A Receipt Book of the Roman Army

P. Hamb.graec. 184 from the collection of the Hamburg State and University Library is a 4.33 m long papyrus roll containing receipts for faenarium, that is payments for hay, for soldiers of the Ala veterana Gallica, an cavalry auxiliary regiment of the Roman army stationed in Egypt. The scroll, dated from 179 CE, contains more than forty entries recording the names of soldiers from the auxiliary unit, in which they state that they have received hay money. The entries were most probably written by the soldiers themselves, or by comrades of the same regiment when they were not able to write themselves.

The inks from fragment P. 184.I of the roll were analysed by infrared reflectography with the OPUS Apollo Infrared Reflectography (IRR) mobile imaging system, and by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy with the Bruker M6 Jetstream. This allowed the identification of different inks based on carbon and containing different amounts of calcium, iron, and copper on fragment P. 184.I. The presence not only of different hands, but also of different inks, suggests that the roll was brought to be filled and signed to the different camps where the troopers of the Ala veterana Gallica were stationed.