Frumentarii
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The frumentarii were an ancient Roman military and secret police organization used as an intelligence agency. They began their history as a courier service and developed into an imperial spying agency. Their organization would also carry out assassinations. The frumentarii were headquartered in the Castra Peregrina and were run by the princeps peregrinorum.[1] They were disbanded under the reign of Diocletian due to their poor reputation amongst the populace.
History
[edit]It had been a long-standing policy of the Roman legions and armies of occupation to utilize informers and spies, but never in an organized fashion. This was especially true in the city of Rome which was rife with whispers and endless conspiracies. The frumentarii were possibly established by Domitian,[2] although they only appear in records shortly after his reign in the early second century. When established, their base was located at the Castra Peregrina on the Caelian hill,[3] though Trajan would later centralize their location in Rome.[4][5][6] During their early history, they were tasked with supplying grain to the military, delivering messages between the provinces and the empire,[7][8] and collecting tax money.[9][10][11][12]
They were sometimes called nomas ("nomads" in Latin) to protect their identity in enemy territory.
After the end of the Flavian Dynasty, the frumentarii developed into a police force. They worked as non-commissioned officers with praetorian cohorts to police the populace.[13][14] This organization was part of the military, and its members were legionaries.[15] Members of this group were recruited from the military.[16][17] By the 2nd century, the need for an empire-wide intelligence service was clear. But even an emperor could not easily create a new bureau with the express purpose of spying on the citizens of Rome's far-flung domains. A suitable compromise was found by Hadrian.[18] He used the frumentarii as a spying agency because their duties brought them into contact with enough locals and natives, allowing them to acquire considerable intelligence about any given territory. Alongside these duties they also may have overseen and guarded mining operations.[19][14][20]
They served as secret police and as an intelligence agency in ancient Rome. Emperors would use them to gather information on friends, family, officials, or soldiers.[21][22] This organization was sometimes tasked with assassinating whomever the emperor wished.[18][23] Peasants disliked the frumentarii due to false and arbitrary arrests. They were seen as a tyrannical "plague" on the empire.[24] These complaints lead to the disbandment of the organization in 312 CE during the reign of Diocletian.[25][26][27] The frumentarii were replaced by the agentes in rebus.[28][29][30]
They were run by the princeps peregrinorum who was considered to be a senior centurion and answered to the praetorian prefect.[31] The subprinceps was the second-in-command to the princeps peregrinorum and the optio peregrinorum, canaliclarius,[32] and aedilis castrorum were all other offices in the frumenatarii.[33] The curatio frumentarii would command the frumentarii in the imperial provinces.[34][35][36][37][38] The frumentarii served in the officium consularis of the local governor.[39]
The following story has been used as evidence of the role of the frumentarii:[40]
[Hadrian's] vigilance was not confined to his own household but extended to those of his friends, and by means of his private agents (frumentarios) he even pried into all their secrets, and so skilfully that they were never aware that the Emperor was acquainted with their private lives until he revealed it himself. In this connection, the insertion of an incident will not be unwelcome, showing that he found out much about his friends. The wife of a certain man wrote to her husband, complaining that he was so preoccupied by pleasures and baths that he would not return home to her, and Hadrian found this out through his private agents. And so, when the husband asked for a furlough, Hadrian reproached him with his fondness for his baths and his pleasures. Whereupon the man exclaimed: "What, did my wife write you just what she wrote to me?".
See also
[edit]- Agentes in rebus, Romans agents from the 4th to the 7th centuries
References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^ Faure 2003, p. 377-427.
- ^ Crowdy 2011.
- ^ Fuhrmann 2016, p. 302.
- ^ Fuhrmann 2011, p. 244.
- ^ Argüín 2015, p. 5.
- ^ Reynolds 1923, p. 168-189.
- ^ Sheldon 2004, p. 253.
- ^ Tănase & Muscalu 2013, p. 16.
- ^ Zuiderhoek 2009, p. 47.
- ^ Fuhrmann 2012, p. 151-152.
- ^ Russell 2013, p. 487.
- ^ Jackson 2002, p. 64.
- ^ Sinnigen 1962, p. 217.
- ^ a b Sinnigen 1961, p. 69.
- ^ Allen 1908, p. 3.
- ^ Winzenburg 2022, pp. 103–111.
- ^ Rankov 1990, p. 176-182.
- ^ a b Fuhrmann 2012, p. 153.
- ^ Hirt 2010, pp. 174–175.
- ^ McCunn 2019, p. 346.
- ^ Fuhrmann 2012, pp. 144, 148.
- ^ Brennan 2018, p. 86.
- ^ Fuhrmann 2011, p. 217-218.
- ^ Bond 2017, p. 55.
- ^ Sheldon 2004, pp. 256–257.
- ^ Bunson 2014, p. 221.
- ^ Carlisle 2015, p. 33.
- ^ Rankov 2012, p. 1.
- ^ Syvänne 2015, p. 2.
- ^ Harries 2012, p. 140.
- ^ Sinnigen 1962, p. 213.
- ^ Gilliam 1976, p. 51.
- ^ Mann 1988, pp. 149–150.
- ^ Jordan 2017, p. 188.
- ^ Dobson 1955, p. 62.
- ^ Tănase & Muscalu 2013, p. 16-17.
- ^ Janniard 2015, p. 2.
- ^ Thomas 2012, p. 135.
- ^ Tănase & Muscalu 2013, p. 17.
- ^ Thayer 1921, p. 37.
General and cited references
[edit]- AE 1910,0077 & AE 2003,0931[full citation needed]
- Allen, George H. (1908). "The Advancement of Officers in the Roman Army". Supplementary Papers of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. 2: 1–25. ISSN 1940-0969. JSTOR 4238491.
- Bunson, Matthew (2014-05-14). Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-1027-1.
- Bond, Sarah E. (2017). "The Corrupting Sea: Law, Violence and Compulsory Professions in Late Antiquity". In Ronald Kroeze; André Vitória; Guy Geltner (eds.). Anti-corruption in History: From Antiquity to the Modern Era. Oxford Academic. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198809975.003.0004.
- Brennan, T. Corey (2018). "Sabina 'Augusta'". Sabina Augusta: An Imperial Journey. Oxford Academic. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190250997.003.0006.
- Carlisle, Rodney (2015-03-26). Encyclopedia of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-47177-6.
- Crowdy, Terry (2011-12-20). The Enemy Within: A History of Spies, Spymasters and Espionage. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78096-224-5.
- Dobson, B. (1955). The Primipilares of the Roman Army (Doctor of Philosophy thesis). Durham, UK: Durham University.
- Fuhrmann, Christopher J. (2016). "Police Functions and Public Order". In Paul J. du Plessis; Clifford Ando; Kaius Tuori (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society. Oxford Academic. pp. 297–309. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198728689.013.23. ISBN 978-0-19-872868-9.
- Fuhrmann, Christopher J. (2011). ""Military stations throughout all provinces": Detached-Service Soldier-Police". Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order. Oxford Academic. pp. 201–238. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199737840.003.0008. ISBN 978-0-19-973784-0.
- Fuhrmann, Christopher J. (2012-01-12). Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-973784-0.
- Faure, P. (2003). "Les centurions frumentaires et le commandement des castra peregrina". Mélanges de l'École française de Rome. Antiquité (in French). 115 (1): 377–427. doi:10.3406/mefr.2003.10736.
- Gilliam, J. F. (1976). "Canaliclarius and Kananiklarios (P.OXY. XL 2925)". The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists. 13 (2): 49–52. ISSN 0003-1186. JSTOR 24518498.
- Harries, Jill (2012). Imperial Rome AD 284 to 363: The New Empire. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2052-4. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt1g0b463.
- Hirt, Alfred Michael (2010). "The Roman Army and Imperial Extractive Operations". Imperial Mines and Quarries in the Roman World: Organizational Aspects 27 BC–AD 235. pp. 168–201. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572878.003.0005. ISBN 978-0-19-957287-8.
- Jackson, Robert (2002). "At Empire's Edge: Exploring Rome's Egyptian Frontier". Retrieved 2022-09-02.
- Janniard, Sylvain (2015). "Field Officers: Late Empire". In Y. Le Bohec (ed.). Field Officers: Late Empire. The Encyclopedia of the Roman Army. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 389–413. doi:10.1002/9781118318140.wbra0617. ISBN 9781118318140 – via Academia.
- Jordan, Bradley (2017). "The Consular provinciae of 44 BCE and the Collapse of the Restored Republic". Hermes. 145 (2): 174–194. doi:10.25162/hermes-2017-0014. ISSN 0018-0777. JSTOR 26650395. S2CID 252446484.
- Mann, J. C. (1988). "The Organization of Frumentarii". Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. 74: 149–150. ISSN 0084-5388. JSTOR 20186909.
- McCunn, Stuart (2019). "What's In A Name? The Evolving Role of the Frumentarii". The Classical Quarterly. 69 (1): 340–354. doi:10.1017/S0009838819000399. ISSN 0009-8388. S2CID 200033153.
- Argüín, Adolfo Raúl Menéndez (2015-03-04), "Administration: Principate", in Le Bohec, Yann (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Roman Army, Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 1–71, doi:10.1002/9781118318140.wbra0023, ISBN 978-1-118-31814-0, retrieved 2022-09-02
- Rankov, Boris (2012-10-26), "Agentes in rebus", in Bagnall, Roger S; Brodersen, Kai; Champion, Craige B; Erskine, Andrew (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. wbeah19006, doi:10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah19006, ISBN 978-1-4443-3838-6, retrieved 2022-09-02
- Rankov, N. B. (1990). "Frumentarii, the Castra Peregrina and the Provincial Officia". Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. 80: 176–182. ISSN 0084-5388. JSTOR 20187218.
- Russell, Frank (January 28, 2013). "Finding the Enemy: Military Intelligence". The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195304657.013.0024. Retrieved 2022-09-02.
- Reynolds, P. K. Baillie (November 1923). "The troops quartered in the Castra Peregrinorum". The Journal of Roman Studies. 13 (1–2): 168–189. doi:10.2307/295750. ISSN 1753-528X. JSTOR 295750. S2CID 162611310.
- Sinnigen, William G. (1962). "The Origins of the "Frumentarii"". Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. 27: 211–224. doi:10.2307/4238654. ISSN 0065-6801. JSTOR 4238654.
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- Sheldon, Rose Mary (2004-12-16). Intelligence Activities in Ancient Rome: Trust in the Gods but Verify. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-77106-5.
- Syvänne, Ilkka (2015-03-04), "agens, agentes in rebus", in Le Bohec, Yann (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Roman Army, Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 1–71, doi:10.1002/9781118318140.wbra0042, ISBN 978-1-118-31814-0, retrieved 2022-09-02
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- Tănase, Tiberiu; Muscalu, Bogdan (2013). "Viewpoints on Roman traditions in the history of intelligence services". History and civilization: EU strategy for the Baltic region. pp. 7–29.
- Thomas, Edmund (Spring–Autumn 2012). ""Nero's Tomb" and the crisis of the third century: Roman sarcophagi as public and private monuments". Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics. 61–62: 132–151. doi:10.1086/RESvn1ms23647825. ISSN 0277-1322. S2CID 193586509.
- Winzenburg, Justin (2022-07-19). Ephesians and Empire: An Evaluation of the Epistle's Subversion of Roman Imperial Ideology. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-16-161183-4.
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