Солдаты Римской империи. Традиции военной службы и воинская ментальность

vexillatio – вексилляция, отряд вексиллариев; отряд, выделенный из легиона (или сводный отряд из нескольких легионов) и действующий самостоятельно

vexillum – знамя (в коннице, отрядах союзников, отдельном отряде вексиллариев); наградной флаг

Victoria – Победа, богиня или обожествленная абстракция

– Adiabenica – Адиабенская

– Arabica – Арабская

– Augusta – Августова

– Britannica – Британская

– Parthica – Парфянская

– Redux – Победа Возвращающая

vigiles (cohortes) – подразделения (когорты) ночной стражи в Риме

vindex – защитник, спаситель, поручитель

vir (мн. ч. viri) – муж, мужчина

– militaris (militares) – военные мужи, военные люди; высокопоставленные римляне, чья карьера была связана преимущественно с военными должностями

virtus – мужество, доблесть, прежде всего воинская, высший нравственный идеал, центральная категория римской системы ценностей, включавшая целый ряд нормативных качеств (храбрость, стойкость, усердие, энергию и т. п.)

vitis – жезл центуриона из срезанной виноградной лозы, знак его дисциплинарной власти

viva vox – живой голос

voceferatio – возгласы, выкрики (из строя)

voluntarius – доброволец; воин, добровольно оставшийся в армии после окончания срока службы

votum (мн. ч. vota) – обет

vulgus – толпа, чернь, негативное обозначение солдатской массы

Summary

In Ancient Rome, «la métier de citoyen» required necessarily the military service of a citizen. But when Rome-polis had become the world power, the citizens’ militia was replaced with the permanent professional army. To a significant degree this professional army was emancipated from the civilian society and formed a specific corporation with its own interests, ideology, moral obligations and behaviour standards. We find reflections of that process in literary texts of the Late Republic and Empire. In works by ancient authors, a new literary type of the Roman soldier appears, whose social status, psychology and behaviour are considered mainly in a moralistic way. Accordingly, his literary characteristics are mostly emotional and rhetorical, preconceived and anachronistic. On the whole, this literary portrait depicts the Roman soldier as a coarse half-barbarian, impious fighter, self-willed, greedy and dishonourable creature. The general attitude to the soldier in literary sources is a mixture of alienation, antipathy, contempt and fear.

However, the attitude of the majority of ancient authors, because of its moralistic nature, is deeply ambivalent. Behind strong condemnation of soldiers’ deep-rooted vices, there exists implicitly a certain ideal of the true Roman soldier’s features. This ideal serves as a criterion to draw the line between moral evil and moral virtue. That this military-ethic ideal really existed can be proved by studying the same sources, which not infrequently report the facts of heroic deeds of simple Roman soldiers and officers. And we must give the same credit to these facts as we give to the judgements on soldiers’ depravity. In both the cases, ancient authors operate a system of literary topoi and concepts which express important value oppositions, which characterise moral outlooks not of the authors only, but of the soldiers as well. Surely, such outlooks were not identical, and many components of soldier’s mentality, even being originally connected with traditional Roman values, carried their own specific features conditioned by army’s evolution as a social and political force.