Talk:Contubernium (Roman army unit)

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Military history: Classical Start‑class

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	Classical warfare task force (c. 700 BC – c. 500 AD)

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Question

A question about the short contubernium item. A typo leaves one matter unclear: "if one the squad was ...". Does the writer or editor mean to express "if one of the squad was ..." (one of eight soldiers) or "if the squad was ..."?

66.135.106.50 15:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC) Cy[reply]

Question n:o 2

Is there a reference to a source quoting an actual occurance when a single squad was forced to face a decimation? Although the term decimation is not unheard of, the actual times it is noted are more rare... please give an example.

Page move

Grufo you seemed to have moved this page without any discussion or move request. Can you justify the move? VR _talk 14:24, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. The name conflicts with the quasi-marital relationships involving slaves in ancient Rome. And, as with other pages involving Roman military institutions, a specifier in brackets following the name is in order here – see Ala (Roman allied military unit), Decurion (Roman cavalry officer), Maniple (military unit), Cohort (military unit). --Grufo (talk) 14:33, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But why not name that page differently? I did some searches on google books and google scholar and the term's use in military contexts is about the same as its use in other contexts. VR _talk 15:03, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You mean naming the current Contubernium differently? What do you propose? --Grufo (talk) 15:21, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Consider also "Contubernium". Oxford Classical Dictionary. S2CID 165984407. – emphasis mine:

Contubernium meant a ‘dwelling together’, as of soldiers or animals, but referred especially to a quasi-marital union between slave and slave or slave and free. Since a slave lacked juristic personality, a contubernium was not a marriage but a factual situation, at the pleasure of the slave-owner, creating no legal consequences despite the use of such words as uxor, maritus, or pater, even in legal texts. Children were the property of the mother's owner; no slave-woman could be guilty of adultery; manumission of one or both parents need not extend to their issue. Sepulchral inscriptions indicate that contubernia were highly valued. But how widespread de facto slave ‘families’ were and which social contexts best favoured them cannot be accurately known. Slave-owners always retained the right to separate slave family members, and commonly did so to judge from records of slave sales and bequests.

--Grufo (talk) 20:28, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]