Tesserarius

A tesserarius (Latin: tesserārius, from tessera, a small tile or block of wood on which watchwords were written) was a watch commander in the Roman army. They organized and had command over the nightly guard assigned to keep watch over the fort when in garrison or on campaign[1][2] 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 in modern armies and acted as seconds to the optiones.

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

Citations

1. Caesar's Civil War, Adrian Goldsworthy, Page 20
2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-11-04. Retrieved 2008-11-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

See also

• List of Roman army unit types