Overview
Following are only my sources relative to the marriage of Roman legion soldiers, and relative to slaves working for the Roman military.
I’ve read several articles by D. B. Campbell on various aspects of the lives of rank and file Roman soldiers (watch schedules, barracks layouts, use of mounted archers, etc) in a regularly published periodical called “Ancient Warfare” which you can often download at Academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/. Other people also upload info there, which is based on data from archeological sites, or analysis of epigraphic info, or other research on various topics. These sources give some information on the more rank and file soldiers.
BC 13 approx; Augustus
Perhaps when the emperor organized the length and conditions of military service in 13 B.C., he imposed the rule of celibacy. We don’t have an exact date for when he instituted the ban.
In addition, Augustus had allowed soldiers to retain their castrense peculium under their own control and dispose of it by will. The castrense peculium contained everything given to a soldier by his friends and relatives at the time when he entered the army, or anything he acquired during military service. The privilege was based on the fact that the Roman ' filius familias ' owned no property of his own and could not therefore make a will. Everything was in the power of his father.
AD 44: Claudius
Per Cassius Dio 76. 15. 2. Claudius gave the rights of married men to the soldiers, since, in accordance with the law, they were not permitted to have wives (NOTE: The main benefit for soldiers will have been that they could now receive inheritances and legacies.) Diplomas could recognize children of non-citizen auxiliary soldiers as citizens even if their wives were not citizens, after grant of conubium.
AD 98–117: Trajan
Wills could now include latin and peregrine women and children
AD 117–138: Hadrian
Children listed on diploma holders is very markedly higher (75.8% as opposed to 37.3%) under Hadrian than under his predecessors.
AD 138–161: Antoninus Pius
Ceased awarding citizen-status to children born while father was serving. This means that recognizing a citizen concubine as a wife meant her children were not citizens? Since otherwise the children of citizen mother by an unknown father would be a citizen.
AD 161–180: Marcus Aurelius
By the time of Marcus Aurelius, all soldiers could institute a peregrine child or ' wife ' as heres; probably the illegitimate children, whether peregrine or citizen, of all soldiers had at least some claim on intestate succession.
AD 197: Septimius Severus
Roman emperor from 193 to 211. Lifted marriage ban of Roman soldiers. Ban against marrying peregrini remained.
AD 198–217: Caracalla
Extended citizenship t o all the empire’s free-born subjects
Partial Bibliography
The Marriage of Roman Soldiers (13 BC – AD 235): Law and Family in the Imperial Army
Sara Elise Phang
Brill Leiden Boston Koln
2001
Have not read the whole thing; only excerpts, and the portion at Google Books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Marriage_of_Roman_Soldiers_13_B_C_A/jyFdUxqYZ48C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Phang+Roman&printsec=frontcover
Marriage, families, and survival in the Roman imperial army: demographic aspects
Version 1.0; November 2005; by Walter Scheidel; Stanford University; Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics
“Abstract: This paper provides a survey of marriage and family formation in the army of the Principate, and assesses the main determinants of the life expectancy of professional Roman soldiers.”
“In the standing army of the Principate, the term of service in the legions rose from sixteen to twenty and later twenty-five years… Recruits committed much of their lives to the military: perhaps half of them did not live to see their discharge, and half of those who did would be dead twenty years later.”
Public Slaves in the Roman Army: An exploratory Study
by New York Morris Silver; Professor emeritus of economics
city college of the city university
msilver12@nyc.rr.com
published in: Ancient Society 46, 203-240. doi: 10.2143/AS.46.0.3167455
© 2016 by Ancient Society. All rights reserved.
“legal and other texts insist that slaves (servi) are not permitted to join the Roman army. the evidence suggests, however, that slaves might serve if they were owned by the army itself.”
…
“During their army service, public slaves might acquire valuable civilian/governmental skills (clerical, artisanal, and commercial). Did individuals volunteer for slavery in the army in order to receive training as, for example, doctors? I will return to this problem in a future article.”
…
“Footnote 58
Public slaves in the civilian sector were certainly subject to physical punishment for failing to perform properly their assigned duties. this is nicely illustrated in the mid-first century ce by the decision of Quintus veranius, the governor of myra in lycia, to have a public slave named tryphon, employed by the city of tlos, whipped for permitting documents with interpolations and erasures to be entered in the city archives. in passing, the governor notes that other public slaves have been punished similarly (AE 1976, 673;
tr. Sherk (1988) 90-91, no. 48).”
Treggiari, Susan. “‘Contubernales’ in ‘Cil’ 6.” Phoenix, vol. 35, no. 1, 1981, pp. 42–69. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1087137. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.
Excerpts:
“Contubernium existed by permission of the slave-owner and was not protected by the law, for it was sanctioned by custom only.”
“But for a free Roman to enter contubernium with a slave woman was highly improper. The lawyers assume that it would only happen when the man did not know she was a slave and thought they were legally married.”
“A second possible situation is that a free man of humble status might want to marry a woman whom he knew to be someone else’s slave. Then he ought to buy her, free her and marry her: she will be uxor, not contubernales. Thirdly, a free Roman might entertain honourable intentions towards one of his own slaves. If he is of respectable social status, he should free her and make her his concubina; again, she will not be contubernalis. If his status is not so respectable, he could even free her and marry her.”
“The changes and chances of slavery may have divided these women from their first contubernales , who bore no ill will and commemorated them together with their second husbands (one of whom, Ti. Claudius Eutychus, was probably a legal husband).”
“Footnote 31: Perhaps we should not rule out the possibility that some freedmen might begin a contubernium with a slave (e.g. in the patron’s household) and be unable to buy her out.”
Noted that the data overwhelmingly shows that women commemorated as contubernalis are overwhelmingly 30 or under; ie under the usual age of manumission.
THE SLAVE SYSTEMS OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY
WILLIAM L. WESTERMANN
Professor Emeritus of History; Columbia University
THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
INDEPENDENCE SQUARE
PHILADELPHIA
1955
Excerpts:
A trained slave woman, veterana, was bought by a sailor of the fleet at Ravenna for 625 denarii (2nd century AD)
Two prices of the same period from Egypt may be compared with the payment of 625 denarii for a grown woman in Dacia: male slave, aged about thirty-eight, bought in A. D. 125-126 for 1,400 silver drachmas (== 350 denarii); male slave, again A. D. 154, price 2,800 silver drachmas (== 700 denarii);
Fascinating, Ms. Mary. You did more research than most would, and your book is richer for it. 👏