in the ancient Roman military discipline, denoted a partial discharge from service, granted to those soldiers who had served in the legion for sixteen years, and who were thus said to become exauctorati, though they continued, under a vexillum or standard of their own, in company with that legion, until they had completed their full term of service, namely, twenty years, after which they received the missio or full discharge. After the Augustan period, the term exauctorare was used to signify a simple discharge, and also to denote a cashiering on account of misconduct—in which last sense alone it was employed during the period of the decline.