Aspects of Identity-

Identity-Construction and Cultural Mimicry

Mimicry
among Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman NavNavy
avy *

C. Ravonius Celer was a sailor of the Misene fleet from Dalmatia.

C. Ravonius Celer qui et Bato Scenobarbi (f.) from Naples (CIL 10.3618 =
Dessau 2901):
D(IS) M(ANIBUS) / C(AIUS) RAVONIUS CELER QUI ET BATO SCE /
NOBARBI NATION(E) DAL[M(ATA)] / MANIP(U)L(ARIS) EX
(TRIREME) ISID[E MIL(ITAVIT) ANN(IS)] XI VIXIT [ANN(IS) ...] /
P(UBLIUS) AELIUS V[...] I VENER[(E) ...]
This inscription from his tombstone provides important evidence about the
process of construction of individual identities in the period of the early
principate, for it reveals the parallel existence of Roman and indigenous
identity in a funerary context, commemorating C. Ravonius Celer, who is
also at the same time Bato, a son of Scenobarbus of the Dalmatian ‘nation’.
This inscription records the two identities of C. Ravonius Celer/Bato, which
were incorporated into his personality as an essential part of who he was,
revealing both his private and public self.
Three more sailors of the Misene fleet from Dalmatia expressed their
identity in the same manner in approximately the same period. Thus we have
the inscriptions commemorating:
L. Iallus Valens qui et Licca Bardi f. from Misenum (CIL 10.3468 = 2715)
D(IS) M(ANIBUS) / L(UCI) IALLI VALENTIS QUI / ET LICCAE BARDI
F(ILIUS) / OPTIONIS EX (TRIREME) VENER(E) / VIXIT ANN(IS)
XXXV MILIT(AVIT) / ANNIS XIII
M. Baebius Celer qui et Bato Dazantis f. from Rome (or the bay of Naples)1
M(ARCO) BAEBIO CE / LERI QUI ET BATO / DAZANTIS F(ILIUS)
DELMA(TA) / MIL(ES) EX CL(ASSE) PR(AETORIA) MIS(ENATIUM)

* I would like to thank the Australasian Society for Classical Studies for their Early Career
Award, which helped my research travel to Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina,
resulting in this article. [Ed. note : Dr Dzino is the second winner of this Award.] Earlier
versions of this paper were read at the departmental seminar at the University of Adelaide
and the “Roman Byways” conference at the University of Sydney (December 2007). I also
want to thank Antichthon’s anonymous readers for useful suggestions and productive
criticism; Dr Alka Domić-Kunić from the Archaeological Division of the Croatian Academy
of Humanities and Sciences (HAZU) in Zagreb for her immense help and encouragement;
and Dr Barbara Sidwell for editing and support.
1
AE (1912) 184; H. Moore, ‘Latin Inscriptions in the Harvard Collection of Classical
Antiquities’,, HSCP 20 (1909) no. 9; J. Bodel, ‘Thirteen Latin Funerary Inscriptions at
Harvard University’, AJA 96 (1992) no. 4. The original provenance of the tombstone is
unknown. Bodel (84) argues that the stone may have been originally set up either in the bay
of Naples or in Rome, where it was probably purchased.

96
Antichthon 44 (2010) 96-110
Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman Navy 97

(CENTURIA) VI / BI MAXIMI VIXIT ANN(IS) / XL MILIT(AVIT)

ANN(IS) XVIIII / FULVIA BASILIA CONIU / GI B(ENE) M(ERENTI)
F(ECIT) ET LIBERTIS / LIBERTABUS POSTERI / QUE EORUM
OMNIB(US)
L. Virridius Celer qui et Temans ... f. from Puteoli (CIL 10.3666 = 466).
D(IS) M(ANIBUS) / L(UCIO) VIRRIDIO CELERI / QUI ET TEMANS [...]
/ [...] FILIO DELMAT(AE) / VIX(IT) ANN(IS) XXXXIX / MILIT(AVIT)
ANN(IS) XXIII / T(ITUS) COSCONIUS FIRMUS / (TRIREME) SOLIS
HERES BE / NE MERENTI FECIT
These inscriptions from Puteoli, Misenum and Naples came from an area
which had a high concentration of sailor tombstones, for obvious reasons: the
fleet was based there, and Rome was the place where the Misene fleet had its
permanent barracks, the castra Misenatium.2 These are all simple tombstones
with no decorations or images, erected either by the widow (for Baebius
Celer), friends or fellow-countrymen (for Ravonius Celer and Virridius
Celer), or by an unstated person (for Iallus Valens). Social status, or in this
case military rank, is also prominent in the inscriptions and is almost always
stated: optio (Iallus Valens), manipularius (Ravonius Celer) and miles
(Baebius Celer). It is missing only in the epitaph of Virridius Celer. All
sailors state their origins as natione Delmata , except Iallus Valens, whose
indigenous name Liccaius strongly identifies him with either northern
Dalmatia or southern Pannonia.3
Saddington has recently argued for the full integration of peregrine sailors
into Roman society:
They used Latin and were adept in the application of Roman legal
procedures in their financial dealings. They tended to cling to their peregrine
names, sometimes quoting them after their new Latin names (using the “qui
et” formula). But their tombstones were Roman . . . The veteran classiarius
4
was fully integrated into Roman society.
The evidence of these tombstone inscriptions, however, is not consistent with
the notion of the full integration of these sailors into Roman society. It is true
that the sailors used a number of different strategies generally to fit into

2
C.G. Starr, Roman Imperial Navy 31 BC – AD 324 , 2nd edn (Cambridge 1960) 20. All
Dalmatian sailors’ inscriptions were originally placed either in the bay of Naples or in Rome
with a single exception: A. Domić-Kunić, ‘Classis praetoria Misenatium : With Special
Attention to Sailors from Dalmatia and Pannonia’ (title of English abstract), Vjesnik
Arheološkog Muzeja u Zagrebu , series 3, 28-29 (1995/6) 61-2.
3
R. Katičić, ‘Zur Frage der keltischen und pannonischen Namengebieten im römischen
Dalmatien’, Annuaire Centre D’Études Balkaniques III.1 (1965) 70-1; S. Dušanić, ‘A
Military Diploma of A. D. 65’, Germania 56 (1978) 465.
4
D.B. Saddington, ‘Classes. The Evolution of the Roman Imperial Fleets’, in P. Erdkamp (ed.)
A Companion to the Roman Army (Malden 2007) 216. It was also the perception of the
Greek orator Aristides: ‘Consequently, they [soldiers] actually became reluctant for the rest
of their lives to say where they had come from originally’: Aristides, Praise of Rome (Jebb)
218.3-4.
98 Danijel Dzino

Roman society, such as the quintessentially Roman method of funerary

practice and commemoration, Latin language and names, and the sense of
belonging to the Roman navy and Roman world. However, as I will argue,
these social strategies of fitting in, in fact, show the way in which they were
balanced between two worlds, Roman and indigenous, incorporating them
both into the construction of their personal identities.
The identity of these sailors with two names from Dalmatia has not been
discussed previously in this way. They have been discussed in an epigraphic
context, in the context of their indigenous names, or as Dalmatian sailors in
the Misene fleet.5 The names of these sailors will allow this paper to focus on
the aspects of their ‘Dalmatianness’, their ‘Romanness’, and the way they
used both of these identity matrices for constructing their own identity as
sailors of the Roman fleet stationed in Italy. It is the purpose of this paper to
contribute not only to research into the identity-construction of the
indigenous sailors from Dalmatia in the Roman fleets, but also to address the
wider issues of the process of acculturation in the Roman world.
The formula which represents the duality of the indigenous and Roman
names joined by the phrase qui/quae et in Latin and h] kaiv in Greek are quite
frequent in the Roman world and exist in many different contexts.6 In relation
to the indigenous inhabitants of Roman Dalmatia, it is attested on at least a
dozen inscriptions, all in a funerary context, all outside Roman Dalmatia 7
and all from the first and second centuries AD. There are two groups of
names: the sailors from the Misene fleet, whom this paper will discuss, and
the Dalmatian miners in Dacia, whose names reveal their social and personal
identities but are not useful for research into their ethnic identity.8

APPROACHES TO IDENTITIES IN ANTIQUITY

It is now widely accepted in scholarship that group identity is both socially
constructed and flexible, that it changes and shifts in different circumstances

5
Indigenous names: D. Rendić-Miočević, Iliri i Antički svijet: Ilirološke studije Povijest –
arheologija – umjetnost – numizmatika – onomastika (The Illyrians and Ancient World.
Studies in Illyrology: History – Art – Numismatics – Onomastics ), collected works (Split
1989) 639, 642, 660-2, 782-3; Dalmatian and Pannonian sailors: Domić-Kunić (n. 2) 39-72;
epigraphy: Moore (n. 1) 3-4; Bodel (n. 1) 82-4 (only the inscription commemorating Baebius
Celer).
6
See W. Kubitschek, s.v. ‘Signum ’ RE 2A (1923) 2448-52; G.A. Harrer, ‘Saul Who Also Is
Called Paul’, HThR 33 (1940) 20-1, esp. n. 10 for older literature; also I. Kajanto, Super-
nomina: A Study in Latin Epigraphy. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 40.1
(Helsinki 1966), and G.H.R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity , Vol. 1
(North Ryde NSW 1981) 89-96 for different aspects and contexts of this epigraphic habit.
7
Signum in Dalmatia is relatively rare outside of the capital Salonae, but even when it exists
there are no indigenous names: Rendić-Miočević (n. 5) 662.
8
The miners: most recently I. Piso, ‘Gli Illiri AD Alburnus Maior’, in G. Urso (ed.), Dall’
Adriatico al Danubio: L’Illirico nell’età graeca e romana , I Convegni della Fondazione
Niccolò Canussio 3 (Pisa 2004) 271-308; see also M. Zaninović, ‘Delmati e Pirusti e la loro
presenza in Dacia’, Opuscula Archaeologica [Zagreb] 19 (1995) 111-5.
Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman Navy 99

in response to a group’s discursive self-perception, common experiences,

political interests, interaction with other groups, and perception of the group
by outsiders.9 Personal identity is an even more complex notion, as it is
influenced by personal experiences and circumstances, social background,
memories, internal narrative and the cultural discourses that an individual is
exposed to throughout his or her lifetime. The construction of selfhood
occupies the interface between cultural discourses and the enduring
dispositions and practices in which individuals are brought up, that is, their
sense of otherness, memories and intimate discourses and the everyday social
discourses/practices (habitus ) that these individuals are exposed to through-
out their experience of life.10
Funerary monuments and inscriptions are a very important tool for
researching the construction of personal identities from antiquity, as they are
statements of selfhood, which show how the deceased wished to be
remembered, and how his or her particular position and role within the social
group were constructed and communicated. They are particularly important
as public statements of identity, especially in the case of minority ‘alien’
groups, or inside the unified body of military gravestones. However, it is
important to bear in mind that they present a selective part of identity, the one
chosen by the deceased or his family and/or friends: a snapshot of identity
constructed in the moment when the inscription was written.11
Bhabha’s concept of ‘cultural hybridity’, developed in post-colonial
literary criticism, significantly affects the way identities are seen today in
scholarship, and will form the theoretical basis of the present argument.
According to Bhabha, ‘hybridity’ is the result of acculturation between two
different cultures, usually in a dominant and submissive position of power
(coloniser and colonised), where the colonised re-combines and selectively

9
The literature is too extensive for this study to go into more detail; see the different social and
anthropological aspects in: A.D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford 1986); H.
Vermeulen and C. Govers (eds), The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond ‘Ethnic Groups and
Boundaries’ (Amsterdam/Hague 1994); M. Banks, Ethnicity: Anthropological Constructions
(London/New York 1996); R. Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations
(London 1997).
10
M.M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. (trans. and ed. by M. Holquist)
(Austin/London 1981); cf. K.P. Ewing, ‘The Illusion of Wholeness: Culture, Self and the
Experience of Inconsistency’, Ethos 18 (1990) 251-78; P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of
Practice (Cambridge 1977); The Logic of Practice (Cambridge 1990); H. Friese (ed.),
Identities: Time, Difference and Boundaries (London 2002).
11
V.M. Hope, ‘Negotiating Identity and Status: The Gladiators of Roman Nîmes’, in R.
Laurence and J. Berry (eds), Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire (London/New York
1998) 179-80; ‘Inscription and Sculpture: The Construction of Identity in the Military
Tombstones of Roman Mainz’, in G.J. Oliver (ed.), The Epigraphy of Death: Studies in the
History and Society of Greece and Rome (Liverpool 2000) 155-60; ‘Remembering Rome:
Memory, Funerary Monuments and Roman Soldier’, in H. Williams (ed.) Archaeologies of
Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies (New York/London 2003) 125-40
(gladiators and soldiers), and Constructing Identity: The Roman Funerary Monuments of
Aquileia, Mainz and Nimes, BAR-Int. Series 960 (Cambridge 2001).
100 Danijel Dzino

accepts existing cultural stereotypes of the coloniser into a specific, own,

tertium quid : an ‘in-between’ identity. Bhabha’s hybrids have no stable
identity; they imitate but never duplicate the cultural narratives of the
coloniser. Although altered through imitation, they are also altering forces
and figures, which change in time both coloniser and colonised. Hybrids are
fashioned through the process of ‘cultural mimicry’ of the coloniser, seen as
a form of resemblance which is a ‘disruptive imitation’ that disrupts colonial
narratives of identity: ‘[m]imicry is like camouflage, not a harmonisation or
repression of difference but a form of resemblance that differs/defends
presence by displaying it in part, metonymically.’ In Bhabha’s words,
identities which are formed in the process of mimicry are ‘almost the same,
but not quite’.12
The identity of people from antiquity is becoming a significant and
fruitful field for research. Important work on major group identities from
antiquity has been done in the last generation,13 but the discourse on ancient
identities is shifting more and more towards the observation of individual
identities, their constructions and complexity, certainly when and where
evidence allows, especially through personal narratives. Today, notions of
isolated, discrete cultural identities within the Roman empire have been
irreparably disrupted.14 Dealing with personal identities from Roman
Dalmatia and Illyricum in general is a difficult task. No indigenous literary
narratives are known, and Greek and Roman writers were little interested in
the area, so that epigraphy, together with archaeology, remains the most
important analytical tool for research into indigenous identity narratives. The
funerary context of these inscriptions commemorating the deceased
Dalmatian sailors is a powerful medium for negotiating identity between
integration into Romanness and maintenance of otherness,15 and thus highly
relevant for the present discussion.
The fascination of modern scholars with the ancient social process of
acculturation between an indigenous population and Graeco-Roman cultural
templates, especially in western parts of the Empire, has not diminished in

12
H. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York 1994), the first quotation is from 131, the
second from 86.
13
E.g. J. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge/New York 1997); Hellenicity:
Between Ethnicity and Culture (Chicago 2002) (the Greeks); E. Dench, Romulus Asylum:
Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian (Oxford 2005); G.D.
Farney, Ethnic Identity and Aristocratic Competition in Republican Rome (Cambridge 2007)
(the Romans); P.S. Wells: The Barbarians Speak: How the Conquered Peoples Shaped
Roman Europe (Princeton 1999) (‘Barbarians’). There are too many for all to be mentioned
here.
14
R. Miles (ed.), Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity (London 1997); S. Goldhill (ed.),
Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of
Empire (Oxford 2001).
15
Hope, ‘Constructing Roman Identity: Funerary Monuments and Social Structure in the
Roman World’ Mortality 2 (1997) 103-21; see also id., ‘Inscription and Sculpture’ (n. 11)
178-81.
Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman Navy 101

time. From the times of Mommsen and Haverfield when the meta-narrative
of ‘Romanisation’ was conceived in modern historiography, to the most
recent re-assessment and questioning of the whole concept, the process of
‘becoming Roman’ remains a very active and productive field of enquiry in
ancient history. Instead of a top-down ‘civilising’ process spreading Roman
civilisation to the ‘barbarians’, Romanisation (or ‘Romanisation’: some
authors with good reason call for abolition of the whole concept)16 is today
seen both as an active and a passive process; it is observed in the framework
of the theory of globalisation – in particular through local responses and re-
working of global trends, and through aspects of resistance and domination.17
Post-colonial approaches, including the application of Bhabha’s ‘mimicry’
and ‘hybridity’ frameworks are used more frequently by the latest generation
of scholars in order to gain better insight into the construction of individual
and group identities from antiquity, mainly through analysing literary
narratives, but also in the archaeological record as a two-way agency and
dialogue between the conqueror and the conquered.18

‘ROMANNESS’ AND ‘SAILORNESS’

The Roman navy, as much as the Roman army, is an interesting example of a
social group which developed its own strongly shown identity, releasing its
members from the hierarchy and the conventions of society in which its
members were born and raised. The identities of Roman sailors have not
attracted significant scholarly attention, by contrast with the rising scholarly
interest in the identities of soldiers in Roman legions. There were different
ways of constructing a group identity among soldiers from differing
backgrounds; especially significant for their identity construction were the

16
E.g. D.J. Mattingly, ‘Introduction: Dialogues of Power and Experience in the Roman
Empire’, in Mattingly (ed.), Dialogues in Roman Imperialism: Power, Discourse and
Discrepant Experience in the Roman Empire , JRA Supp. 23, (Portsmouth RI 1997); idem,
‘Being Roman: Expressing Identity in a Provincial Setting’, JRA 17 (2004) 5-25.
17
E.g. M. Millett, The Romanization of Britain: An Essay in Archaeological Interpretation
(Cambridge 1990) (passive); W.S. Hanson, ‘Forces of Change and Methods of Control’, in
Mattingly, Dialogues (n. 16) 67-80; C.R. Whittaker, ‘Imperialism and Culture: The Roman
Initiative’, in Mattingly, Dialogues (n. 16) 143-65 (active); R. Hingley, ‘Resistance and
Domination: Social Change in Roman Britain’, in Mattingly, Dialogues (n. 16) 81-102
(resistance); G. Woolf, ‘The Unity and Diversity of Romanisation,’ JRA 5 (1992) 349-52; id.,
Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilisation in Gaul (Cambridge 1998);
Mattingly, ‘Being Roman’ (n. 16); R. Hingley, Globalizing Roman Culture: Unity, Diversity
and Empire (London/New York 2005) (local responses and globalisation).
18
E.g. P. Lee-Stecum, ‘Tot in uno corpore formae : Hybridity, Ethnicity and Vertumnus in
Propertius Book 4’, Ramus 34 (2005) 22-46 (the Romans); J. Webster. ‘Creolizing the
Roman Provinces’, AJA 105 (2001) 209-25 (Roman provincials); J. Webster and N. Cooper
(eds), Roman Imperialism: Post-Colonial Perspectives (Leicester 1996) (Roman
imperialism); R.P. Seesengood, ‘Hybridity and the Rhetoric of Endurance: Reading Paul’s
Athletic Metaphors in a Context of Postcolonial Self-construction’, The Bible and Critical
Theory 1.3 (2005) 1-16. DOI: 10:2104/bc050016 (New Testament Studies); T. Whitmarsh,
Greek Literature and the Roman Empire (Oxford 2001) (the Greeks).
102 Danijel Dzino

ways in which they used symbols and communicated their identity.19 It is

possible to say that the Roman legions constructed and negotiated their own
specific kinds of Romanness,20 or in some cases even constructed their own
group identity, especially in those legions composed of soldiers who shared a
common regional cultural habitus , such as the Illyriciani of the later
Empire.21 More recent scholarly opinion strongly argues that the interaction
between provincial societies and Roman army units stationed throughout the
Empire resulted in different constructions of military Romannesses, with
scholars arguing that ‘Roman armies’ is a more accurate description than the
singular ‘Roman army’, especially in the later Empire.22
The Roman navies were very heterogeneous social units, as were the
legions. The Romanness of the sailors is strongly shown by the fact that
sailors discarded their old names and adopted and kept Roman ones. Sailors
probably received their new names as soon as they reached the fleet, as we
can see from the evidence of the letters sent home by the sailor Apion from
Egypt, who was given the new name Antonius Maximus as soon as he joined
the navy in Misenum.23 Their interaction with the surrounding society was
quite important, especially in the winter months when the fleets were idle,
and we can assume that they were significantly interacting with the civilian
communities,24 who in turn significantly affected the construction of the
sailors’ own identities. It is also possible to postulate the existence of

19
R. MacMullen, ‘The Legion as Society’, Historia 33 (1984) 440-56; I. Haynes, ‘Introduction:
Roman Army as a Community’, in A. Goldsworthy and I. Haynes (eds), The Roman Army as
a Community , JRA Suppl. 34 (Portsmouth RI 1999) 9-11; idem, ‘Military Service and
Cultural Identity in the auxilia’, in Goldsworthy and Haynes, 167, 173; M.P. Speidel, ‘The
Soldiers’ Homes’, in W.Eck and H. Wolff (eds), Heer und Intergrationspolitik. Die
römischen Militärdiplome als historische Quelle (Cologne and Vienna 1986) 467-81.
20
Romanness of the legions: R. Alston, ‘The Ties that Bind: Soldiers and Societies’, in
Goldsworthy and Haynes (n. 19) 175-95; N. Pollard, ‘The Roman Army as “Total
Institution” in the Near East? Dura-Europos as a Case Study’, in D.L. Kennedy (ed.), The
Roman Army in the East , JRA Suppl. 18 (Ann Arbor 1996) 211-28; P.M. Brennan, ‘The Last
of the Romans: Roman Identity and the Roman Army in the Late Roman Near East’, JMA 11
(1998) 191-204.
21
The Illyriciani as a constructed identity is indirectly suggested in: J.J. Wilkes, ‘The Roman
Army as a Community in the Danube Lands: The Case of the Seventh Legion’, in
Goldsworthy and Haynes (n. 19) 95-104; G. Brizzi, ‘Ancora su Illyriciani e “Soldatenkaiser”:
qualche ulteriore proposta per una messa a fuoco del problema’, in Urso (n. 8) 319-42.
22
E.g. S. James, ‘The Community of the Soldiers: A Major Identity and Centre of Power in the
Roman Empire’, in P. Baker, C. Forcey, S. Jundi, and R. Witcher (eds), TRAC 98:
Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (Oxford
1999) 14-25, esp. 14-15; A. Gardner, ‘The Social Identities of Soldiers: Boundaries and
Connections in the Later Roman World’, in R. Roth and J. Keller (eds), Roman by
Integration: Dimensions of Group Identity in Material Culture and Text , JRA Suppl. 66
(Portsmouth RI 2007) 97-102.
23
BGU 632, cf. 423.22-23 where he signs his new name; cf. Starr (n. 2) 84-5; C.E.V. Nixon,
‘Joining the Roman Navy’, Ancient History: Resources for Teachers 9.1 (1979) 14-15, 19-20.
24
Tac. Hist. 1.46; cf. Domić-Kunić (n. 5) 45. For society in Misenum see A. Parma, ‘Classiari,
veterani e società cittadina a Misenum’, Ostraka 3 (1994) 43-59.
Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman Navy 103

strongly tied societal groups (kin, village, region) from the provinces who
cared for each other.25 The dual Roman/indigenous names of the sailors in the
Roman fleets were not only recorded among the Dalmatians; there are also
sailors from the Eastern provinces who were commemorated with dual
names.26
The sailors from Dalmatia and Pannonia had a significant impact on the
standing imperial fleets. Estimates of their representation in those fleets vary
and go as high as 28% in Misenum and 43% in Ravenna, according to Starr,
who analysed the inscriptions commemorating sailors from these fleets.27
This is also confirmed by Tacitus (Hist. 3.12, cf. 3.50), who also noted their
importance in AD 69/70: Lucilius Bassus, classis Ravennatis praefectus
ambiguos militum animos, quod magna pars Dalmatae Pannoniique erant
(‘Lucilius Bassus, prefect of the Ravenna fleet, finding that the loyalties of
the soldiers were wavering because a large part were Dalmatian or Pannonian
. . .’). The indigenousness of these four sailors is ascertained by their names,
which were indigenous to the wider area of Illyricum: Bato and Liccaius, and
the fact that three of the four sailors state their identity as Delmata, or natione
Delmata. Their indigenous name is composed of a proper name, Bato, and a
patronymic, Dazantis or Scenobarbi, without the term f[ilius] ,28 and with the
term f[ilius] , like Liccaius Bardi f., or Temans . . . f.29 It is impossible to
determine the legal status of these sailors. The inscriptions should be dated to
Flavian times as terminus post quem because of the Claudian ban on the use
of Italic/Roman names by non-citizens (Suet. Claud. 25).30 What is inter-
esting in regard to their indigenous identity is that not only these sailors with
their double names, but the overwhelming majority of sailors from Dalmatia,
state their indigenous identity as ‘Dalmatian’, which is different from the
auxiliaries from Dalmatia, who state their identity in accordance with their
peregrine civitas.31

25
Nixon (n. 23) 17, 19.
26
E.g. CIL 10.3406; 6.3165; 6.3377 = 2753; 6.3406 = 2682 + 2684; 6.3492 = 2731; 6.3622 =
2812.
27
Starr (n. 2) 75 T 1. Other estimates vary significantly, but Starr provides the highest estimate
for Dalmatians and Pannonians in Misenum; Domić-Kunić (n. 2) 56 T 4; M. Zaninović,
Ilirsko pleme Delmati (Illyrian tribe of the Delmatae ) [complete text of articles published in
the 1960s] (Šibenik 2007) 236 n. 292.
28
Type IIBa: Rendić-Miočević (n. 5) 639. For the classification of indigenous names from the
region see G. Alföldy, Die Personennamen in der römischen Provinz Dalmatia (Heidelberg
1969) 15 f.; Wilkes, ‘The Population of Roman Dalmatia’, ANRW II.6 (1977) 757-9.
29
Type IIBb: Rendić-Miočević (n. 5) 642.
30
Starr (n. 5) 71-4, 97-8 n. 24; J.C. Mann, ‘The Development of Auxiliary and Fleet Diplomas’,
Epigraphische Studien 9 (1972) 233-41; M. Reddé, Mare nostrum. Les infrastructures, le
dispositif et l’histoire de la marine militaire sous l’empire romain , Bibliothèque des écoles
françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 260 (Paris 1986) 474 ff.; Saddington (n. 4) 212.
31
Domić-Kunić, ‘Auxiliaries of Illyrian and Pannonian Origin from Inscriptions and Diplomas
from Augustus to Caracalla’ (title of English abstract), Arheološki Radovi i Rasprave
104 Danijel Dzino

DALMATIA IN ROMAN GEOGRAPHICAL AND ETHNOGRAPHIC DISCOURSES

To understand better the cultural background of the sailors and their
‘Dalmatianness’, it is important to say something about Dalmatia inside the
Empire. The province of Illyricum was divided into the provinces later
known as Dalmatia and Pannonia at some time in the first part of the first
century AD, probably in early Tiberian times.32 It was inhabited by a hetero-
geneous indigenous population, which had no joint sense of ‘Illyrianness’,
‘Dalmatianness’ or ‘Pannonianness’ in pre-Roman times. The region later
known as Illyricum was incorporated into the Empire in a piecemeal way in
the late Republic and early Principate and was constructed in Roman
political, literary and ethnographic discourse in a similar way to Gaul,
Germany or Britain.33 After the conquest the indigenous population was
divided into peregrine civitates, which were apparently organised on a
regional and ‘ethnic’ basis.34 However, we need to be careful about assuming
that every civitas in Roman Dalmatia accurately represented pre-Roman
cultural, ethnic and/or political structures or reflected the common identity of
the indigenous population. It should not be assumed that the group identities
mentioned in the narrative of the process of the Roman conquest of the
region such as the ‘Delmatae’ or ‘Iapodes’ represented pre-existing unified
political or ethnic units.35 These terms rather reflect the Roman perception of
indigenous ‘ethnography’, Roman ways of thinking and discourses on the
Roman position in the world, not the shared identity of the indigenous
population.36 The Roman reorganisation of the provincial space began this
process of change; it reconstructed the earlier local landscapes and

[Zagreb] 11 (1988) 104 T 1. In English: P.A. Holder, The Auxilia from Augustus to Trajan ,
BAR-Int. ser. 70 (Oxford 1980), 132 (with some omissions) for auxiliaries.
32
H. Braunert, ‘Omnium provinciarium populi Romani . . . fines auxi . Ein Entwurf ’, Chiron 7
(1977) 215-6; J. Fitz, ‘La division de l’Illyricum’, Latomus 47.1 (1988) 13-25.
33
M. Šašel Kos, Appian and Illyricum. Situla 43 (Ljubljana 2005) 219-44: changing the
conceptions and misconceptions of Illyricum. For the construction of Gaul see A.M. Riggsby,
Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words (Austin 2006); C.B. Krebs, ‘Imaginary Geography
in Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum ’, AJP 127 (2006) 111-36; Germany: E. O’Gorman, ‘No Place
like Rome: Identity and Difference in the Germania of Tacitus’, Ramus 22 (1993) 135-54;
Britain: P.C.N. Stewart, ‘Inventing Britain: The Roman Creation and Adaptation of an
Image’, Britannia 26 (1995) 1-10, and in wider context H. Schadee, ‘Caesar’s Construction
of Northern Europe: Inquiry, Contact and Corruption in De Bello Gallico ’, CQ 58 (2008)
158-80.
34
Plin. HN 3.139-44; Wilkes, Dalmatia (London 1969) 153 f., 482-6; id. ‘The Danubian and
Balkan Provinces’, in CAH 10 2 (1996) 576-81; I. Bojanovski, Bosna i Hercegovina u antičko
doba (Bosnia-Herzegovina in Antiquity ) (Sarajevo 1988) 75-344.
35
Cf. the similar situation in Britain: Mattingly, Britannia: An Imperial Possession (London
2006) 358-9.
36
See Dench (n. 13) 38-92 on Roman ethnographic genre.
Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman Navy 105

established new regional identities in Dalmatia and Pannonia, just as the

Romans did elsewhere throughout the Empire.37
In this context, it is interesting to pay closer attention to ‘Dalmatianness’,
which is prominent as the identity of choice among the sailors. Earlier
scholarship assumed it to be an administrative identity, in the same way that
imperial ‘Pannonianness’ was: as terminology deriving from the names of the
Roman provinces, Dalmatia and Pannonia, named after the indigenous
groups known to the Romans as the Delmatae and the Pannonii.38 The written
sources show that there are, in fact, a few parallel ethnographic discourses
occurring in the early Principate. Strabo (7.5.3, 7.5.10), writing in the 10s AD
calls the Pannonii a group of peoples located in the north of Roman Dalmatia
and southern Pannonia (the Daesitiates, Mezaei, Breuci, Ditiones, Segestani-
Colapiani etc.). Writing in the 20s AD about the bellum Batonianum (AD 6–
9), in which he personally participated, Velleius Paterculus (2.110-7) terms
the same peoples ‘Dalmatians’ and ‘Pannonians’, depending on whether they
were from the Dalmatian or the Pannonian province.39 However, at that time
the area was also called officially Illyricum (especially Pannonia), and the
term Illyrici was also applied to the indigenous population in general in the
first century, as by Pomponius Mela (Chor. 2.3.55).40
All of these discourses reflect Roman cognitive geography, outsider
perception of the ‘natives’ and their assignment to stereotypical categories,
which does not account for existing heterogeneity. They were partly a
product of the sloppiness of the Roman writers who were not famous for their
technical accuracy, but the official renaming can also on some occasions
contrast with an indigenous sense of identity, as for example the Pirustae,
who were broken into different civitates by the Roman administration, but
preserved their sense of identity in the early Empire.41 However, outsider-
imposed administrative identities throughout the Roman empire in time were
transformed, so that they became indigenous identity-narratives inside

37
For the empire perspective see C. Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the
Roman Empire (Berkeley/Los Angeles 2000) 353-4; S. Keay, ‘Romanization and Hispaniae’,
in S. Keay and N. Terrenato (eds), Italy and the West: Comparative Issues in Romanization
(Oxford 2001) 131-2 (Hispania); S. Mitchell, ‘Ethnicity, Acculturation and Empire in Roman
and Late Roman Asia Minor’, in S. Mitchell and G. Greatrex (eds), Ethnicity and Culture in
Late Antiquity (London 2000) 117-51 (Asia Minor).
38
E.g. R. Syme, ‘Augustus and the South Slav Lands’, in Danubian Papers (Bucharest 1971)
19-21; T. Nagy, ‘Die Okkupation Pannoniens durch die Römer in der Zeit des Augustus’,
AArchHung 43 (1991) 77-8; S. Čače, ‘The Name “Dalmatia” in the Second and First
Centuries B.C.’ (Title of the English abstract), Radovi Filozofskog Fakulteta [Zadar] 40
(2003) 29-48; Šašel Kos (n. 33) 377-8.
39
Cf. App. Il l. 14; Šašel Kos (n. 33) 376-80.
40
D. Dzino, ‘Strabo and Imaginary Illyricum’, Athenaeum 98.1 (2008) 175.
41
Wilkes (n. 34) 173-6; G. Alföldy Bevölkerung und Gesellschaft der römischen Provinz
Dalmatien (Budapest 1965) 56-59.
106 Danijel Dzino

Roman imperial ideology, as for example in Gaul or amongst the Batavians;42

and the evidence we have from these sailors may confirm that a similar
process was occurring with the inhabitants of Dalmatia in certain contexts as
well.
‘DALMATIANNESS’ IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS
We can gain more knowledge of the ‘Dalmatianness’ of our sailors by using
the comparative example of identity-statements from tombstones and military
diplomas commemorating indigenous auxiliaries and sailors from Dalmatia
outside their province in the period from Augustus to Caracalla. Domić-
Kunić lists sixty-three known auxiliaries from Dalmatia and Pannonia,
mainly from tombstone inscriptions. Thirty-five stated their civitas or
municipal identity (twenty-one from Dalmatia, fourteen from Pannonia),
while twenty-eight are identified only by their own (or parental) indigenous
names, which can be from either of these provinces.43 These auxiliaries
served either in VII cohortes Delmatarum, recruited in Dalmatia, or in other
units. The auxiliaries serving in the cohortes Delmatarum , if they stated their
origins, predominantly show their civitas identity only. There are only three
soldiers who show their identity as Delmata.44 In the non-Dalmatian units,
four auxiliaries from Dalmatia state their identity as Delmata, while all the
rest, if they stated their identity, stated their civitas or municipal identity.45
Thus, seven out of twenty-one soldiers from Dalmatia who state their identity
state it simply as Delmata / Dalmata. The Dalmatian identity of these
auxiliaries might well be the identity of the civitas Delmatarum we know
from Pliny’s list of peregrine civitates in Dalmatia (HN 3.142), apart from
only one exception where the soldier’s identity is recorded as natione
Delmata , which might suggest developing ‘Dalmatianness’, as will be shown
in other examples.46 It is also worth noting that all of these auxiliaries who
wanted to state their Dalmatian identity are commemorated under their
indigenous names.
In the fleets, however, the situation is completely different. In the
Ravennate fleet, out of twenty-six sailors from Dalmatia, twenty-two state
their identity as natione Delmata and only four state their civitas identities.
All sailors who stated their identity as natione Delmata are presented only
with their Roman names. There are also twelve who do not state their origins.

42
Woolf, ‘The Uses of Forgetfulness in Roman Gaul’, in H.-J. Gehrke and A. Möller (eds),
Vergangenheit und Lebenswelt. Soziale Kommunikation, Traditionsbildung und historischer
Bewußtsein. ScriptOralia 90 (Tübingen 1996) 361-81 (Gaul); N. Roymans, Ethnic Identity
and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire , Amsterdam Archaeological
Studies 10 (Amsterdam 2004), esp. 221-34 (the Batavians).
43
Domić-Kunić (n. 31) 83-114.
44
CIL 5.7893; 13.11962 = 7509, and G. Laguerre, Inscriptions Antiques de Nice-Cimiez (Paris
1975) no. 49. It was standard epigraphic procedure with auxiliaries: Speidel (n.19).
45
CIL 16.30; 16.31; 3.3261; 3.8494.
46
Only the soldier from CIL 3.8494 states that he is natione Delmata . Curiously, his tombstone
is found in Dalmatia in the military camp of Burnum.
Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman Navy 107

Either they have indigenous names from Dalmatia or southern Pannonia, or

they returned to their homeland after their service. Domić-Kunić lists forty-
four sailors, twenty-six from Dalmatia, six from Pannonia and twelve without
stated identity.47 In Misenum, out of thirteen known sailors from Dalmatia,
twelve stated their identity as natione Delmata and only one states his civitas
identity. They all state only their Roman names, including four double-named
sailors. There is only one sailor with an indigenous name and he does not
state his origins or identity. Those who do not state their identity and origins
follow the same pattern as sailors from Ravenna and preserve indigenous
names. Domić-Kunić lists twenty-six inscriptions mentioning sailors, thirteen
from Dalmatia, eight from Pannonia, and five without stated identity.48 A
similar pattern appears amongst the sailors from Pannonia who, if they stated
their identity, all stated it as natione Pannonius : six in Ravenna and eight in
Misenum. All the inscriptions are dated after AD 71.49
Thus we can see that the overwhelming majority of the sailors from
Misenum and Ravenna preferred to state their identity using as identifiers the
statement of origin natione Delmata / natione Pannonius instead of the civitas
or municipium of birth, and their Roman name instead of their indigenous
name. In comparison, the majority of auxiliary soldiers from Dalmatia stated
their identity with their indigenous name and the civitas or municipium of
their birth.
Persons from Dalmatia are detected throughout the Empire, but there are
only a few civilians who stated their identity as Delmata or natione
Delmata.50 In Rome, there are few persons who stated their identity as
natione Delmata in either a military or civilian context.51 In North Africa
there were some Dalmatians, but only one is noted to have had his Dalmatian
identity inscribed on a tombstone (CIL 8.2998). In Dacia, where there existed
the settlements of the miners from Dalmatia (castella Delmatarum), it was
actually rare to draw attention to one’s identity. It is interesting to note that
there the only inscription recording Dalmatian identity belongs to the
princeps adsignatus T. Aurelius Aper Delmata who in fact adopts ‘Dal-
matianness’, as he was not born in a Dalmatian civitas, but came from the
municipium Splonum, which belonged to the civitas of the Mezaei (CIL
3.1322).52 There are also slaves, one in Raetia (CIL 3.5913) and two in

47
A. Domić-Kunić, ‘Classis Praetoria Ravennatium with Special Reflection on Sailors that
Originate from Dalmatia and Pannonia’, ŽAnt 46 (1996) 95-110.
48
Domić-Kunić, (n. 2).
49
Starr (n. 2) 75 counts only one Ravennate and one Misene sailor for Dalmatia as pre-Flavian,
as they received their diploma from Vespasian and obviously a major part of their service
was in pre-Flavian times. Both of them stated their civitas identity and indigenous name.
50
Zaninović (n. 27) 229-46.
51
In a military context: CIL 6.3261, probably 6.3663, and in a civilian context 6.28053b. Also,
there was a community of Dalmatians in Rome, cives Dalmates mentioned in 6.32588 =
2817.
52
See Wilkes (n. 35) 272-4; Bojanovski (n. 35) 266-303.
108 Danijel Dzino

Scarabantia (3.14355), who all state their ‘Dalmatianness’ through the

identity-statement natione Delmata.
The sailors from Dalmatia who returned home do not show specific
identities, or at least there is no evidence for them. Some of them are
nicknamed Classici(an)us , like Aurelius Maximus Classicianus, or Panes
Slator Classicius, and the nickname became part of their formal name.53
Some sailors therefore incorporate only their profession as part of their
identity when they return to their homeland, regardless of whether their name
was Latinised (Aurelius Maximus) or not (Panes Slator). They were also
perceived and nicknamed ‘sailors’ after returning home. In one more known
instance, a sailor from a Dalmatian island is commemorated under his
indigenous name.54 There was no need for returning sailors to state their
identity on inscriptions in Dalmatia, as they were not interacting with the
‘other’. The cognomen Classicianus shows, however, that their ‘sailorness’
was perceived as a specific social identity-mark back home, especially if they
originated in continental settings where sailors were probably regarded as
having quite an exotic profession.

CONCLUSION
The inscriptions from the tombstones and diplomas of Roman sailors
originating from Dalmatia carry important information as to how they
constructed their identities, their public selves and private selves, and how
they were perceived in the communities in which they lived. The evidence
shows that their identity was situational: in some situations they were
perceived as ‘Dalmatians’, in other situations as ‘Romans’. The sailors
employed both of their identity matrices, Roman and Dalmatian, throughout
their service in the navy and switched between them, according to the context
of communication, using indigenous ‘Dalmatian’ within the community of
their fellow-countrymen, and ‘Roman’ for communicating with everyone else
outside that community.55 The most important parts of their Roman identity
would be their new Roman name and the use of Latin in communication.56
However, Latin also betrayed their otherness, as they were not native
speakers and almost certainly used different syntax and morphological
structures, as well as employing their indigenous language to communicate

53
A. and J. Šašel, Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Iugoslavia inter annos MCMII et MCMLX
repertae et editae sunt 2, Situla 25 (Ljubljana 1986) no. 753 and CIL 3.9810. The same
cognomen is found in CIL 3.2757 = 9817 and probably damaged CIL 3.3185 = 10151
(Dalmatia) and 36302 = 8162 (from Pannonia); see Rendić-Miočević (n. 5) 658-9.
54
A. and J. Šašel (n. 53) no. 2956.
55
See J. Slofstra, ‘Batavians and Romans on the Lower Rhine. The Romanization of the
Frontier’, Archaeological Dialogues 9 (2002) esp. 29 for situational identity of the Batavian
élite as assuming the matrices of the ‘Germans’, Batavians, and Romans.
56
See J.N. Adams, ‘Romanitas and the Latin Language’, CQ 53 (2003) 199-201 for Latin and
Roman identity in the Roman army.
Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman Navy 109

with fellow-countrymen.57 In addition, they also shared a common

professional identity as sailors of the Roman fleet, which was an important
part of their identity, especially if they returned home. The sailors chose
several different strategies recognisable in the evidence to represent their
identity on their funerary monuments. They usually chose to express their
identity through their Roman name and statement of identity: natione
Delmata. The second strategy was to maintain their indigenous name and
either not state group identity at all or state their civitas identity. The third
strategy was to employ a Roman and an indigenous name and state their
identity as natione Delmata, or not state it at all, such as Iallus Valens who
was also Liccaius, son of Bardis.58
The evidence also shows that the ‘Dalmatianness’ of these sailors was just
one of many different narratives of ‘Dalmatianness’ in the Roman empire,
and probably the same is true of imperial ‘Pannonianness’ as well.
‘Dalmatianness’ was at first an identity arising from a Roman colonial
cognitive perception of the region and the imposition of Roman power. It
needed a few generations to become accepted, and it is mainly shown in the
inscriptions in a diasporic context, outside Dalmatia. However, ‘Dalmatian-
ness’ was much more than just an imitation, or obedient acceptance of the
Roman colonial construct. It was not only an ‘administrative identity’. It was
a deliberate choice, the statement of self-identity in particular contexts. The
message about Dalmatian identity is intended for outsiders, as these sailors
are almost all buried outside their homeland, and this fact explains the
statement of nationality in inscriptions, whether formulated as natione
Delmata or as a statement of their civitas identity. The sailors who returned to
Dalmatia were not stating their identity, as they did not feel it necessary to
communicate their identity to those they perceived as ‘us’, the community of
their fellow villagers or kin group.59 It was only communicated and directed
towards the ‘others’ if they were the perceived audience.60 The example of
auxiliaries shows that Dalmatian identity was not a unified identity-narrative

57
Adams, Bilingualism and the Latin Language (Cambridge 2003) passim; J. Clackson and G.
Horrocks, The Blackwell History of Latin Language (Malden MA/Oxford 2007) 232-64.
Indigenous languages were used in the Roman army units; cf. Adams, 190, 236-7, 255-60,
276, 284.
58
Certainly, a fourth strategy is also possible – to assume a Roman name only and state no
identity. Those sailors are virtually undetectable and cannot be taken into account in research
like this. Unfortunately the evidence shows heavy bias towards those who wanted to state
their separateness, cf. D. Noy, Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers (London 2000)
157-60.
59
The names Dalmata, Dalmatius, Dalmasius are very rare in Dalmatia too and occur in and
around the capital, Salonae – probably a statement of civitas or narrow regional identity in
the cosmopolitan surroundings of a large city: Zaninović (n. 27) 46-7.
60
As Noy (n. 58) 159 points out: formation of new regional imperial identities in Rome might
be more readily expressed in a diasporic context (Rome), rather than in the towns or villages
of their origin.
110 Danijel Dzino

of indigenous inhabitants of Dalmatia in armed forces; the auxiliaries

preferred to state a civitas and municipal identity as their own.
Furthermore, the Romanness of these sailors is not Romanness either.
They might mimic Romanness in order to fit more easily into wider society.
However, what Bhabha said of colonial mimicry: ‘they are almost the same
but not quite’, is highly applicable here; the sailors from Dalmatia lived on
the crossroads of identities, recombining and strategically repositioning their
different identities, in the process of constructing specific hybrid identities.
They were quite Roman, but also very much Dalmatian. When they returned
home (if they had survived and chosen to return), their indigenousness was
not unaltered after years without direct contact with the cultural habitus in
which they were they were raised. The nickname Classicianus shows the
degree of their ‘Romanness’, as otherness incorporated in their indigenous
settings, as they were perceived as partly different, ‘not quite’, when they
returned home after long service in the navy.
The identities of those sailors are also significantly affected by this
perpetual repositioning between identity matrices, place and context and
cannot be seen as ‘pure’ Romanness or ‘Dalmatianness’. The Roman
conquest of Illyricum thoroughly reshaped pre-Roman indigenous identities,
and these different approaches to expression of self-identity employed by
Dalmatian sailors and auxiliaries show some strategies for coping with social
change in diasporic settings outside Dalmatia. With the development of
Dalmatian identity (or rather identities), which will survive as an identity-
term well into early medieval times, whether as an internal or external
perception,61 we see the interaction of the coloniser and colonised: the
coloniser was constructing the identities of the colonised, and the colonised,
by accepting them, resisted the coloniser by (re)claiming these identities as
their own.

The University of Adelaide DANIJEL DZINO

[email protected]

61
Constructed in completely different circumstances as a different identity: Dzino, ‘“Becoming
Slav”, “Becoming Croat”: New Approaches in Research of Identities in Post-Roman
Illyricum’, Hortus Artium Medievalium 14 (2008) 199-200; see also with differences J.V.A.
Fine Jr., When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans: A Study of Identity in Pre-
Nationalist Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods (Ann
Arbor 2006) 94-5 and passim.