Cloak and Stola

A story about the ban on marriage for Roman legion soldiers

Cover designed by Cedar Sanderson

When the Roman legion sweeps through the farmlands of Syria, Sophie loses everything: her home, her family, even her freedom. Procerus is a soldier subject to the marriage ban recently instituted by Caesar Augustus. But after his legion wins a battle, he may have found a way to start a family anyway.

Procerus is looking for a "wife." Sophie's looking for a way forward. Neither are looking for love. But will they find it anyway?

When I was working on a Bible fan fic about the story of the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his boy, I fell down a rabbit hole. The version I remembered, from a song by the Medical Mission Sisters on their “Joy is Like the Rain” album, referred to the boy as the centurion’s son. As I continued my research, I found that the same word, “boy”, was also translated as “servant”, which seems to be the most common modern translation, and “slave.”

Why so many different translations? There are several possible reasons, but one thing I found out from my research was that Roman legion soldiers, at least below the rank of centurion (centurion is a special case where this may or may not have applied), were subject to a marriage ban. This was one reason given, although not the only one possible, why the ambiguous word “boy” was used, rather than the much clearer “son.”

This took me away from my story about the centurion and lead me to research that revealed that many soldiers did not accept this ban. There is clear historical evidence of de facto marriages, where soldiers did in fact try to normalize their relationships with women, call them wives, recognize their children as their own, to the extent they could, and attempt to make them Roman citizens and heirs.

I was unable to determine what percentage of soldiers actually attempted to do this. This story is my interpretation of how a Roman soldier, newly subject to the marriage ban, may have attempted to establish a family under these circumstances. Please note that while I think my version is possible, I am not an expert in ancient Roman law.

Link to buy: Cloak and Stola