Contubernāles
（
σύσκηνοι). Originally, men who served in the same army and
lived in the same tent. It is derived from
taberna (afterwards
tabernaculum), “a military tent.” Each tent was occupied
by ten soldiers (
contubernales), with a subordinate officer at their
head, who was called
decanus, and in later times
caput
contubernii.
Young Romans of illustrious families used to accompany a distinguished general on his
expeditions or to his province, for the purpose of gaining under his superintendence a
practical training in the art of war or in the administration of public affairs, and were,
like soldiers living in the same tent, called his
contubernales (
Pro Cael. 30, 73).
In a still wider sense, the name
contubernales was applied to persons
connected by ties of intimate friendship and living under the same roof (
Ad
Fam. ix. 2); and hence when a free man and a slave, or two slaves, who were not
allowed to contract a legal marriage, lived together as husband and wife, they were called
contubernales, and their connection, as well as their place of
residence,
contubernium (
Petron. 57, 6).
