A POSSIBLE NEW AUXILIARY UNIT IDENTIFICATION AT POROLISSUM?

Abstract

The author is reopening the file of an enigmatic tile-stamp found in the Roman fort at Porolissum and in the neighbor one at Romita. He is challenging the old proposed reading c(o)horti(s) I(primae) I(turaeorum) (milliariae) with c(o)h(ortis) S(agittariorum) I(primae) (milliariae), which can be the same with cohors I milliaria sagittariorum attested by late 1^st century AD military diplomas in Judeea and with no later records in other provinces, or with cohors I sagittariorum milliaria first time attested at Tibiscum in Upper Dacia in AD 165. The chronology of two tile-stamps found at Porolissum in precise archaeological contexts, as well as the one from Romita is in Hadrian-Antoninus Pius time when the unit worked to the building of the stone buildings from the interior of the two forts, belonging to the first stone phase of the forts. As no official inscription of the unit survived, it was probably a unit brought from other province to participate to the huge effort of building the northern frontier defenses of Dacia, together with detachments of legio VII Gemina Felix, legio III Gallica, or cohors III all attested only by tile-stamps at Porolissum.