File:Roman , Military Diploma (FindID 212298-168008).jpg

English: Five fragments (two joining) from the first leaf or tabella of a bronze military diploma. There is half of one binding hole in the top edge of fragment 2. Fragment 1: Dimensions: 79.5 x 83.1 x 1.9mm. Weight: 41.3g. Fragment 2: Dimensions: 46.6 x 48.1 x 1.7mm. Weight: 137g. Fragment 3: Dimensions: 25.1 x 18 x 1.3mm. Weight: 22g. Fragment 4: Dimensions: 26.4 x 15.5 x 1.7mm. Weight: 18g. Fragment 5: Dimensions: 17.2 x 8.2 x 1.4mm. Weight: 69g. Date: Roman (17 July AD 118). Summary translation: 'The emperor Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus, son of Divine Trajan Parthicus, grandson of Nerva, Pontifex Maximus, with tribunician power for the sixth time, consul for the third time and pro-consul. For the cavalrymen and infantrymen who served in the 13 alae [cavalry units from Pannonia, Spain, Gaul and Thrace] and the 37 cohorts [from Germany, Iberia, Thrace, Africa, Gaul, Syria, Dalmatia] which are in Britain under the command of Aulus Platorius Nepos, who have spent 25 years' service are dismissed with an honourable discharge by Pompeius Falco. To those whose names are written beneath, to themselves and their children and their descendants he gave citizenship and right of legal marriage [conubium] with the wives they already had when the citizenship was given to them, or if they are unmarried he gave the right of conubium to those women married afterwards, providing it is one husband to one wife. This is done on 16th Kalends of August when Titus Julius Capito and Lucius Vitrasius Flamininus were consuls. Then [name of soldier] of 5th cohort of Raeti [Bavaria] which is commanded by Sextus Cornelius Dexter of Saldae in Mauretania ..... This document is copied and confirmed from the bronze tablet which is fixed in Rome on the wall behind the Temple of the Divine Augustus by the statue of Minerva.' Discussion: Roman military diplomas granted Roman citizenship and the right of legal marriage to the noncitizen auxiliary soldiers upon retirement after 25 years of military service in the auxiliary forces. Enough remains of the date and the sequence of military units to show that this diploma belonged to the same issue as the Brigetio diploma now in the British Museum (JRS 1930: 20 16-22). It was therefore dated 17 July 118, and was issued to an infantry soldier of Cohors V Raetorum whose name is lost. Enough remains of the name of his commanding officer to identify him as Sextus Cornelius Dexter of Saldae in Mauretania, at the beginning of an equestrian career which culminated in the procuratorships of Asia and of Belgica and the two Germanies and who is known from other inscriptions (Tomlin 2008: 381-384 no. 18, figs. 17-18).