Invisible Romans (37 page)

To Jupiter Optimus Maximus for the health and safety of Emperor Hadrian. The veterans and Roman citizens settled in the
canabae
of the Fifth Macedonian Legion dedicated this when Gaius Valerius Pudens, veteran of the Fifth Macedonian Legion, and Marcus Ulpius Leontius were chief magistrates of the inhabitants of the
canabae,
and Tuccius Aelianus was aedile. (
CIL
3.6166 =
ILS
2474, Iglita, Romania)

As a whole, veterans were well treated. At the point of discharge they collected not only their savings from years of service, but also the monetary bonus awarded to all veterans; more money came in if their petty officers’ association paid out. A high-ranking common soldier such as a centurion would walk away with enough capital to enter the elite of a town and qualify for membership in the local town council and for holding the highest local magistracies. Two examples suffice. A centurion returned to his hometown in Macedonia and held the highest office there:

In honor of Publius Mucius, son of Quintus, of the Voltinian voting unit. He was centurion of the Sixth Armored Legion, then a chief magistrate of Philippi. Gaius Mucius Scaeva, son of Gaius, set up this monument. He did this in accordance with the will of Gaius Mucius Saeva, son of Quintus, of the Fabian voting unit. (
AE
2004.1335, Krenides, Greece)

Another returned to his hometown in Spain after service:

Laeta, his daughter, set this up to honor Gaius Julius Scaena, son of Lucius, of the Sergian voting district. He was a commander of cavalry and legionary head centurion in the Fourth Legion, then subsequently a chief magistrate [of Tucci]. (
CIL
2.1681
⁵
, Martos, Spain)

A ranker would have less money, of course, but still by the standards of the subelite culture, he would be well off. A veteran soldier (not, apparently, a centurion or petty officer) from Faventia in the Po Valley held a chief magistracy in the North African town where he settled:

Quintus Annaeus, son of Quintus, of the Pollian voting district, a native of Faventium [Italy], lies here, dead at age 53 having lived honorably. He was a soldier in the Fifth Legion, decorated twice, then a chief magistrate of Thuburnica [North Africa]. Quintus Annaeus Scapula supervised this. Hail to you, too [passerby]! (
CIL
8.10605 =
ILS
2249, Sidi Ali Ben Kassem, Algeria)

And just above I have given an example of a ranker who rose to be a magistrate of the
canabae
next to his former legionary camp.

Other veterans had enough money to set themselves up in business. Here, a man became a pottery merchant:

To the Underworld Spirits and Eternal Memory of Vitalinius Felix, veteran of the First Minervan Legion, a most wise and honest businessman from Lyon who dealt in ceramic goods. He lived 59 years, 5 months, and 10 days. He was born on a Tuesday, was sworn as a soldier a Tuesday, became a veteran on a Tuesday, and died a Tuesday too. Vitalinius Felicissimus, his son, and Iulia Nice, his wife, set this up and dedicated it. (
CIL
13.1906 =
ILS
7531, Lyon, France)

And Gentilius Victor dealt in swords, appropriately enough:

Dedicated to the Health and Safety of Emperor Commodus and the Successful Return of the Twenty-second Legion Primigenia Loyal and Faithful. Gaius Gentilius Victor, veteran discharged honorably from the Twenty-second Legion Primigenia Loyal and Faithful, sword dealer, ordered in his will that this monument be set up at a cost of 2000 denarii. (
CIL
13.6677 =
ILS
2472, Mainz)

Naturally some soldiers threw away their resources on bad investments or on wild women and drink. Perhaps Titus Cissonius was one:

I am Titus Cissonius, son of Quintus, of the Sergian voting district, a veteran of the Fifth Gallic Legion. While I lived I drank freely. You all drink who still live! Publius Cissonius, son of Quintus, Sergian district, his brother, set this up. (
CIL
3.293/6825 =
ILS
2238, Yalvaç)

But many others clearly prospered as veterans.

A variety of special privileges and exemptions was added to their financial advantage. A document from the time of Octavian (
c.
32/31
BC
) states that ‘… [veterans] are to be exempt [from taxation].’ Another from the emperor Domitian states that they are ‘… free and exempt from all public taxes and toll dues.’ They were also exempt from charges associated with shipbuilding and from being required to collect taxes due the government. They were not, however, exempt from all taxes. They had to pay the inheritance tax and the property tax, and special assessments, for example, for road repair.

Not only did veterans not pay important taxes, they were also exempt from various obligations to perform service. The same documents cited above affirm this: veterans are ‘… excused from the performance of compulsory public services’ and are ‘… not to be appointed against their will to other magistracies or as ambassador or superintendent or tax farmer’ (Octavian) and ‘. [veterans] should be free and immune with total exemptions’ (Domitian). Should a veteran become entangled with the law, his status also stood him in good stead. In the most extreme cases, he, like town magistrates and other important local persons, was exempt from the degrading forms of capital punishment, and from being condemned to the mines (a virtual death sentence).

As veterans have preferential treatment in other things, so too with regard to their crimes:

They should not suffer punishments as others do … Therefore they are not to be condemned to the mines nor other state labor camps, nor to be thrown to the beasts, nor to be beaten to death with clubs. (Arrius Menander,
On Military Matters
3 =
Digest
49.18.1)

When these immunities conflicted with obligations they might legally be bound to perform, or protections they might have in view of their position in a civil post, Ulpian says that the veteran’s immunities remain, even if he becomes a councilor:

Anyone given an honorable discharge is granted immunity from required duties and taxes even in a city in which he is resident, nor does he lose this immunity if he voluntarily takes on a duty or tax burden (Ulpian,
Opinions
3 =
Digest
49.18.2)

With all these privileges and exemptions, it is small wonder that the benefits of veteran status would have been before the eyes of the common soldier as he went through his years of service. Far from being unceremoniously discarded or fobbed off with a small bonus, the discharged Roman soldier could enter into a new phase with reasonable assurance that he would have a decent life in whatever town he wished to settle in.

Conclusion

There is no diary of a common soldier, nor even a fictionalized account of his mind world. But by piecing together material from a wide range of sources, and in particular by using the soldiers’ voices left in stone on grave markers and monuments, it is possible to catch a glimpse of their fears, hopes, and dreams. In a social world that was both quite inflexible and often economically insecure, being a soldier was a good option for a healthy young man, especially if the possibilities at home were not promising. He had to sign away some important elements of civilian freedom and serve his military superiors unquestioningly; there was the disruption of living far from where he had spent his youth; but the pay was regular and the basic needs of life – housing, decent food, comradeship – were all assured in a way very difficult to find in civilian life. A skill could be learned or honed; literacy was a possibility. Should he get into trouble outside the camp, he had an advantage in the civilian legal system, such a peril to ordinary civilians. He was treated sometimes with fear, sometimes with respect, but always he had the feeling he was a special person in society. The army had to become a soldier’s family, but even here there were leniencies that allowed a wife and children even if officially prohibited, and he was free of his father’s power, and free to write his own will. Service was long, and there was no assurance that war, disease, or accident would not end life before he could collect on the benefits of veteran status. But the bet was in general a good one, and many men took it.

7
SEX FOR SALE: PROSTITUTES

‘You with the roses, rosy is your charm; but what do you sell, yourself or the roses, or both?’

WHETHER SLAVE OR FREE
, an invisible’s abilities often determined their way in life. Bodily strength in construction, digging, or plowing carried a young man whether working for himself or as someone’s slave. An older man might use a skill – cobbling, or blacksmithing, or vine tending – in his own interest or his owner’s. A grown woman might keep house and raise a family, help out in a shop, or do cottage work, again either freely or as someone’s slave. A child or young woman might look forward to marriage – or to sexual exploitation for someone’s profit. For like a young man using his physical strength to meet consumers’ needs for hard work, a woman’s body could be used for consumers’ demands for sex. The life was often involuntary, dangerous, and degrading. But slavery and poverty alike demanded something productive from a young woman. Her ability to provide sex meshed with the lustful demands of men in a culture that jealously guarded the chastity of married women. This situation created a profitable business that many slave owners, as well as free females – and their families – could not neglect.

Although I refer here to women, it needs to be noted that there is explicit testimony in ancient sources that male whores did exist,
catering, presumably, both to male and female clients; for example, the legal authority Paulus notes that a male prostitute can be killed by a husband if found having sex with his wife (
Sententiae
2.26.4). There are, however, no special notices, nor any norms or laws, that apply to males only, or to males in a different way from females. In an effort to streamline the narrative, I have therefore not treated male prostitutes as a separate category. It is, however, important to recognize that they did exist and plied their trade as the women did.

There must be no romanticizing the life of a prostitute. For every woman who chose that life, there were many others forced into it. Slaves, in particular, were helpless and exploited. And this included children, male and female. Although masters could restrict future prostitution of a slave by a clause in a contract for sale, there is no reason to suppose they did this very often. In fact, there is no reason to suppose masters would have anything but maximum profit in mind when it came to prostituting slaves, some of whom were bought specifically for that purpose. Children would have been particularly vulnerable to such exploitation. Free women, too, must frequently have been in desperate situations, with poverty biting at their heels and perhaps family pressure to bring in a small income. While a slave owner might step in to prevent the worst sort of gang rapes, since his property would be damaged, free women had not even that weak protection, unless a pimp could intervene. Physical abuse by customers surely was common; excessive sex must have led to vaginal and anal injury, and to urinary tract infections. It was a hard if not desperate life. It is necessary to always remember this when thinking about the mind world and options of prostitutes, slave and free.

I am concerned here only with women who become ordinary prostitutes, and with their customers. Therefore I do not treat two other types of prostitutes, those purportedly engaged in temple work, and ‘high class’ women who served the wealthy. Despite a few references that seem to indicate the existence of sacred, temple prostitution in the Romano-Grecian world, a recent very careful and encompassing study has shown conclusively that it existed neither at Corinth (the prime candidate) nor any place else. Therefore sacred prostitutes do not figure in the lives of ordinary people, or of anyone else. On the other hand, high-class prostitutes were a significant presence. The elite erudite Suetonius
wrote a book,
Lives of Famous Prostitutes,
which is regrettably lost. He and other writers were fascinated with these courtesans, mostly because of the titillating details of sexual excess among a class that supposedly held morals in high regard – the combination of outright debauchery, hypocrisy, and, often, court intrigue was irresistible. So Suetonius, for example, has the emperor Gaius (Caligula) setting up a whorehouse in his palace:

And lest any type of plunder go untried, in his palace he set up a number of small rooms just like in a brothel and decorated them sumptuously. He had married women and freeborn stand in the cells, again just like in a brothel. Then he sent heralds around to the markets and places of public business to invite young and old to indulge their lusts. He had money available to offer at interest to those who came – and men at the ready who openly wrote down their names, as contributing to Caesar’s income. (
Life of Gaius
41)

Suetonius and Tacitus both luridly tell of imperial women engaged in something like prostitution, but their very emphasis on this highlights how uncommon it was. On a more realistic level, courtesans did exist and served elite males. The plot of Plautus’
Comedy of Asses,
for example, revolves around a wealthy person seeking to contract for the services of a virgin courtesan, and Lucian’s
Dialogues of the Courtesans
imagines the life of such high-class prostitutes. Although upon examination few actual names appear in the historical record, it is safe to assume that such courtesans could influence events; they often became long-term accouterments as concubines. And, of course, elites would on occasion use ordinary prostitutes, as the emperors Caligula, Nero, and others were alleged to have done. But the combination of access to one’s own slaves and the resources to keep a woman as a concubine mostly took care of any need to resort to common prostitutes.