Mansio

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Reconstruction of the Roman hostel in Colonia Ulpia Traiana

The mansio ( Latin for rest, stay, abode) was a resting place or a hostel in Roman antiquity .

term

The term comes from the verb manere ("to stay") and in the 1st century BC A stop / rest along a path. In the early imperial era , the term was transferred to the rest area, the lounge and the building.

Since one usually traveled from mansio to mansio in one day , the term also had the meaning “spatial and temporal distance”, “route” or “ day trip ”. Finally, rest and changing stations of the cursus publicus , which were to be found at regular intervals along a Roman via publica , have been used since the beginning of the 4th century. AD known as mansio or mutatio .

The term names both the rest house itself, as well as it is a collective term for the individual buildings of the station (rest house, road post, stables, bath, craft shops etc.). From the 1st to the 3rd century AD, other terms for the mansio appear in the sources : taberna , praetorium , deversorium or stabulum . It was not until the Itinerarium Burdigalense , which was created in AD 333 , that the mansio is often mentioned alongside mutatio (“changing horses”) and civitas .

The French word “maison” (house, home) and the Spanish word “mansión” ( villa ) emerged from “mansio” ; The word also found its way into the English language via Old French (“mansion”, “manse”).

Emergence

The mansio in the camp village of the Százhalombatta-Dunafüred (Matrica) fort , Hungary.

The establishment of road stations at regular intervals along the most important Roman traffic routes goes back to the reorganization of the cura viarum by Augustus in the year 20 BC. BC back. The first emperor had young people set up at regular intervals along the main roads of the empire, and later cars for couriers in order to be able to transfer information and messages between the provinces and Rome more quickly. This was the hour of birth of the cursus publicus .

The Romans ultimately followed the example of the Persian state post, which was published in the 5th century BC. Chr. By Herodotus described: On the Persian king road between Sardis and Susa σταθμοί were periodically total of 111 ( Stathmoi , it is also the Latin and modern term "station" derives), where men and horses were ready for quick message transport . In Roman times, horse changing stations ( mutationes ) were built approximately every fifteen kilometers and rest houses ( mansiones ) approximately every forty kilometers (= one day's stage) .

Structure and personnel

Mansiones consisted of various building complexes, as can be seen from a Severan inscription from the Thracian Pizos : In addition to a guard post with station soldiers ( milites stationarii ), there are rest houses ( praetoria ), baths ( balnea ) and tension services ( angaria ) for the state postal service.

The actual rest house is relatively easy to characterize on the basis of numerous excavation findings: A wide driveway leads into the courtyard of a U-shaped facility, which mostly consists of stables and parking spaces, as well as dining and guest rooms.

The head of a mansio was the manceps or the praepositus mansionis . He was mostly a retired officer or came from the circle of the local decurions , i.e. the political leadership of the next town. His service time was five years, in late antiquity it was a criminal offense for him to be away from the street station ( statio ) for more than thirty days .

Around 16-18 people worked in an average-sized station: the hippocomi and muliones looked after the around 40 draft and riding animals on average, which were available, subject to precise conditions, to travel to the next rest house. There were also z. B. carpentarii ( Wagner ) and other temporary workers.

Sentry

Guards were not found in every street station, but only at important junctions or customs borders. So far, they cannot be proven by archaeological, but only by epigraphic sources found in the vicinity of road stations.

In addition to the milites stationarii , beneficiarii were primarily on duty in the guards . Beneficiaries were non-commissioned officers from the governor's staff who can be verified in writing at street stations since the Vespasian period (69–79 AD). They served six months at a station before they were either assigned to another street post or confirmed for further service.

The older literature interpreted them primarily as the governor's gendarmerie and street police, but today they are also associated with financial (tax, customs) and judicial tasks. B. in the rest stations of the cursus publicus since the end of the 2nd century. AD often the annona militaris and the annona civica (annual taxes in kind) were collected.

Settlements

In rural areas of the provinces, mansiones often gave the impetus to the emergence of settlements that formed in the vicinity of these economically interesting sites. The rest stop itself, on the other hand, often seems to be on the edge of the inhabited area. This is particularly true in cities where driving on city streets with cars was often prohibited during the day. So z. B. in Rome through the Lex Iulia municipalis or in Aquae Sextiae (Aix en Provence).

The rest stations are therefore mostly near the city gates, such as B. in Pompeii at the Stabianer and Herculaner Tor or in Augusta Raurica ( Kaiseraugst near Basel ).

Others

Today the term mansio can still be found in the saying of the carol singers in southern Germany, who write the characters CMB with the year on the houses they visit. It means literally ' C hristus M ansionem B enedicat "(Latin for Christ bless this house ).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cicero, Att. 8, 15, 2; 9, 5, 1; fin. 3, 60.
  2. ↑ Pliny Nat. 6.96; 18, 194: pecorum mansione ; Suetonius, Tit. 10, 1; CIL 6, 2158 : mansiones saliorum Palatinorum
  3. ↑ Pliny Nat. 12, 64; Lactance mort. pers. 45: mansionibus geminatis .
  4. ↑ Pliny Nat. 12, 52; CIL 5, 2108 : mansiones L = 50 days. See Historia Augusta v. Alex. Sev. 48, 4.
  5. ↑ Cf. Digesta 50, 4, 18, 10
  6. ↑ Etymologie de maison in the etymological lexicon of the CNRTL , retrieved in March 2020.
  7. ↑ Entry mansión in the RAE dictionary, accessed March 2020.
  8. ↑ Entry mansion in the online edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary , accessed March 2020.
  9. ↑ Suetonius Aug. 49, 3.
  10. ↑ Herodotus 5, 52ff.
  11. ^ Inscriptiones graecae in Bulgaria repertae III, 2, 1964, no.1690.
  12. ↑ Codex Theodosianus 8, 5, 36; 8, 5, 42.
  13. ^ Prokop hist. Arc. 30 p. 85C.
  14. ↑ Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Vol. 19 (2001) 238 sv mansio (R. Wolters).
  15. ↑ Alfred von Domaszewski, WDZ 21, 1902, 158-211.
  16. ↑ J. Ott, Hist. Individual publications 92 (1995) 113ff.
  17. ↑ CIL 1, 593 , lines 56ff.
  18. ↑ CIL 12, 2462