Following the recent publications of Elizabeth Greene (2020) and Lee Brice and Greene (2024), the present work constitutes a further contribution to the study of previously marginalised social groups in the context of the Roman army. It focuses on the households of Roman auxiliary commanders during the first three centuries CE. Drawing on the concept of the “military community”, the study examines the typical composition of these households and the roles of their members. To this end, it analyses three categories of evidence: epigraphic, literary, and archaeological. Claire Millington offers an interesting perspective on the topic. Drawing on her experience as a former diplomat, she conceptualises the commander’s household as structurally and functionally comparable to those of modern diplomats. This premise sets the tone for the book, which is divided into eight chapters. In addition to plans, images, and tables, the publication also includes a substantial appendix, available in both print and online (listed below).
After a brief introduction (Chapter 1), Millington outlines the current state of research on military officers and their households in Chapter 2. She provides the historical and social background for the development of the tres militiae, noting that officers entered command positions between the age of 35 and 45, and usually belonged to the equestrian order. Based on an assumed standard three-year tenure, the age and the career stages within the tres militiae, Millington calculates a total of 26,600 officers being in command during the first three centuries CE. Millington further demonstrates how earlier scholarship largely marginalised the role of officers’ households, a perspective that only began to shift in the 1980s. Positioning her work within these more recent developments, she adopts the concept of the “military community” as her analytical framework. In a brief methodological reflection, she also draws on her personal experience and discusses the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s guidelines on household management, which helps to clarify the guiding principles of her study.
The following two chapters are devoted to the epigraphic evidence. By analysing stone inscriptions, the study reconstructs the demographic composition of the households and the roles of their members. The dataset comprises 69 inscriptions, drawn from the indices of Hubert Devijver’s Prosopographia Militiarum Equestrium and the Epigraphic Database Clauss-Slaby. Millington acknowledges that this selection, from which she reconstructs 63 households, represents only a small fraction of the total evidence and is therefore limited in the extent to which it can allow broader conclusions to be drawn.
Chapter 3 examines the commander’s core family. The 60 inscriptions analysed in this section are primarily funerary, date mainly to the third century CE, and derive from fort contexts. Their geographical distribution is concentrated in Britannia, Numidia, Italy, and Pannonia Inferior, each represented by more than five inscriptions. From this corpus, four examples are discussed in detail to illustrate the diversity of the material. Unsurprisingly, the commander is overrepresented and occupies a dominant role within the commemorative record. Apart from him and his wife, other members of the household appear rarely as sole commissioners. Accordingly, the chapter is primarily about the commander and his wife. The analysis suggests that commanders married at the beginning of their first command and that their wives belonged to a similar social stratum. Since long-term marriages are epigraphically presented as exceptional, a significant age gap between the partners can be considered. Millington also emphasises the evidence for inter-familial networking across generations, facilitated by targeted marriage strategies. In this respect, the households of the auxiliary commanders appear to mirror, at least in part, the social structures of the senatorial order. Given the limited body of evidence and the resulting interpretative difficulties, her analysis is largely structured around deviations from the norm. Nevertheless, she is able to draw several conclusions about the social composition of the commander’s family by supplementing the gaps with analogical reasoning. To estimate life expectancy, for example, she draws on model West life tables and comparative studies of the senatorial order. Overall, the inscriptions suggest that the household functioned as a representative social unit.
Chapter 4 addresses the servile household members, for whom the epigraphic evidence is even more limited (eight inscriptions). For this reason, Millington also incorporates the Vindolanda writing tablets. She concludes that the servile staff of an auxiliary commander was structurally similar to that of other elite households, with comparable tasks and responsibilities. However, the military context appears to have entailed slightly different demands. While the basic functions resemble those found in civilian contexts, there are some hints for more specialised slaves fulfilling roles specific of the military context. Millington also raises the question of whether certain slaves were owned directly by the military; this hypothesis cannot be proven because of the paucity of the evidence. As in the previous chapter, three case studies are presented in detail. They demonstrate that freedmen commissioned dedications in honour of their patrons and contributed to the representational framework of the household. Most inscriptions concern the well-being of the master and invoke his salus in a military context. The two inscriptions from town contexts, by contrast, suggest a more representative function in maintaining and promoting the interests of the commander’s household.
After establishing the social setting, Millington introduces the officer’s housing as the social and domestic centre of the household members. Chapter 5 examines the functional concepts associated with military praetoria and tribunes’ houses. By looking at building inscriptions, the Vindolanda tablets and an ostracon from Mogontiacum (Germania Superior), Millington argues that military praetoria were more than merely private accommodation for the commander and his household. The fort praetoria were funded by the state and “symbolized imperial power as did governor’s quarters” (p. 61). The tribunes’ houses, by contrast, lack this official connotation, which is considered the crucial distinction between the two. The praetorium fulfilled a range of official and representative functions, including managing relations with the communities outside the fort, hosting elite guests and even conducting private dealings. Accordingly, it combined the commander’s dual role as head of the household and the highest-ranking officer. This duality is further reflected in dedications to the genius praetorii, which symbolically link the household and the soldiery as two distinct yet interconnected groups.
The following chapter tests the arguments of the previous chapter against the architectural evidence. The dataset of buildings identified by Millington as praetoria and tribunes’ houses comprises 40 examples. Both building types are characterised by a central courtyard surrounded by rooms. Apart from heated rooms and cooking spaces, however, few functional areas can be identified. Praetoria and tribunes’ houses appear largely similar, with distinctions based primarily on their position within the fort. Their layout and functional organisation reflect traditional domestic architecture. The ceremonial rooms are limited to the courtyard, which seems to be the identifiable feature consistently recognised by Millington. While the praetoria, as the residence of the highest-ranking officer, were generally larger and offered some amenities, there is no evidence for a more elaborate decoration compared to the tribunes’ houses. Millington explains this phenomenon on the basis of the short-term tenure of the officers who would have to pay for the furnishings at their own expense. However, this chapter represents the weakest part of the book. The “praetorium archaeology” promised in the book’s title is ultimately limited to a cursory architectural survey of a few sites. The main issues stem from the lack of explanations for the chronological phasing and the absence of a more detailed architectural analysis. Furthermore, the plans and figures included in Appendix G are not sufficiently connected to the text. A detailed case study, comparable to those presented in the epigraphic chapters, would have provided a clearer understanding of the internal spatial organisation. Additionally, the inclusion of small finds might have contributed to a more precise identification of room functions.
Chapter 7 shifts the focus back to the written evidence by examining a subset of the Vindolanda writing tablets that comprises 47 letters and drafts of private correspondence, among which the letters of Claudia Severa and Sulpicia Lepidina are the most prominent. These texts provide insight into the social interaction of the household with their peers and reveal a broader network within the Roman elite and military hierarchy. The letters follow a formalised structure, suggesting the existence of widely shared epistolary conventions. Despite their personal nature, these letters served an official or semi-official function. The sender and recipient are not the only participants in this exchange; other members of the household also play a role, functioning as a collective entity. This is demonstrated by a comparison of the greeting and concluding remarks of the letters. While the subscriptiones, which are usually handwritten by the sender, address the recipient on a personal level, the opening formulas, on the other hand, often include greetings to the commander.
The final chapter summarises the results of the preceding chapters. Its main conclusion is that the commander’s household mirrors the structures and patterns of an elite civilian household. As the household acted collectively on the behalf of the commander, it functioned as a representative unit within the military framework. In this context, Millington returns to her central premise that the commander’s households share similarities to modern diplomatic families, which are tied to formal and representative duties and obligations. Particular attention is given to the commander’s wife, who played a central role in managing the household, organising hospitality, and maintaining correspondence. Due to the short-term tenure of his posting, the commander’s household was permanently on the move from one office to the next. This mobility created the need for a stable social network beyond the fort, resulting in long-lasting ties and a vivid epistolary exchange with peers of the same social standing. The letters thus reveal hierarchical social networks in which the household participated. For the other members of the household, however, the picture remains less clear, as the available evidence is too limited to support more detailed conclusions.
Overall, the book makes a valuable contribution to the study of everyday life along the Roman frontier. While the multi-source approach is promising in principle, its execution remains somewhat uneven. The three categories of evidence are not presented in a balanced fashion, with 80 % of the book devoted to textual sources and the architectural component comparatively underdeveloped. Certain types of evidence—e.g. small finds—are not taken into account in this study, though the work of Allison (2013), Birley (2016), and others certainly points to their importance in the interpretation of space. The study’s greatest strength lies in its analysis of the epigraphic and written sources, particularly the Vindolanda tablets. Here, the book offers nuanced insights into the social structure and organisation of the commander’s household, despite the limited evidentiary base. The overarching premise provides an engaging interpretative framework, although a more extensive comparative perspective would have further strengthened the argument.
References
Allison, P. M. (2013), People and Spaces in Roman Military Bases. Cambridge.
Birley, A. R. (2016), “The complexity of intermural and extramural relationships on the northern frontier of Roman Britain – a Vindolanda case study”. In: Hoss, S. – Whitmore, A. (ed.), Small Finds and Ancient Social Practices in the Northwest Provinces of the Roman Empire. Oxford. 146–173.
Brice, L. L. – Greene, E. (2024), Women and the Army in the Roman Empire. Cambridge.
Greene, E. (2020), “Roman Military Communities and the Families of Auxiliary Soldiers.” In: Brice, L. L. (ed.), New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare. Hoboken. 149–160.