Terentianus
Looking for a Woman
For #Warrior Wednesday, since I’ve been posting my Roman stuff there. If you don’t want to be tagged, please let me know and I’ll remove you from my template.
Let’s talk about a Roman citizen soldier named Claudius Terentianus, enlisted in 110 AD, discharged in 136 AD., featured in the recent Legion Exhibit at The British Museum.
He is a Roman citizen from a colony of Roman veterans in a town called Karanis in Egypt, who writes letters to his family in Greek and Latin. He starts out as an auxiliary in the Alexandrian fleet, because he can’t get good enough recommendation letters, manages to get into the legion, is deployed to Syria, might have fought in Trajan’s Parthian campaign, back to Alexandria, and appears to have retired back to the Roman colony in Karanis.
He’s pretty well known, and his letters are available online, with the translations and the original, for free. (At least, the ones I’ve looked at so far.)
He fits perfectly into the second or third generation from Cloak and Stola. He’s the son of a Roman soldier (a legionaire, I think), and his father could be the right age to be someone who knew Procerus, or could have known Illeus. Procerus is close to retirement when Illeus is in Judean Capernaum, south of the main fort in Syria, Amos is a grizzled old man, and Illeus is a young man when he is assigned to the smaller garrison in Capernaum, where he eventually makes centurion during the life of Christ. My thought was to follow generations affected by the marriage (connubium) ban until it is lifted in AD 197 by Septimus Severus.
And yes, this whole thing started because I was doing a quick one-off of the centurion in the New Testament who asks Jesus to cure his boy.
There is an absolutely fascinating letter from Terentianus asking his father’s consent to take a woman into his home.1
In this essay, I use the term concubine in the Roman legal sense, which means that no slave woman can be a concubine. Only a FREE woman can be a concubine. This MATTERS, because it has a bearing not only on whether his children are Roman, but also on whether they’re free in the first place. And even if he has no legal restrictions and is ABLE to free his own child, his child is not considered free-born. This matters because the rights of a freed slave are different from those of a free-born citizen.
In this essay, I use the term concubine in the Roman legal sense, which means that no slave woman can be a concubine. Only a FREE woman can be a concubine.
My first thought, of course, was that Terentianus, a Roman soldier not allowed connubium, is looking to take a wife. He is no longer an auxiliary – he has made it into the legion itself, so his salary and chances for advancement have improved significantly. His friend has found a woman that he recommends, implying that Terentianus was looking and his friends knew it. And he wants to get his father’s permission – a strange thing to do for an ordinary purchase – but something he would definitely want, if possible, for a wife. And he makes a point of emphasizing how important his father’s consent is, while at the same time, pointing out that he could have done this two years ago, but had waited until he was better situated.
So, I looked up the actual letter, which one can do:
and it turned out the letter is in Greek.2 Uh-oh. I can sound out the letters more or less to identify the gynaikos (γυναικός) for “woman”. It’s a long and tortuous process, but after a few hours I can get through the whole letter. There are no words that appear to refer to a female slave or servant of any kind, that I can recognize. But I’m not up to date on different Greek terms.
However, unlike “femina” in Latin, the Greek word gynaikos for woman can also mean the ordinary word for “wife”, just as it does in French and German. And we know from the New Testament Greek, that it is the term used when Paul directs husbands to love their wives. The default assumption, if there hadn’t been the phrase about “buying” the woman, would be that he is specifically talking about bringing home a wife, not a slave.
So looking at the Greek provides further evidence that Terentianus is specifically looking at acquiring a wife, not buying a slave woman. Although we can’t rule out that his first step to acquiring a wife would be to buy a slave woman.
And then, something else I wasn’t expecting. The word [ἐω̣νεῖ̣τ̣ό̣] translated as “buy” occurs in the letter only in regard to the woman, and it has a question mark next to it. The translator is uncertain about this translation, so this is probably not the usual word for buying. Nevertheless, there are several references to getting things, and the term used for “bring down” the woman he would like bring into the house, κατενέγκαι is exactly the same as the term used toward the end of the letter asking the recipient to “bring down” whatever is possible for the winter.
So it is still possible that money or a contract of some kind is involved.
My conclusion is that Terentianus is looking for a wife. He grew up in a military community in Egypt that is well aware of the problem that Roman soldiers have with connubium, and who have developed workarounds. He’s not high enough status to appeal to a Roman woman to settle for concubinatus (he couldn’t get the recommendation letters to get into the Legion at first).
For various reasons, there may be daughters of other soldiers or veterans that are still slaves, because their fathers were unable to free them, and he could be looking at a woman like that. Or some non-Roman families may be willing to sell a daughter into slavery, knowing that she will be freed by the soldier and made his concubine, and have a chance for herself, or at least her children, to become Roman. (There are laws about the citizenship of a freed Roman slave that may or may not have applied.)
So, I’ll be digging into these letters, and may be starting to do more steady writing on the Roman WIP. I’m not planning to do a fictionalized account of Terentianus (too limiting) but I’ll definitely be using knowledge gained from his letters.
The Leaders of Warrior Wednesday/Sword & Saturday:
- The Brothers Krynn’s Newsletter;
- Tales of Calamity and Triumph
Champions of Fantasystack:
- Shadows and Space;
- A Literary Eye;
- Crann na Beatha;
- Falden’s Forge;
- Senchas Claideb;
- Kathrine’s Substack;
- Dan’s Deliberations;
- Redd Oscar Writes;
;
- Fragments and Pieces;
- Work in Progress;
- Words and Sounds/The Suspension of This Belief;
- Treats of Writing
Wednesday Warriors/Saturday Swordsmen & Sorceresses:
Donn Harper The Apocaloptimist
Carl F Northwood: Weird Worlds
This isn’t the whole letter; just the part where he asks for a woman. The first “He” refers to his friend Achillas.
“He sent me word about a woman; with my consent he was buying(?) one for me. As far back as two years ago I would have taken a woman into my house, but I did not permit myself nor do I permit myself to take anyone without your approval, and you will not hear otherwise from me on this subject. If perchance the woman whom I decide to bring down is one able to be the more kindly disposed toward you for my sake(?) and to take more thought for you than for me, the outcome is that I do you a favor rather than that you blame me. On this account, lacking your approval, until today no woman has come into my house. You are aware, for another thing, that I have relieved you of your difficulties; [and if(?)] you remain steadfast in refusal the rest of your life, I shall do without my woman. If not, the woman whom you approve is the one whom I also want.
Since in Latin, it seemed to me highly unlikely that the word translated as “woman” would be “femina”, I wanted to look it up. Any of the likely terms would identify more closely the woman’s status. “Serva” would be the simplest term for a woman bought as a slave. “Auxilia” or “Famula” would identify a slave or servant woman bought as a handmaid or house slave. Contubernales would identify a woman bought specifically for a monogamous (on her part) relationship. My Latin is good enough now that this wouldn’t be much trouble.
Thank you for the shoutout.