Abstract
Under Roman law, soldiers who committed suicide while enlisted in the Roman army were considered to be guilty of desertion, and their property forfeit to the state, regardless of the wishes declared in their will. The motivations behind this law were primarily economic rather than moralistic, and presupposed that the soldier in question had taken their action to avoid punishment for a misdemeanour—one which, in some cases, might have seen him executed anyway. Under Hadrian, however, an exception was made in the law for soldiers who were suffering from ongoing, unbearable, and likely unending physical or mental pain, in which case their will remained valid (Digest 29.1.34). This rescript was a significant moment in Roman law: for the first time, it recognised the longer-term consequences of warfare on the ordinary soldiers in the Roman army, and that the inability or unwillingness of some to live under these conditions should not be considered an illegal action. This chapter will explore the causes and consequences of Hadrian’s rescript of the Roman law on military suicide. In particular, it will consider the unusual decision to include mental trauma alongside physical injury as sufficient to merit a legal exception to the proscriptions on Roman military suicide, and contextualise this within a wider discussion of Roman military mental health issues.
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Notes
- 1.
K. Van Lommel, ‘The Recognition of Roman Soldiers’ Mental Impairment’, Acta Classica 56, 2013, 161.
- 2.
Given that military marriage was officially still banned during Hadrian’s reign (under a rule passed under Augustus which would not be rescinded until the reign of Caracalla in the early third century AD), the beneficiaries of serving soldiers should not have included wives and children, although in reality soldiers seem to have started families anyway, who presumably they would make provision for in their wills (on military marriage see S.E. Phang, The Marriage of Roman Soldiers (13 B.C.–A.D. 235): Law and Family in the Imperial Army (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
- 3.
P. Sabin, ‘The Face of Roman Battle’, The Journal of Roman Studies 90, 2000, 1–17; Daly 2002; S.M. Heidenreich and J.P. Roth ‘The Neurophysiology of Panic on the Ancient Battlefield’, in L.L. Brice (ed), New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020), pp. 127–38.
- 4.
A.D. Lee, ‘Morale and the Roman Experience of Battle’, in A.B. Lloyd (ed), Battle in Antiquity (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales), pp. 199–217. S. Chrissanthos, ‘Aeneas in Iraq: Comparing the Roman and Modern Battle Experience’, in M.B., Cosmopoulos (ed), Experiencing War: Trauma and Society from Ancient Greece to the Iraq War (Chicago: Ares, 2007), pp. 225–57.
- 5.
A. Melchior, ‘Caesar in Vietnam: Did Roman Soldiers Suffer from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder?’, Greece & Rome 58.2, 2011, 209–23; L.A. Tritle, ‘“Ravished Minds” in the Ancient World’, in P. Meineck and D. Konstan (eds), Combat Trauma and the Ancient Greeks (New York: Palgrave, 2014), pp. 87–103; V.J. Belfiglio, ‘Post traumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder in Army: Lessons for Modern Armies’. Balkan Military Medical Review 18.3, 2015, 65–71. Diagnosing PTSD in the Roman world is difficult because little is documented of soldier’s lives after they left the army; most attempts to do so are based on extrapolation from a limited range of sources, analysing their (likely) experiences while enlisted, and creating parallels with more modern (and better documented) warfare (e.g. L.A. Tritle, ‘Soldiers’ Home: Life After Battle’, in L.L. Brice (ed), New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020), pp. 53–64; Melchior, ‘Caesar in Vietnam’, 211–12).
- 6.
Example ‘Even though ancient and modern soldiers are separated by great gulfs in time, culture, and technology, warfare had a dramatic effect on those in combat and, despite the above differences, human beings generally respond in similar ways to what in many respects were similar military experiences’ Chrissanthos, ‘Aeneas in Iraq’, p. 225; Heidenreich and Roth, ‘Neurophysiology of Panic’, note the neurobiological similarities between ancient and modern soldiers. Although see J. Crowley, ‘Beyond the Universal Soldier: Combat Trauma in Classical Antiquity’, in P. Meineck and D. Konstan (eds), Combat Trauma and the Ancient Greeks (New York: Palgrave, 2014), pp. 105–30 for the argument that the cultural background of ancient soldiers may have impacted their responses to conflict. A similar debate on PTSD and combat trauma is currently underway in the context of ancient Greek warfare—see O. Rees, ‘We Need to Talk About Epizelus: ‘PTSD’ and the Ancient World’, Medical Humanities 46, 2020, 46–54.
- 7.
J.C.N. Coulston, ‘Courage and Cowardice in the Roman Imperial Army’, War in History 20.1, 2013, 7–31.
- 8.
Melchior, ‘Caesar in Vietnam’, 222–223.
- 9.
On the contuburnium see A. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, 100 BC–AD 200 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), pp. 252–54.
- 10.
K. Van Lommel, ‘The Recognition of Roman Soldiers’ Mental Impairment’, Acta Classica 56, 2013, 155–84.
- 11.
K. Van Lommel, ‘The Terminology of the Medical Discharge and an Identity Shift among the Roman Disabled Veterans’, Ancient History Bulletin 27, 2013, 65–74. The provision seems to have been introduced in either the Late Republican or Early Imperial periods—certainly by AD 70, when it is references on a military diploma, and likely as part of the military reforms under Augustus: Ibid., 73. Under Caracalla, a requirement of 20+ years of service was required for full retirement benefits.
- 12.
A.J.L. Van Hooff, From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self-Killing in Classical Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 79–132.
- 13.
V.M. Hope, Roman Death: The Dying and the Dead in Ancient Rome (London: Continuum, 2009), pp. 57–60.
- 14.
van Hooff From Autothanasia, 87–89, 109–110; Hill 2004, 198; Goldsworthy, Roman Army, 262–263; Coulston, ‘Courage and Cowardice’; van Lommel, ‘Recognition’, 160–161. The ‘conquer or die’ approach is reflected in the tendency from the Late Republic onward to refuse state ransom of captured soldiers, as documented by Cicero (De Officiis, 3.114). Captured Roman soldiers would also lose their citizenship and associated rights while in enemy hands, including the validity of their wills (Ulpian Digest 49.15.19.2), unless they were captured by bandits or pirates: B.D. Shaw, ‘Bandits in the Roman Empire’, in R. Osborne (ed), Studies in Ancient Greek and Roman Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 342–43.
- 15.
S.H. Rauh, ‘The Tradition of Suicide in Rome’s Foreign Wars’, TAPA 145, 2015, 383–410. Rauh argues that military suicide was not typical after general defeats (outside of civil war), only in overwhelming situations on the battlefield—and that soldiers were motivated by the desire to avoid pain, rather than shame.
- 16.
Polybius, 3.84.10.
- 17.
Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, 5.37.6 ‘Desperata salus’—sometimes translated as ‘despairing of deliverance’.
- 18.
Cassius Dio, 56.22.1.
- 19.
Velleius Paterculus, 2.120.6.
- 20.
Given the descriptions of the tortures visited on Roman soldiers captured after the Battle of the Teutoburg (Tacitus, Annales, 1.61; Florus Epitome 2.30.37) it is unsurprising that individuals would want to avoid captivity where possible, even if the literary descriptions do not reflect reality, only the perception of ‘barbarian’ treatment of prisoners.
- 21.
Heidenreich and Roth, ‘Neurophysiology of Panic’, 136.
- 22.
Rauh, ‘The Tradition’, 404–08.
- 23.
Van Lommel, ‘Recognition’, 160.
- 24.
Van Hooff, From Autothansia, 84.
- 25.
W. Kaiser, ‘Justinian and the Corpus Iuris Civilis’, in D. Johnston (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Roman Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 119–48.
- 26.
Digest 29.1.1.
- 27.
Digest 29.1.1–44.
- 28.
Digest 28.3.6.7; A. Watson (ed, trans), The Digest of Justinian. 4 volumes (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1998) of T. Mommsen, The Digest of Justinian Latin Text (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1985); my emphasis.
- 29.
Digest 29.1.34; trans. Watson, Digest (1998) of Mommsen, Digest (1985); my emphasis.
- 30.
Van Lommel, ‘Recognition’, 162.
- 31.
Ibid., 162.
- 32.
For the impact of Roman weapons on the human body see S.T. James, ‘The Point of the Sword: What Roman-Era Weapons Could Do to Bodies—And Why They Often Didn’t’, in A.W. Busch and H.J. Schalles (eds), Waffen in Aktion. Akten der 16. Internationalen Roman Military Equipment Conference (ROMEC). Xantener Berichte 16, 2010, 41–54.
- 33.
Although the conditions in themselves were typically not (immediately) terminal. See van Hooff, From Autothanasia, pp. 121–23.
- 34.
W. Scheidel, ‘Marriage, Families, and Survival: Demographic Aspects’, in P. Erdkamp (ed), A Companion to the Roman Army (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 417–34. Although we have isolated incidents of older soldiers in the Roman army (either because they had been recruited later in life, or had overstayed beyond the normal term of service), this does not appear to have been common practice, despite complaints in some sources (e.g. Tac. Ann. 1.34) that soldiers were being kept in the army into their old age. T.G. Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) notes that there was no universally agreed number at which ‘old age’ began; K. Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 11–33 suggests that it was judged on appearance and feeling rather than a biological age.
- 35.
A historical survey of ‘tiredness of life’ found that in most contexts the concept was used to describe suicide resulting from psychological rather than physical pain, often over an extended period of time: S. Pridmore, T.T. Money and W. Pridmore, ‘Tedium Vitae [L: tired of life] Suicide’, Dynamics of Human Health 4, 2017. https://journalofhealth.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/DHH_Tedium-vitae_Saxby.pdf. Date accessed 22 December 2021.
- 36.
CIL VIII 21,562 = CLE 520; thanks are due to Peter Kruschwitz, who discussed this inscription in his blog The Petrified Muse.
- 37.
‘cum suam totam nimium / depend[ere]t iram obvius ipse furo[r] / pugnae Romanum iuvenem per / hostica vulnera misit’.
- 38.
Crowley, ‘Beyond the Universal Soldier’.
- 39.
On brutality in Roman warfare see G. Baker, G., Spare No One: Mass Violence in Roman Warfare XX (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020); for the Roman experience of battle, see Goldsworthy, Roman Army, esp. pp. 170–282; Lee, ‘Morale’; Sabin, ‘The Face of Roman Battle’.
- 40.
Sabin, ‘The Face of Roman Battle’; Chrissanthos, ‘Aeneas in Iraq’, pp. 231–35.
- 41.
On the anthropological impact of ancient battle on the human body, albeit in a Greek context, see M.A. Liston, ‘Skeletal Evidence for the Impact of Battle on Soldiers and Non‐Combatants’, in L.L. Brice (ed), New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare (Hoboken, NJ.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020), pp. 81–94.
- 42.
Goldsworthy, Roman Army, pp. 219–22.
- 43.
Heidenreich and Roth, ‘Neurophysiology of Panic’, 136.
- 44.
S.E. Phang, Roman Military Service: Ideologies of Discipline in the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
- 45.
Crowley, ‘Beyond the Universal Soldier’.
- 46.
I. Ferris, ‘Insignificant Others: Images of Barbarians on Military Art from Roman Britain’, in K. Meadows, C. Lemke and J. Heron (eds), TRAC 96: Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1997), pp. 22–28.
- 47.
Stones inscribed with text recording building work carried out on the frontier by men from the legions, often decorated with relief sculpture depicting military scenes.
- 48.
D.J. Breeze and I. Ferris, ‘They Think it’s All Over. The Face of Victory on the British Frontier’, Journal of Conflict Archaeology 11.1, 2016, 19–39; L. Campbell, ‘Reading the Writing on the Wall: Discovering New Dimensions to the Antonine Wall Distance Sculptures’, Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology 7, 2020, 46–75.
- 49.
I. Ferris, ‘Suffering in Silence: The Political Aesthetics of Pain in Antonine Art’. Journal of Conflict Archaeology 1, 2005, 67–92. It is worth remembering that most—or all—of these monuments would also have been colourised in antiquity, adding to their visual effect—see L. Campbell, ‘Polychromy on the Antonine Wall Distance sculptures: non-destructive Identification of pigments on Roman reliefs’, Britannia 51, 2020, 175–201.
- 50.
For Roman auxiliary recruitment and service see I.P. Haynes, Blood of the Provinces: The Roman Auxilia and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
- 51.
‘in cas(tris) int(er)f(ectus) ab hosti(bus)’; RIB 3218.
- 52.
Chrissanthos, ‘Aeneas in Iraq’, pp. 227–35.
- 53.
Scheidel, ‘Marriage, Families, and Survival’.
- 54.
Coulston, ‘Courage of Cowardice’, 2013.
- 55.
V.J. Belfiglio, ‘Treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury in the Roman Army’, Balkan Military Medical Review 18, 2015, 101–05.
- 56.
Although James, ‘The Point of the Sword’, pp. 51–3, suggests that many Roman combatants would have been able to evade direct blows to the head during battle.
- 57.
C.J. Bryan and T.A. Clemans, ‘Repetitive Traumatic Brain Injury, Psychological Symptoms, and Suicide Risk in a Clinical Sample of Deployed Military Personnel’, JAMA Psychiatry 70, 2013, 686–91.
- 58.
On the growing representation of suffering in Roman (military) art in the second century AD see Ferris, ‘Suffering in Silence’.
- 59.
HA Hadrian 5.1–2.
- 60.
For Roman attitudes to ‘barbarians’, particularly fear of them, see I.M. Ferris, Enemies of Rome: Barbarians through Roman Eyes (Stroud: Sutton, 2000).
- 61.
R.W. Davies, ‘Fronto, Hadrian and the Roman Army’, Latomus 27, 1968, 75–95.
- 62.
The often-problematic Historia Augusta claims that Hadrian first entered military service at the age of 15, early in his career becoming Tribune of the Legio II Adiutrix, and serving in Pannonia, Lower Moesia, and Upper Germania (Historia Augusta, Hadrian 2.1–5) before coming to the attention of the emperor Trajan.
- 63.
Historia Augusta, Hadrian, 3.2–6. Although not for the entire duration of the conflict in either case, both times leaving to take up a political/military appointment elsewhere.
- 64.
Phang, Marriage.
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Ball, J.E. (2022). Terrible but Unavoidable? Combat Trauma and a Change to Legal Proscriptions on Roman Military Suicide Under Hadrian. In: Rees, O., Hurlock, K., Crowley, J. (eds) Combat Stress in Pre-modern Europe. Mental Health in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09947-2_6
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