Would any of you Latin scholars like to take a stab at translating this Roman military diploma, it is the largest intact piece I have ever seen. This artifact was offered by Alex Szolin, his website is
http://www.antiquities.co.uk/main.html go to Greek & Roman if the embedded picture does not appear below. This artifact has already been sold.
Best regards, John Piscopo
Region/Culture
Ancient Roman Europe. Date
Circa 2nd-3rd century A.D. Size
Width 1.3 ins (3.3 cms). Description
A fragment of an Ancient Roman military diploma with four lines of clear inscribed script on both sides.
Comment
Until the year 212 most auxiliary soldiers looked forward to the reward of citizenship on completion of 25 years service (in 212 citizenship was made universal). For the sake of convenience, a number of soldiers were retired simultaneously, and received a record of the event, and these are occasionally found. According to Guy de la Bedoyere (The Finds of Roman Britain), a little under 200 are known from the whole empire, but most of these are fragmentary). They record the date and names of the recipients or their units and are important because they can provide crucial information about the disposition of auxiliary forces at certain points in time.
Price
£ 165.00 convert to local currency