[William P]

just wondering, i remember reading somewhere, cant remember WHERE that occasionally the romans would recruit legionaires from people living, say in spain or britain, or egypt. or north africa, and, to keep them under control, post them in faraway provinces from their home regions.

is there much evidence of this happening?

[Dan Howard]

Never whole legions - can't have them revolting. There'd be a few in each legion and they would be spread out all over the empire.

[William P]

[Blaz Berlec]

Since there were no Italy before 19th century all legions were made of non Italians.

[William P]

[Matthew Amt]

Avete!

The Romans referred to the peninsula they lived on as "Italia", and the Latins and other tribal peoples around them were Italians. At first, Roman citizenship was required to serve in Rome's legions. However, even fairly early in the Republic, these legions were generally supplemented with legions or "alae" (wings) of allied people known as socii. By the late Republic, it was common to hire or enlist non-Roman troops to assist the legions, especially cavalry and missile troops. These could be provincials, or from entirely outside the Empire, and would include Gauls, Spaniards, Numidians, Libyans, Syrians, Armenians, Greeks, Balearic Islanders, etc.

Caesar was apparently the first to enlist an entire legion of non-Romans, his Gallic legion (probably later known as Legio V Alaudae). During the Civil Wars which followed his death, several of the main contenders raised legions of non-citizens, especially in the Eastern provinces. Once Octavian took control, he weeded out most of those non-citizens (as well as potentially disloyal troops). From that point, non-citizens were relegated to the auxiliaries, regular professional trained troops organized in cohorts (c. 480 men) or alae (c. 500 cavalry). These men were not citizens, but considered themselves to be Roman soldiers, and had the opportunity to win citizenship upon retirement, or even before through some particular act of valor.

Note that by this time, citizenship was spreading through the provinces, awarded by emperors for various services as well as with military duty. St. Paul was a Roman citizen because his father made tents for the army, for instance. So there was a growing pool of Roman citizens who were not of Italian descent, and had mostly never even been to Rome or Italy. They were Gauls or Asians or Africans by birth and custom, but held the status of citizenship. This meant that they were eligible to join the legions if they wanted to, and many did. By the mid-first century AD, nearly half of all legionaries were non-Italians. The ratio seems to have been a little lower in the west, but higher in the East, where it was common to grant citizenship to a man upon his joining a legion. By Hadrian's reign, Italians made up only about 5 percent of all legionaries.

So yes, you'd see men of all ethnicities in the ranks! Obviously this was more pronounced even from the start in the auxiliaries, recruited from all over the world. At first they were typically based in or near their homelands, but after the Batavian revolt around 70 AD, in which the core of the rebel forces were composed of trained auxiliaries, the Romans took to basing troops away from their homes. So along Hadrian's wall we find archers from Syria, and bargemen from the Euphrates River. Since auxiliaries formed half the army, the vast majority of men fighting for the Roman army were not actually "Romans" in an ethnic sense, but that clearly did not matter to them. The majority were fully loyal to Rome, as well, serving with competence and enthusiasm, eager for the rewards of full citizenship.

Just what the ethnic mix might have been in any particular unit is often difficult to say. It does seem that you could find African legionaries serving right alongside Italians and Gauls in Britain (though mostly those were non-Negro north Africans, as far as I know). Obviously there would have been ethnic bigotry in varying degrees, but I'm sure that common inter-tribal hatred would have made that seem unremarkable.

Does that answer some of the questions, at least? Valete,

Matthew

[Martin Whalen]

We're talking Northern Africa back then, not now.

I highly, highly doubt there were many sub-saharan Africans there at this time. The people living there would have been similar to today's Lebanese.

I'm sure there were plenty of non-Romans in the army toward the end; that's one of side effects of a dying civilization, let outsiders do your fighting. I'm looking at you Byzantines.

[David Wilson]

Especially after Caracalla's extension of universal citizenship. Very much an increasing amount of non-Italians (non-Latins, perhaps?) in the legions thereafter.

[William P]

[Bruno Giordan]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

And then there were not-quite-Roman legions raised by allied potentates, like the XXII Deiotariana....

[Matthew Amt]

[Jean Thibodeau]

Just a thought: Would sending recruited Legionnaires to other regions than their own not only be out of fear of revolt but also so that they wouldn't be put into the position of having to fight against their own relatives in case of war or even just keeping the peace on the borders ?
( Police actions against minor raids or brigands ? )

Advantages versus disadvantages of using troops in their own area:

A) Advantage: In defence from other threats than their own people they would be motivated to protect their own.
B) Disadvantage: If needed to repress or punish in their own region they might revolt or at the least be less motivated.

C) Advantage: They know the local culture and are at less a risk of causing problems by breaking some local customs.
D) Disadvantage: If they do kill some locals due to their duties it might motivate revenge and vendettas among different families or tribes and complicate the local politics.

One other factor is the " Join the Roman Army " and see the World where local recruits would rather go elsewhere for adventure or build a new life elsewhere for a variety of reasons. ( Might be part of the Roman Army's recruitment pitch. ).

From Matthew above, I agree that it wouldn't be an all or nothing thing:

[Paul Hansen]

One slightly related question: many of the names we know from Roman units have names from various ethnic groups. for instance in the Notitia Dignitatum: http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia..._doc1.html

But were these units actually made up (for a significant portion) from these ethnic groups?

[Matthew Amt]

[Jean Thibodeau]

Matthew enjoying the exchange of ideas and information immensely. ( And the humour. ).

[William P]

[Matthew Amt]

[Andrew W]

[Matthew Amt]

On the other hand, we have lengthy descriptions of Batavian auxiliaries, discussing the homeland of their people, the Batavii, in what is now the Netherlands. It is very clear that these units were recruited from Batavians originally, and may very well have gotten replacements from that tribe for quite a while. (The tribe was exempt from monetary tribute as long as they kept supplying troops to the army!) Not all auxiliary unit names are tribal, but enough are that we can safely assume those units were founded in the areas they are named for. There are also cohorts of Italians, Roman citizens, notably one stationed in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate.

But yeah, after 20 or 30 years based in Syria or Britain, how many men in Cohors VI Tracum would actually be Thracians? Don't know!

Matthew