Note 11 — Chapter III · Criticism of The Accepted View
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Kaiser Augustus, p. 486; cf. Dio, 57, 5. However, Meyer attaches undue significance to this fact. While the old rule confined service in the army to citizens, in times of peril freedmen, or slaves manumitted especially for the occasion, had been enrolled many times previous to the occasion referred to—indeed as early as the Punic wars. See examples cited by Shuckburgh, Suet., Aug., 25. According to Suetonius libertini were employed twice by Augustus: “Libertino milite, praeterquam Romae incendiorum causa et si tumultus in graviore annona metueretur, bis usus est: semel ad praesidium coloniarum Illyricum contingentium, iterum ad tutelam ripae Rheni.” These two occasions, at the uprising in Pannonia, and after the defeat of Varus, are mentioned also by Dio, 55, 31 and 56, 23.