Legionäre, Frauen, Militärfamilien. Untersuchungen zur Bevölkerungsstruktur und Bevölkerungsentwicklung in den Grenzprovinzen des Imperium Romanum

Abstract

The movements of troops caused by the conquest of the Germanic provinces and deployment resulted in manifold developments. Professionally necessary or socially and economically motivated immigration of foreigners, of the regiments and administration officials who came with their civilian attachments, i.e. families, relatives and slaves, made the frontier regions into "countries of immigration". Therefore the troops and their “para-civilian” followers were catalyzers of demographic changes, factors for the development of specific population structures and of a demographic re-forming of the frontier provinces. The re-opened discussion on the origin of the legionaries in the frontier provinces and the examination of the epigraphic material on the one hand confirms the results of already existing analyses, and on the other hand demonstrates that dogmatic solutions and generalising models for recruitment are incorrect. This is especially the case for the begin of local recruitment, for the pattern of recruitment if several regiments were present in one province, for individual “regards" to the demand of recruits of adjacent military provinces; individual regiments show indeed specific pattern of recruitment. The social groups associated with the army, the soldier’s families, are of special importance. Despite the prohibition of marriage for soldiers in service which Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums 53 · 2006 343 existed from Augustan times onwards until its suspension under Septimius Severus, there were soldier’s families and cohabitations since the beginning of the Roman Principate in the frontier areas. A large part of wives came from the local neighbourhood of the encampment or from the home provinces of the soldiers or from provinces where the soldiers had been stationed before. A close association exists between recruitment, inner migration and mobility of parts of the civilian population. the epigraphic sources of soldier’s families reflect status and self-conception of the owners and enable us a view in general social values and collective norms. They demonstrate the complex and close relationship between army and civil society, a network of connections and dependences. Soldier’s families were a part of the society which influenced the processes of transformation in the “military provinces” essentially.