Conditions of service

Augustus may have set the official duration of the soldier’s enlistment, reality interfered. The enormous cost of retirement bonuses for his civil war and early imperial legionaries forced him to postpone the true date of discharge on several occasions. Even at the end of his reign, whether through lack of funds or of volunteer recruits, many soldiers served for a much longer period than was originally set or the soldiers wanted. Likely the situation was even worse in auxiliary units. Having to stay in the army for a much longer period than they had originally signed for was a vexing problem and one of the reasons for the riots of AD 14. Another was the corruption and abuse of power among the centurions. Harsh discipline, of which Augustus was apparently a great proponent, cannot have been popular and the records of curbing laxity by various generals and emperors probably indicate to-and-fro between discipline and leniency. Legionaries earned 225 denarii per year and a large lump-sum, worth ten to fifteen yearly salaries on retirement. From their basic pay an amount was deducted for their equipment and food. The rest they could keep themselves and was used to buy slaves, fancier equipment, keep a girlfriend – they were not allowed to marry –, pay contributions to the communal funerary fund and pay off their centurion. The salary of auxiliary soldiers is a point of great contention, and is usually held to be slightly lower than that of legionaries. It should however be noted that the auxiliary system had hardly been finalized by Augustus and that the more irregular the unit, the more likely that no or almost no salary was paid, especially in the case of tribes who provided fighting power instead of taxes. All centurions were very well paid – at least some twenty times as much as a common soldier – and the primus pilus best of all. After their retirement, their status assured them a good position in society too, perhaps as councilman of their town, and the primus pilus earned entry into the equestrian class.