Tres militiae

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As tres militiae ( Latin , about "three war services") three standardized stages in the career of a knightly officer ( eques ) were designated in the Roman Empire .

During the time of the Roman Republic , the non-Roman auxiliary troops, which were thus fed by members of allied peoples, were usually commanded by members of the equestrian order. With the beginning of the imperial era, under Emperor Augustus, the traditional civil army was transformed into a standing army , with the auxiliary troops (also known as auxiliary troops ) now being firmly organized . Their command became an important field of activity for members of the knightly class, who also held officer positions in the regular legions . Corresponding to the clearly regulated official career of the senators ( cursus honorum ), fixed sequences for the clothing of military posts in the context of the knightly career were created in this context in the early imperial period. The usual three military positions were:

  • praefectus cohortis : prefect of a cohort with a target size of 500 men
  • tribunus militum ( military tribune ): Commander in a Roman legion or in a cohort of Roman citizens ( cohors civium romanorum )
  • praefectus alae : prefect of an ala (cavalry unit with a nominal size of 500 men)

In the middle of the 1st century AD, Emperor Claudius ordered a first three-step succession of offices, which first included the position of praefectus cohortis , then the prefecture over an ala and finally the office of tribunus militum . At the same time he ordered that these posts could only be held by knights. A short time later, in the time of the Flavian dynasty, the sequence praefectus cohortis - tribunus militum - praefectus alae prevailed. Since this form of career ladder became mandatory for the following epoch, the individual offices were designated as militia prima , militia secunda and militia tertia (“first / second / third military service”) and the collective name tres militiae came up. In the first half of the 2nd century, the post of praefectus alae milliariae was added, in other words, the prefect of a cavalry unit with twice the strength of 1,000 men. Therefore this command was called militia quarta and the term quattuor militiae for the totality of the four officer ranks was added to the previous name tres militiae .

Terms of office of around three or four years for each of the named positions were common. The positions to be occupied first were available in significantly higher numbers than the higher career levels, so that many chivalric careers ended before they were reached. With the progressive professionalization of the Roman army in the course of the so-called imperial crisis of the 3rd century , the knights who came from the urban Roman aristocracy were gradually displaced to the officer posts by experienced and deserving soldiers. They were able to cope with the growing military challenges better than the previous commanders, who had performed very different functions in their careers in relatively rapid succession without being able to specialize in any of them. These developments and the need to make the army more flexible led to the end of the tres militiae as a fixed ranking.

literature

  • Hubert Devijver : The Equestrian Officers of the Roman Imperial Army (= Mavors. Roman Army Researches. Volume 6). JC Gieben, Amsterdam 1989, ISBN 90-5063-007-3 (collection of articles on the knightly officers of the Roman army, various of them relating to the tres militiae ).
  • Werner Eck : Tres militiae. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 12/1, Metzler, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-476-01482-7 , Col. 783 f.
  • Michael Sage: Tres militiae. In: Roger S. Bagnall et al. (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Volume 12, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2013, ISBN 978-1-4051-7935-5 , pp. 6847 f.

Individual proof

  1. ↑ a b c d Michael Sage: Tres militiae. In: Roger S. Bagnall et al. (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Volume 12, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2013, ISBN 978-1-4051-7935-5 , pp. 6847 f., Here p. 6847.
  2. ^ Suetonius , Claudius 25.1. See Hubert Devijver : Suétone, Claude, 25, et les milices équestres. In: Ancient Society . Volume 1, 1970, pp. 69-81. Reprinted in: Same: The Equestrian Officers of the Roman Imperial Army. JC Gieben, Amsterdam 1989, ISBN 90-5063-007-3 , pp. 16-28.
  3. ↑ Werner Eck : Tres militiae. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 12/1, Metzler, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-476-01482-7 , Col. 783-784, here Col. 783.
  4. ↑ Michael P. Speidel : Das Heer. In: Klaus-Peter Johne (Ed.): The time of the soldiers' emperors. Crisis and transformation of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD (235–284). Volume 1, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004529-0 , pp. 673-690, here p. 687.
  5. ↑ Matthäus Heil : The knighthood. In: Klaus-Peter Johne (Ed.): The time of the soldiers' emperors. Crisis and transformation of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD (235–284). Volume 2, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004529-0 , pp. 737-761, here p. 743.