The second part of Carlos’ question from a few episodes ago: “Second, somewhere in an old issue of AWM I have read (but I cannot find it again) that, to become a legionary, recruits needed to buy their way, and that the required payment (bribe?) was lower if you joined the auxiliaries instead. This was surprising, because I also read about a signing bonus (viaticum) by the second century. The article I remember discussed a poor Roman citizen who joined the auxilia rather than the legions because it was cheaper. What do we know about these payments? If they existed, they would take away some of the arguments that the auxilia were not anymore attractive after the Constitutio Antoniniana because everybody was a citizen: poor citizens might simply not have been able to afford the legions.”
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