Birley Eric. The Roman Army: Papers 1929-1986

Amsterdam, J. C. Gieben Publisher, 1988. — 457 p. — ISBN 9050630073 9789050630078.
For more than 50 years, the epicentre of Roman army studies in Britain has been the Department of Archaeology at the University of Durham, where Eric Birley presided as professor from 1956 to 1971. During this time he assembled a database of detailed information on the army and its institutions, as well as inspiring generations of students and post-graduates to continue and enlarge his researches. More than 300 papers have flowed from his pen over the years, mainly on military matters or on Hadrian's Wall (for a bibliography covering the years to 1974, see Britannia 6 [1975], xi-xxviii). At the age of 83 he is still actively publishing from his base at Carvoran.
The present volume collects 45 papers of lasting value and influence. Taken together they form a good cross-section of his work and methods. The author himself contributes a brief preface, in inimitable style. Some papers have proved of fundamental importance in laying the ground-rules for subsequent researchers. Pride of place must go to those on 'The Epigraphy of the Roman Army' (1952), 'Senators in the Emperors' Service' (1954), and 'The Equestrian Officers of the Roman Army' (1949). There are important papers too on the centurionate, on the Notitia Dignitatum, and on those irritating and elusive authors, Hyginus and Vegetius. Others deal with more minute matters, or even with single inscriptions, but always in
a manner that sets the material clearly in a wider context of imperial history and administration. Throughout, one is struck by the close attention to detail, and the meticulous cross-referencing which lies behind each contribution, however short. Many such papers deal with inscriptions from Britain, and illustrate the history of the northern frontiers. Here it is useful to instance the paper on ' Prefects at Carrawburgh and their Altars', which includes a discussion on the prefect Aulus Cluentius Habitus, prefect of the cohors I Baetasiorum, in late Severan times, and his real (or imagined?) links with the unsavoury client of the same name, defended by Cicero over 250 years earlier. Sometimes nuggets of useful discussion are hidden in appendices to other papers, for example, on the colony at Camulodunum, Anc. Soc. 13/14 (1982-3), 282-3; here pp. 275-6. B. has contributed much to our knowledge of the make-up and movements of individual legions and auxiliary regiments; witness his very first published paper, 'A Note on the Title Gemina', in JRS 18 (1928), 56-60, and those two crucial contributions on 'Alae and cohortes milliariae' and 'Alae Named after their Commanders'. Several papers open up links between the army in Britain and those of continental provinces. It is out of place here to comment on papers long published; but among recent publications of special interest to those concerned with.regimental histories of the
individual legions must be that on 'The Flavian colonia at Scupi' (ZPE 64 [1986], 209-16), a foundation which B. authoritatively redates from Domitianic times to the reign of Vespasian, so accounting for the perhaps surprising presence among the colonists of veterans (one each) of the legions IIII Macedonica and V Alaudae. The former certainly disappeared from view after espousing Vitellius' cause in A.D. 69; the latter's survival after the same debacle is evidenced only by the epitaph from Scupi. It is particularly valuable to have reprinted here a long paper on 'The Religion
of the Roman Army', which the author modestly describes merely as an update of a monograph by von Domaszewski published in 1895, and which might have lain unnoticed in one of the innumerable volumes of ANRW. B. indeed emphasises the long tradition of military studies begun by Mommsen and carried on by von Domaszewski, Ritterling and others; he himself stands now in that tradition: et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt (Lucr. 2.79).