Centurions

[bunn]

The title of 'centurion' in the second-century AD Roman army seems to cover a pretty broad range of jobs - Wikipedia seems to think from about the equivalent of a modern British army lieutenant, up to about the equivalent of a major.

I have a character who has a background among the provincial aristocracy (not quite equestrian, but a rich family),  has served as an Auxiliary centurion for a while, and is now doing a pretty responsible/important job, reporting direct to the provincial governor.   I think he is still called a Centurion (even though he's presumably getting paid quite a lot) because he's not quite at equestrian level, and he's a career soldier who has been promoted.

When I am writing about him, I feel I need a way to refer to him that somehow communicates:  'This is a Very Important Centurion' to make it clear that he is In Charge, and other centurions are reporting to him. Any suggestions?

Comments

[firin.livejournal.com]

Is the position of Primus Pilus not appropriate?

[firin.livejournal.com]

To be honest, that doesn't sound like the kind of job that a Centurion would do, but a Legate of some description, subordinate to the Governor. It may help to find the extant references to centurions doing this kind of thing, if you recall that there were examples. I can't remember any off the top of my head, but I've forgotten more over the years than I think I initially learned, so that in itself means nothing!

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

From my limited knowledge of the subject, I think that as you say "Centurion" covers what would nowadays be junior or field rank. If there was any sort of rating system outside the legions we don't seem to know what it was; the fact that there was one inside the legion might suggest that there wasn't another one that could be adopted to cover legionary centurions.

So one might conclude that Romans would be used to the idea that a Centurion could be anything from a fresh-faced graduate to an experienced commander or a hardbitten former sergeant-major, and so would be used to adapting how they react to them in different situations. Not that this helps, of course.

The other approach would be to give him a post which is distinct from his rank (in the way that Lt Colonel is a rank and Battalion Commander is a post). The Romans seemed to like calling people things like Extraordinarii, or Tribune of this or that. Quaesitor Extraordinarius Gubernatorii, perhaps? Or a grammatically and semantically correct equivalent, anyway :-) (apologies to people who know Latin).