Writers and writing in the Roman Army at Dura-Europos
This socio-palaeographic thesis maintains that behind the uniform appearance of Roman army writing was a particular, dedicated training. Focussing on the third century Dura-Europos, it uncovers evidence for the thorough schooling given to the clerks of the resident Cohors XX Palmyrenorum enabling them to fulfil their administrative duties. These include maintaining efficient documentation systems and preparing a range of accurate, legible texts, and the clerks were trained to produce a repertoire of standard military scripts. Additionally other soldiers and the more general public were taught to read and to understand, to varying degrees, but the clerks, distinct, were specialist writers who found dignity in the work that they did. This dissertation, a preliminary study, draws throughout from the campâs rich epigraphic and papyrological evidence. It sets out the context in which clerical soldiers worked and the evidence for army literate education and then introduces Roman writing, its form and development generally, before analysing in detail the letter-forms used in one particular standard hand over the decades the cohortâs documents span. In this hand, the well-known development out of Old Roman Cursive
Austin, Jacqueline F.
CD Diplomatics. Archives. Seals ; C Auxiliary sciences of history (General)
Writers and writing in the Roman Army at Dura-Europos. This socio-palaeographic thesis maintains that behind the uniform appearance of Roman army writing was a particular, dedicated training. Focussing on the third century Dura-Europos, it uncovers evidence for the thorough schooling given to the clerks of the resident Cohors XX Palmyrenorum enabling them to fulfil their administrative duties. These include maintaining efficient documentation systems and preparing a range of accurate, legible texts, and the clerks were trained to produce a repertoire of standard military scripts. Additionally other soldiers and the more general public were taught to read and to understand, to varying degrees, but the clerks, distinct, were specialist writers who found dignity in the work that they did. This dissertation, a preliminary study, draws throughout from the campâs rich epigraphic and papyrological evidence. It sets out the context in which clerical soldiers worked and the evidence for army literate education and then introduces Roman writing, its form and development generally, before analysing in detail the letter-forms used in one particular standard hand over the decades the cohortâs documents span. In this hand, the well-known development out of Old Roman Cursive
writers write roman army dura socio maintains behind uniform appearance roman_army write particular dedicated training focussing dura uncovers evidence thorough school give resident enable fulfil administrative duty include maintain efficient documentation system prepare range accurate text train produce repertoire standard military script additionally soldier general_public taught read vary_degree distinct specialist writer find dignity work preliminary study_draw throughout camp rich epigraphic evidence set_context clerical soldier work evidence army literate education introduces roman writing form development generally analyse_detail letter forms use one_particular standard hand decade cohort document span hand well_known development old roman