Marcus Caelius ( – ) was the senior

centurion A centurion (; la, centurio , . la, centuriones, label=none; grc-gre, κεντυρίων, kentyríōn, or ) was a position in the Roman army during classical antiquity, nominally the commander of a century (), a military unit of around 80 ...

( Primus pilus) in XVIII Roman Legion who was killed in the

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, described as the Varian Disaster () by Roman historians, took place at modern Kalkriese in AD 9, when an alliance of Germanic peoples ambushed Roman legions and their auxiliaries, led by Publius Quinctilius ...

. He is known from his

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...

, which was discovered in 1620 in Birten (now a part of

Xanten Xanten (, Low Rhenish: ''Santen'') is a town in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the district of Wesel. Xanten is known for the Archaeological Park, one of the largest archaeological open air museums in the wo ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. Caelius is depicted wearing his military uniform, with phalerae (a type of military decoration),

armillae An armill or armilla (from the Latin: ''armillae'' remains the plural of armilla) is a type of medieval bracelet, or armlet, normally in metal and worn in pairs, one for each arm. They were usually worn as part of royal regalia, for example at a ...

(a type of bracelet), and a corona civica (an award for saving a fellow citizen's life), while in his right hand, he holds a

vitis ''Vitis'' (grapevine) is a genus of 79 accepted species of vining plants in the flowering plant family Vitaceae. The genus is made up of species predominantly from the Northern Hemisphere. It is economically important as the source of grapes, ...

(carried by all centurions). On either side of his image are his

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom ...

, Privatus and Thiaminus. The tombstone's lower left corner is damaged, but enough survives to determine that the text below the image once read: English translation: The tombstone can today be found in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

References

{{Authority control Ancient Roman soldiers 1st-century BC Romans 1st-century Romans AD 9 deaths Military personnel from Bologna Ancient Romans killed in action 40s BC births