Signaculum

The signaculum ( diminutive of the Latin signum , "sign") refers to ancient objects that were used to identify an object or a person. A special form of the signacula was used in the Roman legions as a form of soldier identification tags .

Military importance

Soldiers received in its housing in the Roman army after patterning ( probatio and registration in the personal files of a military administration) signaculum . It was a lead seal that the recruit had to wear on a strap or string around his neck. From this point on he was referred to as signatus (marked). Later a military oath ( sacramentum militare ) followed, by which the admission into the Legion was concluded. With the signaculum as an identification tag , a legionnaire could always identify himself and could be identified even after his death on the battlefield, even in the case of mutilation.

In the Acta Maximiliani , a martyr's account of the death of Maximilianus of Numidia in 295, the significance of the signaculum as a sign of membership in the army becomes clear. It describes how the Christian Maximilianus is to be accepted into the Roman army and how his personal file is created for it, but he refuses this because the military service contradicts his religious convictions. He executes:

“Non accipio signaculum saeculi; et si signaveris, rumpo illud, quia nihil valet. Ego Christianus sum, non licet mihi plumbum collo portare, post signum salutare Domini mei Jesu Christi ... "

“I do not accept the signaculum ; if it is given to me anyway, i will break it because it means nothing. I am a Christian, I am not allowed to wear the lead around my neck after receiving the mark of my Lord Jesus Christ ”

- Acta Maximiliani II

In late antiquity , service in the army increasingly became a compulsion that the recruits did not comply with voluntarily; the obligation to serve in the army was now inherited. Therefore, another method of marking was used, namely the tattoo , which could not be easily undone by the person concerned. The military writer Flavius Vegetius Renatus describes this practice in his Epitoma rei militaris , where he refers to the tattooed person as a signatus , so in his choice of words he goes back to the old practice of handing over the signaculum.

"Sed non statim punctis signorum inscribendus est tiro delectus verum ante exercitio pertemptandus, ut utrum vere tanto operi aptus sit possit agnosci. [...] Signatis itaque tironibus per cotidiana exercitia armorum est demonstranda doctrina. "

"The recruit should not be tattooed with the pin-pricks of the official mark as soon as he has been selected, but first be thoroughly tested in exercises so that it may be established whether he is truly fitted for so much effort. [...] So once the recruits have been tattooed the science of arms should be shown them in daily training. "

- Vegetius : Epitoma rei militaris I, 8

Roy W. Davies therefore assumes that tattooing began at the latest with the beginning of late antiquity; He describes the report from the Acta Maximiliani as an individual case in which the older method was still used. In addition, he transfers the process of admission into the army, as Vegetius describes him, completely to the earlier practice of the imperial era, so he assumes that a Roman soldier generally only became a signatus after at least four months of basic training . Davies was contradicted by Konrad Stauner especially with regard to this transfer. This indicates that the award of the signaculum in the Acta Maximiliani will be carried out together with the recording of the recruit's personal details , but of course this must have taken place before the aptitude tests. In addition, Maximilianus, who refused to carry weapons, would hardly have participated in four months of military training and then protested vehemently when he was accepted into the army.

J. de Mayol de Lupé believes that the Acta Maximiliani and the Vegetius passage can be reconciled, at least for late antique practice. According to him, the first time they reported to the military administration (even in the late Roman Empire), the recruits received a signaculum that could be broken again if the person concerned turned out to be unsuitable for military service. After successful aptitude tests, the tattoo was finally made for permanent identification.

literature

Konrad Stauner: The official written system of the Roman army from Augustus to Gallienus (27 BC – 268 AD). An examination of the structure, function and importance of the official military administrative documentation and its writers. Dr. Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-7749-3270-0 , p. 37 f.

Individual evidence

^ Roy W. Davies: Joining the Roman Army. In: Bonner Jahrbücher . Volume 169, 1969, pp. 208-232, here pp. 217 f.
↑ For the admission procedure as a whole, see Yann Le Bohec : The Roman Army From Augustus to Constantine the Elder Size Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-515-06300-5 , p. 80.
↑ Konrad Stauner: The official written system of the Roman army from Augustus to Gallienus (27 BC – 268 AD). An examination of the structure, function and importance of the official military administrative documentation and its writers. Dr. Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-7749-3270-0 , p. 37 with note 90.
↑ Vegetius: Epitoma Rei Militaris , ed. by MD Reeve ( Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis ). Claredon Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-926464-3 , p. 12.
↑ Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science , trans. by NP Milner (= Translated Texts for Historians. Volume 16). 2nd edition, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 1996, ISBN 0-85323-910-X , p. 9.
^ Roy W. Davies: Service in the Roman Army. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1989, ISBN 0-85224-495-9 , p. 240, note 63.
^ Roy W. Davies: Service in the Roman Army. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1989, ISBN 0-85224-495-9 , p. 17.
↑ Konrad Stauner: The official written system of the Roman army from Augustus to Gallienus (27 BC – 268 AD). An examination of the structure, function and importance of the official military administrative documentation and its writers. Dr. Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-7749-3270-0 , p. 37 f., Note 90.
↑ J. de Mayol de Lupé: Les Actes des Martyrs comme source de renseignements pour le langage et les usages des IIe et IIIe siècles. In: Revue des Études Latines. Year 17, 1939, pp. 90-104, here p. 102.

[1] Roy W. Davies: Joining the Roman Army. In: Bonner Jahrbücher . Volume 169, 1969, pp. 208-232, here pp. 217 f.

[2] For the admission procedure as a whole, see Yann Le Bohec : The Roman Army From Augustus to Constantine the Elder Size Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-515-06300-5 , p. 80.

[3] Konrad Stauner: The official written system of the Roman army from Augustus to Gallienus (27 BC – 268 AD). An examination of the structure, function and importance of the official military administrative documentation and its writers. Dr. Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-7749-3270-0 , p. 37 with note 90.

[4] Vegetius: Epitoma Rei Militaris , ed. by MD Reeve ( Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis ). Claredon Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-926464-3 , p. 12.

[5] Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science , trans. by NP Milner (= Translated Texts for Historians. Volume 16). 2nd edition, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 1996, ISBN 0-85323-910-X , p. 9.

[6] Roy W. Davies: Service in the Roman Army. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1989, ISBN 0-85224-495-9 , p. 240, note 63.

[7] Roy W. Davies: Service in the Roman Army. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1989, ISBN 0-85224-495-9 , p. 17.

[8] Konrad Stauner: The official written system of the Roman army from Augustus to Gallienus (27 BC – 268 AD). An examination of the structure, function and importance of the official military administrative documentation and its writers. Dr. Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-7749-3270-0 , p. 37 f., Note 90.

[9] J. de Mayol de Lupé: Les Actes des Martyrs comme source de renseignements pour le langage et les usages des IIe et IIIe siècles. In: Revue des Études Latines. Year 17, 1939, pp. 90-104, here p. 102.