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As some of you may know, @MatthewDCLarsen and I have an article coming out identifying a Roman military prison underneath a Sanctuary of the Standards. I've got lots to say on this topic, but for today, just a short thread on language of imprisonment in Late Antiquity.
The prison we have identified is underneath the so-called "sanctuary of the standards (aedes signorum)," at the center of a military camp where the legion kept their signa - the decorated posts that regimens would carry to identify themselves. (Illustration by Gina Tibbott)
Standards are a big deal in the Roman world, especially to the army. Having standards captured was a disgrace, and having them returned was a triumph. For instance think of the drama that ensued in HBO's Rome when Caesar's captured standards returned.
As you might imagine, standards were kept in a secure place, at the center of the legionary camp (castra). Look at this plan of Lambaesis in Algeria, for instance- the administrative headquarters (principium) is smack dab in the middle, and the sanctuary is in the center of that.
(More on the “maison centrale” below – it is a 19th century French colonial building that will reappear in this story.)
The principia was the center of administrative activity for the camp. At Legio (Israel) for instance, we excavated the legionary commander's private bath in the principia (Here's a video of a...ahem...younger me excavating a pipe). It was also the most secure place in the camp.
The pricipia is where the commander stayed, legionary clubs (collegia) met, military exercises were undertaken (cf this altar from the principia at Lambaesis reading “ara disciplina”), where coin was kept to pay the soldiers, and, it turns out, where prisoners were held, too.
For the rest of that story you’ll have to read the article. What I want to talk about here is the fact that people were so often held in the principia of military camps that the term “standards (signa)” came to be associated not only with the military, but with incarceration.
We hear from a variety of sources that people were often incarcerated near the standards. In book 26 of Res Gestae, for instance, Ammianus Marcellinus indicates that “common soldiers (gregarii milites)” typically “were locked up near the standards (coericiti sunt apud signa).”
We’ve also got P. London 6 1914, a fourth century letter about some drunken soldiers who mistreated and incarcerated some Christians, presenting civilians as being incarcerated “among the standards (ἐν τοῖς σίγνοις).”
By the sixth century “in the standards” just means “in prison,” as it does here in this Coptic ostracon (pot sherd) from Thebes now at the MET (14.1.33), which complains that “they have confined me in the standards.”
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/474736
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/474736
By the seventh century in North Africa, the “Standards Guard (ⲥⲓⲅⲛⲟⲫⲩⲗⲁⲝ)” means just “prison guard,” as we see in this Egyptian ostracon now at the MET, where a prisoner asks a friend to “send the food for us to the jailer/Standards Guard." https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/474637
