an officer in an auxiliary

cohort.) It may be no more than coincidence, but if an explanation is required

one might propose that on his move from Britain to Judaea Sextus Julius

Severus may have taken not only a few officers from but whole units or detachments—

the possible transfer of the legion IX Hispana has already been mentioned.

Those units or detachments that later returned to Britain may have

picked up new officers in the east, who came to Britain with them. Of course,

Greek names do not always mean eastern origin. But for centurions in western

legions this seems plausible.

As for the theme of this paper, it must be admitted that there is no hard

evidence for men taken by Statius Priscus to Cappadocia. But there are a few

possibilities. First, there is the remarkable M. Valerius Maximianus, whose

career was made widely known by the statue-base in his honour found at

Diana Veteranorum in Numidia.

A further officer who might have been taken by Priscus from Britain to the

east is recorded by a statue-base from Aesernia:

Publius Septimius...

Eric Birley noted that “[t]he dating is evidently Hadrianic or later; but the fact

of his move from Britain to Cappadocia, for his second posting in the militia

prima, suggests to me the possibility that he was moved to the East by

M. Statius Priscus, to take part in the Parthian war.”76 Now that the origo of

Statius Priscus has been shown to be at Luceria, and that of his close family

at Teanum Sidicinum, it makes good sense if it was he who offered a further

appointment as prefect of a cohort to a man from Aesernia.

One may also note the career of C. (Gaius) Julius C.(Gai) f(ilius) Ani(ensis)

Seneca Licinianus, which has been assigned to the period “ca. 100–150”, so is

perhaps a little too early; but the dating was based solely on lettering style.77

His move from being tribune of VI Victrix in Britain to tribune of XV Apollinaris

in Cappadocia could be explained by his commander-in-chief having been

Statius Priscus.78

There are two more equestrian officers whose appointments in Cappadocia

may have been owed to Statius Priscus, both of them men whom he may have

met a few years before when serving as legate of Dacia superior. First, there is

C.(Gaius) Porcius C.(Gai) fil(ius) Quir(ina) Saturninus Junior, who served in

two tribunates, the first in Dacia, the second in Cappadocia.79 Then there is an

ignotus, whose inscription registers that he held two posts in Cappadocia, as

praef(ectus) coh(ortis) III Cyrenaicae and trib(unus) leg(ionis) XII Fulm(inatae).

He was a leading citizen of Sarmizegetusa, the great colonia founded by Trajan.80