Stèle funéraire du cavalier Comnisca

Being a Soldier

Cthis funerary stele was erected for the soldier Comnisca, who died while serving in Gaul in the first century CE. The relief sculpture immortalizes him in his military identity, camped for eternity in the posture of the victorious fighter. The inscription traces his personal history, similar to that of so many other individuals in the vast Roman Empire: belonging to the Ambian people (from the region of Amiens), he served for seven years in the Roman army before dying at the age of 25. A private, unranked soldier, he was a rider of the Indiana ala. He was buried in a necropolis near the Roman camp of Argentorate, in what is now the Koenigshoffen district of Strasbourg.