ABSTRACT
From 235 to 238 the Roman Empire was governed by a giant of a man known as Maximinus. According to the Historia Augusta he had formerly been a shepherd who had subsequently spent most of his life in the camps, rising up through the ranks until he reached the top. Such a career profile is doubtlessly out of the ordinary and probably contains an element of fiction in it, but nevertheless it is clear that this man’s destiny was fixed the day he joined the army. From this example we get our first sight of the importance of recruitment.
