The
tesserarius (
Latin:
tesserārius, from
tessera, a small tile or block of wood on which
watchwords were written), was a soldier in the
Roman army who was responsible for getting the watchwords from the commander and seeing that it was kept safe. They organized and had
command over the nightly guard assigned to keep watch over the fort when in garrison or on campaign.
[1][2] There was one
tesserarius to each
centuria (Wilkes, 1972). They held a position similar to that of a
non-commissioned officer in modern armies and acted as seconds to the
optiones.
