Budapest Régiségei 23. (1973)

TANULMÁNYOK - Nagy Tibor: Ulcisia castra 39-57

has been preserved in the palimpsest-inscription of Fl. Dragilis.

23 Not only in the 3rd, but also in the 2nd century is the garrison history of Ulcisia castra laden with problems. On the basis of some brick stamps found in the area of the camp it was thought so far that the cohors I Ulpia Pannoniorum was stationed in Ulcisia castra about the middle of the 2nd century, though only transitorily. However, the circumstances of the uncovering of these brick stamps do not sustain the dating to the 2nd century in any way. To wit, the stamped bricks were unearthed together with the 3rd century stamped bricks of the cohors I. (mill.) nova Severiana.

26-2,8 Further the close parallels of the stamps COH I VLP PA[ ] may be found in the series of the Aquincum stamps ofthe unit, marked Ant(oniniana) .

30

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31 This analogy convices us that the Szentendre stamps ought to be elucidated in the form coh(ors) I Ulp(ia) P(annoniorum) A[nt(oniniana)], instead of coh(ors) I Vlp(ia) Pa[nn(oniorum)].

32 The auxiliary unit, stationed from 133 during the course of the 2nd century (with the exception of the sixties) in Upper Pannónia

33 took part in the military constructions in the area of Ulcisia castra and Aquincum after the time when its campsite (Solva)

34 had been attached to Lower Pannónia, together with the Brigetio legionary district in the days of Caracalla. So the stamped bricks of the cohors, found in the area of Ulcisia castra, cannot be an argument for the statement either that Ulcisia castra belonged to the area of Upper instead of Lower Pannónia in the 2nd century. Unearthing the camp, we have found tegulae marked COH P T with indented frames, together with stamp varieties COH R T with plain frames, built into the channel situated below the stone slabcovered road of the porta praetoria. In the inner area ofthe camp the heating apparatus ofthe Quaestorium yielded further three plain-framed stamped bricks with the mark COH R T. The chronological situation of the stamps COH P T found at the porta praetoria is quite clear. They were built in when the first stone camp was established. Now we may date the construction ofthe first stone camp to the tens and twenties of the 2nd century on the basis of the tiny finds of the strata belonging to the first period, allowing a dating, further of the structure and ground-plan of the stonewalled defence works, fortified by inner quadrangular towers, finally of the data of garrison history, — allowing the chance that the stone-walled defence works had been finished in Hadrian's late years only.

38 Thus the stamped bricks with the marks COH P T and COH R T, found in the main channel leading eastwards from the camp, were built in in one of the mentioned decades. Contrary to the stamped bricks unearthed at the porta praetoria, the bricks with the stamp COH R T found in the heating apparatus of the Quaestorium lay in a secondary situation. They were used again in the course ofthe 3rd century constructions of the Syrian cohors. This is borne out not only by the bricks stamped CfNS, uncovered in the heating apparatus there but also by the side fragment of one of the COH R T -stamped heattransmitting bricks used, contrary to its original purpose, for grouting. Thus the COH R T -stamped bricks did not arrive to the campsite in the second period, connected to the building activity of the Syrian cohors, but they were used anew in the same period as building material coming from the first one. Therefore those stamped bricks do not support the thesis that some Thracian cohors would have constructed anything in the camp between the rules of Caracalla and Severus Alexander, prior to the arrival of the Syrian unit.

39 Today there is no need to justify the elucidation ofthe bricks stamped both COH P T and COH R T by the name of one of the coh(ors) p(rima) or pr(ima) T(hracum).

i0 The more debated is the problem to which we now turn, which of the three units known by the name cohors I Thracum from Hadrian's Pannónia could have participated directly or indirectly in the construction of the first stone camp of Ulcisia castra. Whether we may reckon with the Upper Pannonian cohors I Thracum c. R.

n or one of the Thracian cohortes with the serial number 1, registered in Lower Pannónia in this respect? In our judgment we may answer this question unequivocally. To wit, the exact parallel ofthe stamp COH P T with an indented frame, derived from the channel below the road of the porta praetoria of the Szentendre camp, has come to light in the retentura part of the Aquincum legionary camp, together with the stamped bricks of the garrisons from Traian's and Hadrian's age of this camp, marked LEG IUI F, LEG X G P F and LEG II AD.

42 From this we may draw as a first conclusion that the time in which the COH P T and COH R T -stamped bricks were used does not reach farther than the first third ofthe 2nd century in Aquincum either. Second, the occurrence of these cohors-stamps in the territory of the Aquincum legionary camp makes it evident that these stamped bricks used at the camp building of the Lower Pannonian legion could not be supplied by the unit cohors I Thracum c. R., belonging to the Upper Pannonian auxiliary army. This statement, together with the bricks stamped cohors I Ulpia Pannoniorum Antoniniana, discards the second argument at the same time, put forward for the thesis that Ulcisia castra belonged to Upper Pannónia.

43 Our view may be confirmed also by recently discovered stamped bricks of the Upper Pannonian cohors I Thracum c. R. from its camp Ad Statuas (Ács-Vaspuszta).

44 The stamps legible on them do not have any relationship with the quoted Aquincum and Szentendre stamps. As a matter of fact, the Ács-Vaspuszta stamps have been dated to the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd centuries.

45 But it is improbable that the cohors would have produced stamps with numbers marked p(rima) or pr(ima) even earlier. We are 54