(with an additional 4 for reserve obligations), and establishing a special military fund, the aerarium militare, imposing a 5% inheritance tax and 1% auction sales tax to pay for it. From it came bonus payments to retiring soldiers amounting to several years' salary. It could also have been used to guarantee regular pay. Previously legions had to rely on booty. If military careers were now possible, so were careers for military specialists, such as medici. Under Augustus for the first time occupational names of officers and functions began to appear in inscriptions. The valetudinaria, or military versions of the aesculapia (the names mean the same thing) became features of permanent camps. Caches of surgical instruments have been found in some of them. From this indirect evidence it is possible to conclude to the formation of an otherwise unknown permanent medical corps. In the early empire one finds milites medici who were immunes ("exempt") from other duties. Some were staff of the hospital, which Pseudo-Hyginus mentions in De Munitionibus Castrorum as being set apart from other buildings so that the patients can rest. The hospital administrator was an optio valetudinarii. The orderlies aren't generally mentioned, but they must have existed, as the patients needed care and the doctors had more important duties. Perhaps they were servile or civilians, not worth mentioning. There were some noscomi, male nurses not in the army. Or, they could have been the milites medici. The latter term might be any military medic or it might be orderlies detailed from the legion. There were also medici castrorum. Not enough information survives in the sources to say for certain what distinctions existed, if any. The army of Augustus featured a standardized officer corps, described by Vegetius. Among them were the ordinarii, the officers of an ordo or rank. In an acies triplex there were three such ordines, the centuries (companies) of which were commanded by centurions. The ordinarii were therefore of the rank of a centurion but did not necessarily command one if they were staff. The term medici ordinarii in the inscriptions must refer to the lowest ranking military physicians. During his reign, Augustus finally conferred the dignitas equestris, or social rank of knight, on all physicians, public or private. They were then full citizens (in case there were any Hellenic questions) and could wear the rings of knights. In the army there was at least one