Service in the Roman legion tempted with steady wages and decent retirement. Often, however, it also meant a quarter of a century of forced celibacy into a military camp in a deep province. How to deal with boredom, when military expeditions, rape and robbery are rare attractions?
During the imperial era, the Roman army became fully professional and the legions were deployed in military camps scattered along the border. The soldier's life was systematic and boring, interspersed with exercise, public works, guard duties, and occasional military expeditions. So how did the soldiers manage their free time?
The soldiers barracked in the forts could not count on even a little privacy . Each of them lived in a room for eight people called contubernium. It had an area ranging from a dozen to about twenty-five square meters and was divided into a residential part and a warehouse or a stable. The legionnaires had to spend some of their free time on renovating and expanding the premises for which they were responsible, but they were looking for entertainment mainly inside and outside the camp. And as it turns out, there was something to look for.
Legionnaires did not avoid social games (photo:Legio XXI Rapax).
In the camp:sauna, theater and gladiatorial fights
One of the most important places in each camp were baths. For the Romans, they were not only hygienic, but also almost ritualistic. Each of these buildings was the pinnacle of Roman architectural possibilities. Inside there were rooms: rooms cold, warm, hot steam, hot steam ... There was also a gym and an entertainment room where you could drink wine and play dice with your friends, which were the favorite game of the Romans.
An amphitheater, usually built by soldiers, was usually located next to the walls. It was not a makeshift construction, but an impressive building that could accommodate several thousand spectators. The audience was 6,000 in Caerleon and even more at Carnuntum! You could see the performances of artists and bloody duels of gladiators, and often also of colleagues from other units, because the amphitheater played a very practical role as a square where drills and exercises took place.
God-fearing legionaries spent their free time in prayer and contemplation, their camp was dotted with chapels and altars. The freedom of religion was very large, apart from the official state religion, soldiers followed local cults or exotic religions of the East. Only the practice of "subversive" Christianity was forbidden which condemned the killing of one's fellow human beings and rejected the divine worship of the emperor.
City trips
The armies were always accompanied by a fleet of merchants, craftsmen and prostitutes. When the Roman army was settling somewhere permanently, a makeshift camp was built around the fort very quickly, which later turned into a village or city. Here you could find almost everything, from games to the main attraction unavailable in the camp, i.e. the company of women:dancers, actresses or prostitutes.
Computer reconstruction of the gladiators' school in Carnuntum (Fig. LBI ArchPro, CC BY-SA 2.5).
How close the mutual relations were, is evidenced by the fact that one of the veterans of the Legio of II Augustus stationed in Asciburgium ordered the erection of a monument commemorating a certain Polla Matidia , a dancer with whom he spent some nice moments. Another legionnaire, who was a trumpeter in his unit, prided himself on the fact that his partner, Aelia Sabina, was a better musician than he was.
Legionnaires wandering the streets could be a problem, especially when they were intoxicated or looking for opportunities to attack. A complaint from a merchant (probably he wanted to buy something from a legionnaire), who wrote to one of the officers stationed in Vindoland (around 120 AD), has survived to this day:
[…] He whipped all over my body even more so when I said the commodity was worthless or because I poured it on the ground. As an honest man, I beg your majesty, do not let an innocent man beat me with your rods , […] As if I had committed some crime .
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Feasts and feasts
In their free time and during holidays, soldiers met at feasts and integration feasts, often organized by the collegia militares legions operating inside , that is, military clubs aimed at the well-being of soldiers.
There was no shortage of food. In addition to the basic products, i.e. wheat (the daily ration is about 8.7 liters) and alcohol (the ration is about 0.27 liters a day), significant amounts of other products were delivered to the camps. The records preserved to this day show that the legionnaire's diet could be very rich and abound in all the goods provided by the province.
During the week, several or even over a dozen types of meat, fruit and vegetables were often eaten . The menu included beef, pork, mutton, lamb and game. Venison and goat were available in Britain, and veal and various species of fish in Egypt. The non-commissioned officers in charge of the units also carefully took care of the continuous supply of alcohol for their subordinates. One of the tenths in a letter to the superior, next to the question about orders, did not fail to include the following request:
[My] comrades don't have beer. Please [Prefect] give orders that [this beer] be sent to us .
At least in peacetime, the legionnaires could not complain about the food (photo:Cezary Wyszynski Photography, Legio XXI Rapax).
Alcohol was flowing in wide rivers , and fights at modern discos pale in comparison to the brawls that Roman soldiers were able to start. According to the ancient historian Tacitus, during a joint feast of legionnaires and Gauls from auxiliary formations in Ticinum (69 CE), the friendly wrestling show turned into a brawl when one of the Gauls began to ridicule the defeated Roman. The soldiers quickly took up arms, leading to riots in which around 1,000 people lost their lives.
Concubines of compulsory bachelors
At the turn of the Era, Octavian Augustus forbade the soldiers to marry for the sake of discipline. This law remained theoretically in force for 200 years after his death. It was hard to expect, however, that the young man would live almost fifty (the military service lasted 25 years!) In sexual restraint, interrupted only by the occasional rape accompanying the capture of cities. Especially when you take into account the fact that statistically he had only a 50% chance of reaching "retirement".
In order to make their lives a bit more pleasant, legionnaires en masse (even every second) with the inhabitants of the provinces or former slaves. For women, the soldier was a good party because, unlike most of the empire, he had a steady source of income what the pay was.
Women in the camp? In this respect, the theory was often not true (photo:Cezary Wyszynski Photography, Legio XXI Rapax).
Children born from these unions often continued the family tradition of military service, which was of great importance in the times of the conscription crisis. Thus, the officers turned a blind eye to soldiers sneaking out to their families living outside the fort. Moreover, it is possible that the concubine and the children moved to the camp to share the contubernium with her husband - this is indicated by the everyday objects found in the barracks.
It was much more difficult for soldiers to visit the family home, especially since during their service they were often transferred to distant corners of the empire. In their free time, however, they tried to maintain correspondence with their relatives and sent not only letters, but also parcels by post or through friends. As it turns out, such correspondence often resembled modern ones . Life plans were told and the evil world was complained about. Claudius Terentius, the servant in the fleet, wrote to his mother this:
And if that is God's will, I hope to live frugally and be transferred to a cohort, but nothing can be achieved without money and letters of recommendation will have [none] values, if a man does not help himself .
In the Roman legions, alcohol and weapons were not considered a bad combination (photo:Legio XXI Rapax).
Sluggish as a Roman legionnaire?
In order to make his free time more pleasant, the legionnaire could reach for many more or less sophisticated entertainment. Due to the long military service, efforts were made to make the camp life bearable. We can only recreate them fragmentarily, on the basis of objects and remains of buildings found during excavations or fragments of works by ancient authors who often complained about the relaxation and indolence of the soldiers of the imperial era.
Bibliography:
Sources:
- Titus Livius, The history of Rome since the foundation of the City , vol. 1–4., translated and edited by Mieczysław Brożek, commentary by Mieczysław Brożek, Józef Wolski, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Wrocław-Warsaw-Kraków-Gdańsk 1976–1982.
- Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Works , translated from Latin by Seweryn Hammer, Czytelnik, Warsaw 2004.
Sources:
- Ireneusz Adam Łuć, Boni et Mali Milites Romani , Ed. Avalon, Krakow 2010.
- Peter Connolly, Greece and Rome at war , Prentice Hall, London 1981.
- Paul Erdkamp, A companion to the Roman army , Wiley, Malden-Oxford-Carlton 2007.
- Adrian Goldsworthy, The Complete Roman Army , Thames &Hudson, London 2003.
- Marcus Junkelmann, Die Legionen des Augustus , von Zabern, Mainz am Rhein 2003.