ABSTRACT

It is quite obvious that a soldier’s main raison d’etre was to wage war, to kill without being killed. We have seen above how Rome was able to prepare for this eventuality and to face up to it when it happened. But the soldiers also had an economic function that arose from their military function. As the demands of defence occupied a dominant place in the lives and thoughts of the Romans under the Early Empire, the army became an important group in society. 1 Juvenal asks ‘Who could enumerate, Gallius, the privileges of a military career?’ 2 On the other hand in the provinces, as P. Salway has shown, admittedly for a small region, 3 both the countryside and the material existence of populations were changed by the dynamic presence of soldiers.