BENEFICIARI, in Roman Antiquity, denote soldiers who attended the chief officers of the army, being exempted from other duty. Beneficiarii were also soldiers discharged from the military service, and provided with beneficia or pensions to subsist on. The latter were probably the same with the former, and both might therefore be comprised in the same definition. They were old experienced soldiers, who, having served during the legal period, or received a discharge as a particular mark of honour, were invited again to the service, in which they were held in
great esteem, exempted from all military drudgery, and appointed to guard the standard, or some such honourable duty. When thus recalled to service, they were denominated evocati; before their recall they were styled emeriti.
BENEFICIARIUS was also a term applied to those who had been raised to a higher rank by the favour of the tribunus or other magistrates. The word beneficiarius frequently occurs in the Roman inscriptions found in Britain, where consulis is always joined with it; but besides beneficiarius consulis, we find in Gruter beneficiarius tribuni, pratorii, legati, prefecti, proconsulis, and such like expressions.