Depictions of the Late Republican centurions and their meaning for the study on the Roman army of the 1st B.C.

Michał Norbert Faszcza

Abstract


Modern scholars focused on the Republican Roman Army usually omit the problem of centurions. As a result they are the last category of the Republican commanders who is not comprehensively described in a separate study. According to the author numerous references preserved in the literary sources can be successfully completed by the visual sources in the form of bas-reliefs. Although to the time before the 1st century B.C. their number is relatively small, they give us some unique information which is hard to find in the ancient literature. All the known images of the Republican centurions refer to the 1st century B.C. which is associated with an increase of their military and socio-economic importance in this period. The bas-reliefs proved that some veterans had defined themselves through the prism of their role in legions. Interestingly, at the end of the Republic this phenomenon characterized only centurions, confirming the opinion of their elite status in the Roman army.

Keywords


Roman Army; Centurions; Reliefs; Late Roman Republic

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/rh.2015.40.11
Date of publication: 2016-04-27 12:13:14
Date of submission: 2016-04-25 11:14:31


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