Lanchester Diploma

Scroll down to read the text of each section of the diploma, reconstructed and translated into English.

The Emperor Caesar Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius, son of the deified Hadrianus, grandson of the deified Trajanus conqueror of Parthia, great-grandson of the deified Nerva, pontifex maximus, in his 13th year of tribunician power [150], twice  acclaimed  Imperator [142-], four times consul [145-], father of his country, has granted to the cavalrymen and infantrymen of the German Army Dutiful and Loyal (PF) who have  served in the 4 alae and 14 cohorts and are called Noricorum, Sulpicia CR, Africorum Veterana, I Thracum, I Flavia Hispanorum, I Latobicorum et Varcianorum, I Pannoniorum et Dalmatarum, II Civium Romanorum (CR), I Raetorum, VI Brittonum PF, II Asturu, PF, I Classica PF, III and VI Breucorum, I Lucensium PF, II Varcianorum, VI Raetorum, IV  Thracum, and are in Lower Germany under Salvius Lulianus, who have served twenty-five  years, likewise soldiers of the Fleet twenty-six years, and have been honourably discharged.

Whose names are written below, Roman citizenship to those who do not have it, and the right of legal marriage with the wives they had when citizenship was given to them, or with those they later marry, but only one of each.

(Dated) the 13th day before the Kalends of December [19 November] in the consulship of Gaius Curtius Justus and Gaius Julius Julianus.

To Velvotigernus son of Magiotigernus, a Briton, ex-private solders of the German Fleet Dutiful and Loyal which Marcus Ulpius Ulpianus commands.

Copied and checked from the bronze tablet set up in Rome on the wall behind the temple of the defied Augustus, near (the statue) of Minerva.

The Emperor Caesar Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius, son of the deified Hadrianus, grandson of he deified Trajanus conqueror of Parthia, great-grandson of the deified Nerva, pontifex maximus, in his 13th year of tribunician power [150], twice acclaimed  Imperator [142-], four times consul [145-], father of his country, has granted to the cavalrymen and infantrymen of the Army Dutiful and Loyal who have served in the 4 alae and 14 cohorts and are in Lower Germany under Salvius Iulianus, who have served twenty-five years, likewise soldiers of the Fleet twenty-six years, and have been honourably discharged, whose names are written below, Roman citizenship to those who do not have it, and the right of legal marriage with the wives they had when citizenship was given to them, or with those they later marry, but only one each.

(Dated) the 13th day before the Kalends of December [19 November] in the consulship of Gaius Curtius Justus and Gaius Julius Julianus.

To Velvotigernus son of Magiotigernus, a Briton, ex-private solders of the German Fleet Dutiful and Loyal which Marcus Ulpius Ulpianus commands.