Bible Archeology Discoveries

The military records document Iturean-named auxiliary units in the Roman army and illustrate the movement of people from the Near East into the wider empire.

After Rome extended its control over the eastern Mediterranean, military units bearing the name Ituraeorum served in the Roman auxiliary forces. Stone inscriptions and bronze military diplomas preserve the names of some of these units, including the First Augustan Cohort of Itureans and an Iturean cavalry unit.

The inscriptions document service far from the soldiers’ homeland, including along the Danube frontier. They show that Iturean identity continued to appear in Roman military records even after the earlier local rulers had lost their independence. A unit’s ethnic name does not mean that every soldier serving in it was necessarily from Iturea.