ROMAN ARMY IN DETAIL
A centurion, typically, corrects a Roman legionary miles for some infraction on the march using his distinctive vitis.
© Andrey FetisovThere is a well-known story in Tacitus’ Annals concerning a centurion in one of the Pannonian legions during the reign of Augustus. His name was Lucilius, but “as a soldiers’ witticism, they had given him the nickname ‘fetch another one!’ because”, Tacitus explained, “whenever he broke a vine-stick over a soldier’s back, he shouted for another and then another” (Annals 1.23.4). When mutiny broke out in AD 14, the disgruntled soldiers murdered him. Another centurion, Sirpicus by name, was only saved from a similar fate when soldiers from another legion protected him.
At the very same time, on the Rhine frontier, the mutinous legionaries decided that “the time had come … when all should demand an end to their misery and take revenge for the cruelty of their centurions” ( 1.31.4). Tacitus claimed that the 1.32.3). The broken bodies of the unfortunate victims were tossed over the rampart, perhaps an ironic acknowledgement of the law forbidding soldiers to cross the camp ditch on pain of death ( 49.16.3.4).
