History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman....

Tiles made for military purposes are exceedingly common in the later period, and the stamps probably had a double use. In the first place, they show that they were made by the soldiers, from which we learn that in the legions, as in a modern army, there were many men acquainted with handicrafts. Secondly, they prevented theft or removal of the tiles, and served as a “broad arrow” to denote public property. They are not, of course, found in Rome, where there was no necessity for the legions to make bricks or tiles; here the camp seems to have been supplied by private individuals.

Of special interest are the inscriptions stamped on tiles which relate to the military divisions stationed throughout the provinces of the vast empire. These are found in soldiers’ graves (see above, p. 351), as well as in their camps and quarters; they contain the names and titles of the legions, and mark the extent of Roman conquest. Thus the route of the thirty legions through Germany has been traced; and in Britain an examination and comparison of such tiles shows the distribution of military force and the migrations of different legions from one quarter to another. The stamps are in the form of long labels (tesserae), circles, or crescents, occasionally surrounded by a wreath, or else in the shape of a foot, an ivy-leaf, or a vase; the letters are in relief, sharply impressed, as if from a metal die. The names and titles of the legions are given either in initials or in contractions, as LEG · II · P(arthicae), and so on (see above, p. 351); sometimes the potter’s name is added, with FIGVLVS or FECIT.[2551]

The tiles of the first legion have been found at Mainz and Nimeguen; those of the second, or Parthian, at Darmstadt, Ems, Hooldorn, Caerleon, and the Lake of Nemi[2552]; of the third, in Scotland; of the fourth, at Mainz; of the fifth, in Scotland, and at Baden, Cleves, Xanten, and Nimeguen; of the sixth, at Nimeguen, Neuss, Aix-la-Chapelle, Darmstadt, and Windisch; the seventh, at Aix-la-Chapelle and Xanten; the eighth, at Mainz, Baden, and elsewhere; the ninth, at Baden and York; the tenth, at Nimeguen, Hooldorn, Vienna, and Jerusalem; the twentieth, at Chester[2553]; and so on down to the thirtieth.[2554] At Bonn tiles have been found of the Legio Cisrhenana on the left bank of the Rhine, and of the Legio Transrhenana on the right bank. Cohorts have also left their names on tiles: the second Asturian at Acsica on the Roman Wall[2555]; the fourth (Breucorum), at Huddersfield[2556]; the fourth Vindelician, at Frankfurt, Mainz, and Wiesbaden[2557]; the Ulpian Pannonian at Buda-Pesth.[2558] The vexillationes, whose main body was at Nimeguen, are similarly recorded; a British vexillatio was attached to the army at Hooldorn[2559] and Nismes, and another to that of Lower Germany, as instanced by tiles inscribed VEX · EX · G · INF (vexillatio exercitus Germaniae inferioris), found at Utrecht and Nimeguen in the Netherlands, and at Xanten in Germany.[2560] Tiles of the British fleet, CL(assis) BR(itannica), have been found at Boulogne, Lympne, and Dover.[2561]