Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T17:09:40.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Roman Military Diet*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

R. W. Davies
R. W. Davies
Affiliation:
College of Education, Sunderland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The axiom ‘an army marches on its stomach’ applies to all armies of all times. The task of providing a constant and sufficient supply of food was by no means the least important part of the work involved in the day to day running of the Roman army. In time of war the troops would forage from enemy countryside, requisition supplies from defeated tribes or towns, and receive them from allies. According to Josephus the legionaries carried with them as part of their equipment sickles to reap the crops and also rations for three days. A scene on Trajan's Column depicts the legionaries carrying their kit on a stake; this consisted in part of a string-bag for forage, a metal cooking-pot and a mess-tin, examples of which have been discovered in most parts of the Empire. When an army was not on active service, the arrangements to supply food for men and animals were extensive and complex.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 2 , November 1971 , pp. 122 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © R. W. Davies 1971. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The evidence collected in this paper is not meant to be exhaustive, but is a representative selection. The period under study is that of the Principate. The evidence for the consumption of meat in the armies of the Later Republic, Caesar, and Early Principate is studied in detail in an appendix. The evidence for items provided mainly or exclusively for fodder is not here studied, but may on occasion be mentioned in passing. Some of the analyses were made fifty or even one hundred years ago; consequently, more modern methods and further excavation provide a better picture. Some of the analyses were restricted; thus oyster and mussel shells and chicken bones are often not mentioned, because the analysis was concerned exclusively with animal bones, but they are frequently found, as, for example, at Corbridge. Part I of the analysis of the Corbridge bones by Meek and Gray was published in 1911; Part II has never been published. Some earlier studies will be found in: J. Lesquier, L'armée romaine d'Égypte d'Auguste à Dioclétien (1918) 347–68; R. Cagnat, L'armée romaine d'Afrique et l'occupation militaire de l'Afrique sous les empereurs (second edition, 1913) 311–26; both authors at times use passages of the SHA, for which nowadays more care is required. For the Later Roman Empire, see: D. van Berchem, L'annone militaire dans l'empire romain au IIIéme siécle (1937); A. H. M. Jones, Later Roman Empire (1964) 628–9, and note 44. This is the only period for which regulation amounts are known; presumably those of A.D. 360 are not dissimilar in quantity from those of the Principate: 3 pounds of bread, 2 pounds of meat, 2 pints of wine, 1/8 of a pint of oil per man per day.

To save endless repetition of the sources in the footnotes, a bibliography of the thirty-three sites in Table I is given instead (p. 141). From Table I the bones of horses, dogs, and cats have been excluded. Other military sites, from which there is evidence for food but which are not used here, include: Baginton (The Lunt), Balmuildy, Canstatt, Carrawburgh, Castledykes, Chesterholm.

I have used, wherever they were available, the improved readings and interpretations of the papyri contained in CLA (A. Bruckner and R. Marichal, Chartae Latinae Antiquiores 1954-). Many of the papyri quoted in this paper will be found in Sergio Daris, Documenti per la storia dell'esercito romano in Egitto (1964). For a list of the abbreviations of these sources, see p. 142.

I am indebted to George Hodgson, M.Sc, for the results of some unpublished analyses of bones.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Saalburg-Jahrb. xxix, 1967, 79–81.Google Scholar
Macdonald, G. and Park, A., The Roman Forts on the Bar Hill (1906; 126–9.Google Scholar
AA4 V, 1928, 74; vii, 1930, 130.Google Scholar
Newcastle Courant for 28 Feb., 1879, 15.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M., The Roman Fort near Brecon (r Cymmrodor xxxvii. 1926) 250–1.Google Scholar
Saalburg-Jahrb. xviii, 1959/1960, 67–108.Google Scholar
Arch. Camb. lxxxiv, 1929, 304–5 (Jenkin's Field); lxxxv, 1930, 195 (eastern corner); lxxxvii, 1932, 341–9 (Prysg Field); xcv, 1940, 151 (Myrtle Cottage); Archaeologia lxxviii, 1928, 214–5 (amphitheatre).Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M., Segontium and the Roman Occupation of Wales (r Cymmrodor xxxiii, 1923) 170–1.Google Scholar
AAA vi, no. 4, 164 (Infirmary Field); xi, no. 2, 85–6 (Deanery Field); xviii, no. 3–4, 146–7 (Deanery Field); CAJ xxvii, 1928, 79 (Hunter Street); xxxviii, 1950, 37–8 (Goss Street).Google Scholar
Bruce, J. Collingwood, Handbook to the Roman Wall (12th edition, revised by Sir Ian Richmond) (1966) 91.Google Scholar
AA3 vii, 1911, 78–125; AA4 xlvi, 1968, 127–62. AA3, forthcoming (analysis of recent excavations by G. Hodgson).Google Scholar
rAJ xxi, 1911, 166–7.Google Scholar
AA2 i, 1857, 85.Google Scholar
Richmond, I. A., Hod Hill, vol. ii (1968).Google Scholar
Ritterling, E., Das Frührömische Lager bei Hofheim im Taunus (1913) 194–8.Google Scholar
Grimes, W. F., Holt, Denbighshire: the Works-Depot of the Twentieth Legion at Castle Lyons (r Cymmrodor xli, 1930), 185–6.Google Scholar
AA2 xxv, 1904, 299.Google Scholar
PSAS lxiii, 1929, 568–73.Google Scholar
Curle, J., A Roman Frontier Post and its People; the Fort of Newstead in the Parish of Melrose (1911) 353–79.Google Scholar
Saalburg-Jahrb. v, 1924, 136–44.Google Scholar
AA4 xxxvii, 1959, 168.Google Scholar
Hopkinson, J. H., The Roman Fort at Ribchester (1911).Google Scholar
Saalburg-Jahrb. xx, 1962, 46–53.Google Scholar
AA4 i, 1925, 28.Google Scholar
Jacobi, L., Das Romerkastell Saalburg bei Homburg v.d. Höhe (1897) 539–51;Google Scholar
Saalburg-Jahrb. v, 1924, 106–22, 144–58.Google Scholar
Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. of Northumberland and Durham vii, 1878, 146–8; AA4 forthcoming (analysis of recent excavations by G. Hodgson).Google Scholar
Saalburg-Jahrb. v, 1924, 131–6.Google Scholar
AA9 xliii, 1965, 193–200; AA9, forthcoming (analysis of recent excavations by G. Hodgson).Google Scholar
Clason, A. T., Animal and Man in Holland's Past (1967).Google Scholar
Simonett, C., Führer durch das Vindonissa-Museum in Brugg (1949)Google Scholar
Proc. of the Dorset Nat. Hist, and Arch. Soc. lxxxvi, 1965, 142ff.Google Scholar
ORL II B 31 (1909) 131–2.Google Scholar
Saalburg-Jahrb. v, 1924, 122–31.Google Scholar