« Fortune et Gloire ».Les Parthes arsacides de l’armée de Gaule à la fin de l’Empire
Amongst the numerous barbarian contingents enlisted in the Roman army in the late Empire, there were not only German conscripts. In addition to Celtic troops it is worth noting the presence of African and Oriental soldiers. As regards Gaul in particular, a lapidary Latin inscription found in the vic...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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L’Harmattan
2006-12-01
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| Series: | Droit et Cultures |
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| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/droitcultures/601 |
| Summary: | Amongst the numerous barbarian contingents enlisted in the Roman army in the late Empire, there were not only German conscripts. In addition to Celtic troops it is worth noting the presence of African and Oriental soldiers. As regards Gaul in particular, a lapidary Latin inscription found in the vicus of Grand on the one hand, and an Armenian literary source – Moses Khorenatsi’s History of the Armenians – on the other hand, both refer to the presence of Armenian soldiers led by the Arsacid royal clan in the last quarter of the fourth century. These noble foreigners in the service of Rome married provincials. They were able to receive the conubium even at a time when, according to a Constitution of Valentinian the 1rst, any marriage between a non-citizen soldier and a provincial was liable to the death penalty. In Grand was built a great temple dedicated to Grannus, the local solar Apollo. Although officially Christians, the Arsacid knights must have been struck by the similarity between the local god and an Armenian pagan pantheon divinity: the god Tir. And it happened that this god occupied a special place in Armenian royal ideology. |
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| ISSN: | 0247-9788 2109-9421 |