This page created 17 November 2015, and last modified: 17 November 2015

The twentieth item listed (154.36 in Ingo Maier's numbering scheme) under the command of the Dux Britanniarum following the subsection headed "along the line of the Wall" (item 154.16, per lineam valli), is the Tribunus cohortis tertiae Nerviorum Ailione.

The Tribunus cohortis tertiae Nerviorum commands the cohors III Nerviorum, a standard auxiliary infantry unit. The unit is very poorly attested outside of diplomata: RIB 1691 from Vindolanda has an almost illegible line that *might* refer to the unit. The unit's station, Ailione is also obscure; it has variously been identified with Maryport on the Cumbrian coast (Alauna) and with Alone (Alauna; possibly Watercrook near Kendal). The only unit identities given in inscriptions from Watercrook are legionary. Most of the epigraphic evidence from Maryport concerns cohors I Hispanorum (154.32), although this dates from the 2nd century. A significant number (five) of other inscriptions refer to the cohors I Baetasiourum civium Romanum, while four more name the cohors I Delmatorum (or Dalmatorum), but all of these seem to be 2nd century as well. Accordingly, there is chronological room for a 3rd-century garrison to have been the cohors III Nerviorum.

The Nervii, like the Tungri and the Morini, were a Belgic tribe from northern Gaul; cohors III Nerviorum was presumably orginally recruited among them. See also the cohors VI Nerviorum (154.39), and cf. the numeri Nerviorum Dictensium (154.7).

As wih all limitanei units in the Notitia, the shield pattern of the cohors III Nerviorum is not illustrated.

1. Ingo Maier; "Appendix 4: Numeration of the new edition of the compilation 'notitia dignitatum' (Cnd)"; last accessed 26 October 2015. See also for here for numbering examples. Return

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