11. Araştırma Sonuçları Toplantısı - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

daea to cope with the most serious military erisis of Hadrian's reign. Thusfor Papas the last months of his service may well have been the mosteventful of his career. Indeed the mopping up operations necessary afterthe war was ended may even have delayed his discharge, since he mustcertainly have belonged to the fırst group of veterans of Syria-Palestineto be released after the suppression of the Revolt.Once retired from his regiment and in possession of his diploma, Papasseems to have decided to make the long journey back to his nativecountry on the south coast of Asia Minor, for how else could this documenthave ended up in the village of Kalın Ören? The majority of auxiliaryveterans preferred to settle in retirement in the vicinity of their finalbillet, often in one of the civilian communities that sprang up around theforts. This was especially the case if a soldier had married a local woman,as probably had happened in the case of Galba from Cyrrhus who settledat Laertes with his Pamphylian wife? In a number of cases, however,veterans preferred to leave the district of their service and journey, oftenover long distances, to their former homeland. Papas belongs to this secondgroup and we may speculate why. The answer surely lies in theomission of a wife from the list of beneficiaries named in his diploma.This must mean that she was already dead by the time of his discharge.As a widower with four children, some possibly still quite young, he maywell have found it preferable to seek the support of familyand friendsback in his Isaurianhome rather than risk the uncertainty of civilian lifein a foreıgn and troubled land.The fact that we are able to reconstruct so much conceming thelives of these two individuals, their military careers, their families, theirrole in the community, is due in considerable measure to the relativelyprecise information that exists about the findspots of their respectivediplomas. Given that the provinces of Asia Minor provided a major poolof manpower for recruitmerıt in the auxiliary army especially on theeastem frontier, and given that soldiers in this part of the Empirewere more inclined to return to their home communities than their colleaguesin the west, one can only conclude that the soil of Turkey mustcontain many more diplomas lost in similar circumstances to those de-(7) For statistical confirmation of this tendeney from auxiliary diplomas, M.T. Raepsaet­Charlier, "Le lieu d'installation des veterans auxiliaires romains d'apres les diplômesmilitaires", Ant CL 47 (1978), 557-65; M.M. Roxan, 'The Distribution of Roman MilitaryDiplomas", Epigr St 12 (1981), 279-83, fig. 4, tables 3 and 3a. From these studies it appearsthat about two-thirds of auxiliaries settled in retirement in the provinee where they settled.166