After the Eagle: Roman Veterans and Life After the Legions
When we picture a Roman legionary, we usually imagine him somewhere in the middle of his military career. He is marching beneath the eagle, standing watch on a frontier, building a fort, or fighting in battle. Far less attention is given to what happened when that career finally ended. Yet for a Roman soldier who survived decades of service, retirement was one of the most important moments of his life. A veteran might leave the army with money, land, social standing, or new legal rights. Some settled near the forts where they had served. Others returned home or joined communities populated by former soldiers. For auxiliary troops, retirement could even mean becoming a Roman citizen. The Roman veteran was therefore more than simply an old soldier. Veterans became landowners, businessmen, husbands, fathers, local officials, and members of communities scattered across the empire. In many places, they helped carry Roman customs and culture far beyond the walls of the forts where they once served.
Earning Your Retirement
Retirement from the Roman army required patience. During the Late Republic there was no guaranteed retirement package for legionaries. Commanders sometimes rewarded their soldiers with land or money, but these rewards depended heavily upon the commander and political circumstances. This could create powerful personal relationships between generals and their soldiers. A legionary might understandably feel considerable loyalty toward the man promising him a farm when his fighting days were over. Augustus gradually changed that system as he transformed Rome's armies into a permanent professional force. By AD 5, legionaries were expected to serve twenty years before receiving their regular discharge reward. In practice, however, service could last longer. Some soldiers remained attached to their units as veterans under a special standard, meaning a man could spend roughly twenty five years associated with the army before truly leaving military life behind. The frustration this caused can be seen in one of our most revealing ancient accounts of Roman military life. When Augustus died in AD 14, troops stationed in Pannonia and along the Rhine mutinied. According to Tacitus, soldiers complained that men were growing old in the army, sometimes enduring thirty or forty campaigns. Even when their normal service supposedly ended, some were retained under the standards instead of being allowed to go home. They demanded a firm limit on military service and a proper cash payment when they were discharged. Their complaints remind us that Roman military service was not simply an adventurous career. For the ordinary soldier, retirement was something he had spent much of his adult life trying to reach.
A Roman Military Pension
Augustus understood that thousands of heavily armed veterans expecting compensation could become a serious political problem. In AD 5, the retirement reward for a legionary was established at 12,000 sesterces after twenty years of service. The Praetorian Guard, which protected the emperor and served primarily around Rome, received considerably more: 20,000 sesterces after sixteen years. Cassius Dio specifically records these amounts when describing Augustus's military reforms. The following year Augustus created the aerarium militare, or military treasury. Augustus himself states in his Res Gestae that he contributed 170 million sesterces of his own fortune to establish the fund. Its purpose was to provide retirement payments for soldiers who had completed twenty or more years of service. Suetonius tells us that Augustus established fixed lengths of service and rewards because he did not want discharged soldiers, suffering from age or poverty, to become a source of political unrest. This was an important change. Retirement was becoming part of the military system rather than simply a favor owed by a successful general.
Money or a Farm?
Land remained closely associated with Roman veterans. During the civil wars of the Late Republic, enormous numbers of soldiers had to be rewarded. Veteran settlements could cause serious problems because land sometimes had to be confiscated from existing communities to provide farms for discharged troops. Augustus moved increasingly toward purchasing land and providing cash payments instead. In his own account, he boasts about the enormous sums he spent settling his soldiers. Scholarly studies of veteran settlement show that between 30 and 2 BC Augustus spent more than a billion sesterces buying land and providing rewards for veterans. Veteran colonies nevertheless remained an important part of the Roman world. Some communities were deliberately populated or reinforced with former soldiers. This provided veterans with somewhere to settle while also creating communities filled with men who possessed Roman citizenship, military experience, and strong connections to the Roman state. Veteran settlement continued well into the imperial period. Nero, for example, settled veterans at several Italian towns, while Vespasian established veterans in communities following the civil wars of AD 69. But we should be careful about imagining every legionary finishing his enlistment, receiving a picturesque farm, and quietly becoming a farmer. Roman retirement was much more varied than that.
Where Did the Veterans Go?
Many veterans apparently stayed relatively close to where they had served. That makes sense. After twenty or twenty five years, a soldier might have spent more time in his province of service than in the community where he was born. He could have friends there, business connections, and relationships with local people. The settlements surrounding Roman forts offered taverns, workshops, merchants, craftsmen, and families whose lives were closely connected with the military. Evidence from military diplomas suggests that auxiliary veterans often retired in the provinces where they had served. This is especially interesting for Roman Britain. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers served there over the centuries, yet surprisingly few veterans can be identified with certainty from surviving inscriptions. This does not mean that veterans disappeared. Rather, it demonstrates one of the problems archaeologists face when trying to follow ordinary people after they leave military service. Once a soldier removed his military equipment and became a civilian farmer, craftsman, merchant, or landowner, he could become much harder to recognize archaeologically. Some veterans probably lived only a short walk from the forts where they had once answered the morning roll call.
The Auxiliary's Greatest Reward
Retirement could be even more significant for an auxiliary soldier. Unlike legionaries, who normally had to be Roman citizens before joining a legion, many auxiliary soldiers entered military service without Roman citizenship. After twenty five or more years of service, qualifying auxiliary soldiers could receive citizenship and legal privileges from the emperor. These grants are preserved on remarkable objects known today as Roman military diplomas. A diploma consisted of bronze tablets containing an official copy of the imperial grant. Surviving examples record the soldier's name, unit, emperor, date, and privileges granted. They provide some of our strongest evidence for the lives of ordinary Roman soldiers. One diploma dated to AD 122 records an auxiliary soldier named Gemellus receiving Roman citizenship after twenty five years of service. Another surviving diploma from AD 149 records citizenship and marriage rights being granted to discharged auxiliary veterans. The details of these grants changed over time, particularly regarding the status of wives and children, so it is misleading to imagine one unchanging set of privileges throughout the entire imperial period. But the basic importance of the system is clear. Military service could transform the legal status of an auxiliary veteran and his descendants. A man could enter the army as a provincial non citizen and leave decades later as a Roman citizen.
From Soldier to Civilian
Retirement must also have involved an enormous personal adjustment. For decades the army had controlled much of a soldier's existence. His unit determined where he lived, when he marched, when he stood guard, and where he might be sent next. His closest companions may have been men with whom he had served for years. Then, one day, that life ended. Some veterans became farmers or entered business. Others remained involved with their former military communities. Veterans could marry, raise families, own property, participate in civic life, and sometimes hold positions of local importance. Their military background could give them a degree of status, but scholars caution against assuming that every veteran automatically became a wealthy or powerful member of society. Their experiences differed considerably depending upon location, wealth, rank, and personal circumstances. In other words, there was no single Roman retirement story.
The Soldier After the Soldier
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Roman veterans is how easily we can forget about them. An army does not simply vanish when soldiers finish their enlistments. Those men return to society carrying decades of experiences with them. Across the Roman Empire, former soldiers settled in communities, raised families, spent their retirement money, purchased property, practiced trades, and built new lives. Some had marched thousands of miles. Some had fought in wars. Some had watched friends die. An auxiliary veteran might leave the army possessing a citizenship his father never had. A legionary might finish his service with enough money to begin an entirely different life. For the fortunate soldier who survived long enough to receive an honorable discharge, laying down his shield was not the end of his story. It was the beginning of another one.
Legio XIIII, Protinus!
