A ''tesserarius'' ( lat, tesserārius, from ''tessera'', a small tile or block of wood on which watchwords were written) was a watch commander in the

Roman army The Roman army (Latin: ) was the armed forces deployed by the Romans throughout the duration of Ancient Rome, from the Roman Kingdom (c. 500 BC) to the Roman Republic (500–31 BC) and the Roman Empire (31 BC–395 AD), and its medieval contin ...

. They organized and had command over the nightly guard assigned to keep watch over the fort when in garrison or on campaign and were responsible for getting the watchwords from the commander and seeing that they were kept safe. There was one ''tesserarius'' to each '' centuria'' (Wilkes, 1972). They held a position similar to that of a first sergeant of a

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

in modern armies and acted as seconds to the

optio An , plural ( lat, italic=yes, optiō, , from , "to choose", so-called because an was chosen by a centurion), was a position in a '' centuria'' (century) of a Roman army similar to that of an executive officer. The main function of an was as ...

nes. Tesserary pay was one and a half times (''sesquiplicarii'') that of the standard

legionary The Roman legionary (in Latin ''legionarius'', plural ''legionarii'') was a professional heavy infantryman of the Roman army after the Marian reforms. These soldiers would conquer and defend the territories of ancient Rome during the late Republi ...

pay.

Citations

{{reflist Military ranks of ancient Rome

See also

Citations