La construcción de la familia militar: asociaciones y relaciones dentro de la marina romana

Enlistment in the fleets involved a period of service that exceeded in duration that of the other branches of the army. Since Augustus, it was fixed at 26 years and increased to 28 around 206-209 AD. During this period, which involved separation from family and friends, the classiarii were submitted to military discipline and exposed to the dangers inherent in their profession. Epigraphy, which is the source that has preserved almost all of the known names of sailors, is the main tool available for studying how these men, in order to mitigate their feelings of isolation, tended to make their units their new centres of socialisation. Specific terminology (amicus, contubernalis and commanipularis, among others), origines, as well as certain indirect elements, are the pillars of this analysis, which, at a second level, aims to argue that sailors should not have felt that their military status made them part of a homogeneous and cohesive whole. This approach leads us to see that, on a day-to-day basis, interactions took place on a smaller scale, specifically with those fellow sailors with whom strong bonds were developed thanks to close and prolonged contact.