EVOCA´TI
EVOCA´TI were soldiers in the Roman army who had
served out their time and obtained their discharge (
missio), but had voluntarily enlisted again at the personal
invitation of the consul or other commander (
D. C.
45.12). Dionysius mentions a cohort of evocati as serving under
Siccius in B.C. 455 (10.43); and these were doubtless the same as the
veterani milites voluntate sequentes, whom
Livy more than once mentions. Flamininus in B.C. 198 took 3,000 evocati with
him to Macedonia (
Plut. Flam. 3); and
Polybius (
6.31,
2）
speaks of them as usually present in a Roman camp. They became still more
frequent after the reforms of Marius, when service in the army became more
of a profession, adopted by choice. The evocati were doubtless released,
like the vexillarii, from the common military duties of fortifying the camp,
making roads, &c. (
Tac. Ann. 1.36),
and held a higher rank in the army than the common legionary soldiers. They
are sometimes spoken of in conjunction with the equites Romani (Caes.
Bell. Gall. 7.65), being
[p. 1.762]in
this case, like them, supplied with horses, and sometimes classed with the
centurions (
Caes. Civ. 1.17), receiving,
like them, double the usual pay. They appear to have been frequently
promoted to the rank of centurions. Thus Pompey induced a great many of the
veterans, who had served under him in former years, to join his standard at
the breaking out of the civil war, by the promise of rewards and the command
of centuries
(ordinum,
Caes. Civ. 1.3). These he had distributed
throughout the army (ib. 3.88). We read of two thousand serving under
Pompeius at Pharsalia, and of their belonging to certain cohorts in the
army. Cicero (
Cic. Fam. 52.6,
5) speaks of a
Praefectus
evocatorum. (See
Cic. Fam.
15.4, § 3;
Caes. Civ. 3.91;
Suet. Aug. 56; Lipsius,
De Milit.
Rom. 1.8; Marquardt,
Röm.
Staatsverwaltung, 5.375.)
The name of evocati was also given to a select body of young men of the
equestrian order, who were appointed by Galba to guard his bedchamber.
(Suet.
Galb. 10.) This body is supposed by some writers to
have existed under the succeeding emperors, and to have been the same as
those who are called
evocati Augusti. But the
body-guard of Galba seems only to have been a body raised for the occasion;
and the
evocati Augusti were a standing force,
with the rank and distinction of centurions. For further details, see
EXERCITUS p. 792. (Hyginus,
de Mun. C. 6; Orelli,
Inscrip. Nos. 3495,
3580, 153.)
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