Roman Military Diploma On-Line
Back to Mainpage
Roman Military Mainpage
Military Diploma Mainpage

Importance of Roman Military Diplomas for the Historian and Mission of this Web Project

Most archeological items that show up in the international art market have lost their informative value as they are for ever removed from their specific find context. One noteable exception are epigraphic artefacts that "speak for themselves".
Especially auxiliary diplomas are major sources on the roman auxiliary forces. They can be dated to a specific day (including the names of the consules / suffect consules). They list names of units stationed in a province at that time; the name of the governor of the province; the name of the commander of the recipient's unit; rank, name and origin of the recipient; name and origin of his wive; names of their children.   Most other major sources of such information, e.g. inscriptions on marble tombstones and donative monuments are in contrast not dated. We can thus map career paths of individuals of the roman senatorial class and the equites (knights) with an ever increasing level of detail. What is mostly lost however is the link to their archeological findplaces. Diploma could otherwhise also tell us where the soldiers spent their retirement, often enough in the region of their origin.  But as we occasionally get - vague as they may be - hints as to the region the fragments were found in, we try to document this as well.

Roman Military Diploma On-line is a project to make collectors and dealers aware of the importance of publishing these documents - even small fragments.
Mail us if you need support in identifying details of a military diploma (fragment) you may have in your collection. We are publishing military diploma in major scientific journals and appreciate very much new material from private collections for this purpose. You can be named as donor, or you can remain anonymous, whichever you prefer.

All we need are clear fotos of both sides (either high resolution scan or real foto), weight (in g), height and width, thickness, height of letters (in mm).

Contact us at romancoins.info @yahoo.com  (please leave out the blank between our name and the @, this is to discourage spam robots)

Even small fragments can help our historical studies ! We built a database of all known fragments and can match yours to known pieces, thus getting important information even out of minor fragments.

Journals and List of Publications:

Publications in Preparation:


Acta Musei Napocensis AMN

Althistorisch-Epigraphische Studien Archeologisches Korrespondenzblatt des RGZM Chiron Dacia Festschriften


Kölner Jahrbuch KJB

Revue des Etudes Militaires Antiques REMA Roman Military Diplomas Vol 5 Scripta Classica Israelica  SCI Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik ZPE


List of Diplomas we have published / are in preparation / waiting for detailed analysis:

Contact us at romancoins.info @yahoo.com (please leave out the blank between our name and the @, this is to discourage spam robots)