Frumentarius
A frumentarius (pl. Frumentarii ) was originally a legionnaire in the Roman army who was responsible for the procurement of food. From the imperial era onwards , frumentarii are officials who were recruited from a legion for special police tasks. The activities of a frumentarius ranged from informing people to carrying out murder orders . The service can best be compared to a secret police . A frumentarius continued to play the role of his legion. In the Roman provinces the headquarters of the frumentarii was in the governor's palace . Frumentarii also existed in Rome itself. Here they formed a numerus and, above all, performed messenger services. The headquarters of this mounted unit was in the castra peregrina .
In late antiquity , the frumentarii were replaced by the agentes in rebus .
A frumentarius is mentioned in inscriptions, for example, on the Mainz Dativius-Victor arch from the 3rd century. The grave inscription CIL 3, 2063 describes a frumentarius who was on the move for 40 years.
See also
literature
- Manfred Clauss : Investigations on the principales of the Roman army from Augustus to Diocletian. Cornicularii, speculatores, frumentarii . Bochum, Ruhr University, Diss., 1973.
- Manfred Clauss: Frumentarius Augusti . In: Epigraphica 42 (1980), pp. 131-134.
- Der neue Pauly , Vol. 4 (1998), p. 685.
