ancientart: Roman bronze military diplomas. The first is mid-Imperial, Antonine, and dates to c
ancientart: Roman bronze military diplomas. The first is mid-Imperial, Antonine, and dates to ca. A.D. 149. One of four. These tablets record that in A.D. 149, the Emperor Antoninus Pius granted Roman citizenship and the right to legal marriage to discharged veterans of foreign birth who had served for twenty-five years in auxiliary units. Each veteran received a copy of the law inscribed on two bronze tablets fastened together with wires, which were officially sealed. This copy belonged to an infantryman named Dasmenus Azalus, clearly a man of Near Eastern origin. (x) The second is one of three fragments, mid-Imperial, Trajanic, dates to A.D. 113/14. These discharge papers were issued by the Emperor Trajan to sailors on a warship, a quadrireme, in the imperial fleet based in Misenum on the Bay of Naples. The ship may have formed part of the flotilla that escorted the emperor from Italy to the East for the Parthian War (A.D. 114–117). (x) Courtesy & currently located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Roman writing just makes me so happy. Look at it! Just look at it! I don’t even care that I can barely read it when it’s handwritten it’s just so pretty. -- source link
#archaeology#epigraphy#imperial#military