The Ancients - The Roman Legionary

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

When you picture ancient Roman Soldiers, an image of battle-hardened warriors equipped with iron breastplates, large rectangular shields and mighty helmets will no doubt come to mind. Immortalised in cinematic classics like 'Gladiator' or HBO Period Dramas - the depictions of Roman legionaries tend to all look the same on the surface. But how accurate is this bloodthirsty, armour clad vision - and how did the actual Roman legionaries change across the centuries?In this episode Tristan welcomes best selling author Ben Kane to the podcast, to delve into the history of the Roman legionaries. Looking at what the clothing, weapons, and archaeology can tell us about legionaries across time (and continent) - who exactly were the Roman legionaries, and how do you separate fact from fiction?The History Hit Miscellany is published on September 28, but you can pre-order here or visit historyhit.com/book to order from your favourite book shop.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code ANCIENTS. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.Music supplied by All3 Media. 

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode we're talking about the most iconic military unit of ancient Rome. We're talking all about the legionary soldier. We'll be looking at the legionary's arms, his armour, his length of service, his evolution over hundreds of years of Roman history. And to talk through all of this, to give a masterclass in the story of the Roman legionary, what we've learned from literature but also from archaeology.

Well, I was delighted a couple of months ago to head over to the house of none other of the Roman legionary, what we've learned from literature but also from archaeology. Well I was delighted a couple of months ago to head over to the house of none other than the prolific historical fiction writer Ben Kane for this interview. Ben, his books have sold millions of copies, he is a household name and he knows all things the Roman legionary. It was a pleasure to interview Ben all about this and you are going to absolutely love it. Now just before we get going with this episode I must also note that it's very exciting times at History Hit right now because we have just received the first physical copies of our new book, the History Hit Miscellany, where we cover all sorts of topics varying from the oldest known shark attack to who was the third man on the moon. It's being published on the 28th of September, but you can pre-order from Amazon or you can get it from historyhit.com book to

order from your favourite bookshop. Go and have a look at that book. It's great. But in the meantime, here's Ben to talk all things the Roman Legionary. Ben, it is a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Great to be here. Thanks very much for inviting me. You're more than welcome. And it's always great to do it in person. And the Roman Legionary soldier,

when someone thinks of ancient Romanist military, this is the iconic unit, isn't it? This is right at the heart, at someone thinks of ancient Romanist military, this is the iconic unit, isn't it? This is right at the heart, at the centre of Roman armies. Indeed, yeah. The Roman legionary was the grunt, if you like, who for several hundred years dominated Europe militarily. It was an incredible achievement that the Romans did to have such a stable empire, which for about 200 years, it was pretty rock solid with a success rate in battle of 70% plus. So the legionaries were the reason for that. And you mentioned over several hundred years. So right off the bat, we mustn't think of a Roman legionary looking exactly the

same over those hundreds of years. This is a time of this unit experience is quite significant evolution too. Indeed. Yeah. So I do a talk in schools and at festivals about Roman soldiers. And one of the first things that I show is images of the Romans militarily from the beginning of Rome, which was in the 8th century BC, right through until the 5th century AD. So it's a period of over nearly 1200 years. And to suggest that Roman soldiers look the same through that incredible span of history would be akin to saying that an American soldier in the War of Independence against the British looks the same as an American soldier today. Well, clearly they don't. So equipment, uniform,

unit size, fighting tactics, they change with time. They always have and they always will. And when we think of a main visual image of a Roman legionary, I don't know about you, but I think of something like maybe the opening scene of Gladiator or HBO Rome. This iconic type of Roman legionary, what time periods are we talking about? Those periods where we always seem to envisage that ideal image of a Roman legionary soldier. Yeah, so your typical quote-unquote Roman legionary of TV and drama that's well done, because an awful lot of them, indeed, potentially the majority of them are not well portrayed, is in a red tunic with the plated armor and the jangly bits protecting the groin,

a throwing spear or javelin, a short stabbing sword and a curved rectangular shaped shield with hobnail sandals. That's a legionary essentially from the early 1st century AD through until the late 2nd century, maybe beginning of the 3rd century AD. So for about 200 years, that's what Roman soldiers looked like. And they were, by that stage, all dressed and armed probably identically, although there was unit variation without doubt. Again, on campaign,

men may well have adapted their kit, just like soldiers do today. But before that period, for example, going into the mid-Republic, the time of the wars with Carthage and Hannibal, the man who marched over the Alps with elephants, there were four types of Roman legionary then, and they all looked different. And a lot of people have never seen them, because they may never have seen a TV drama or a film with those type of soldiers in them. Well, let's go on that quick tangent straight away. I mean, I always like going into the background and what came before. The lion's share of this talk will be about that period, the early imperial period. But let's say those immediate centuries before, from the time of

Hannibal, I mean, what types of legionary soldiers should we be imagining at that time? Well, if I could just very quickly mention even earlier, because again, this will probably surprise a lot of your listeners. In Rome's earliest days, when it was just a town and then a small city that didn't have any foreign territory and indeed didn't control all of mainland Italy, the earliest Romans fought in a phalanx dressed and armed like Greek soldiers. And people just go, what? Why? And the reason, probably, we don't know because there's almost nothing surviving, but is that there was a huge amount of Greek influence in central and southern Italy at the time

from settlers, the Greek gods were being worshipped, there was Greek coinage being used. In fact, the Romans didn't invent their own coinage until the Punic Wars against Carthage, and so on and so on. And we don't know why, but we have images of Roman soldiers dressed and armed like Greek hoplites. But to go back to your question, during the time of the war with Hannibal, for example, which was a nearly 20-year war from 218 BC till 202-201 BC, there were four types of legionary, and these were, it's important to note, all citizens. You couldn't be a Roman legionary unless you're a citizen. And it was your civic duty to volunteer

for war if the need arose. So for example, if you're from New York City or London, wherever you're from, and there was a war, it was your duty, if that's where you came from, to volunteer. Now, without doubt, there will have been shirkers, but we also know that it was a very proud thing for Roman males to do. And indeed, the city of Cincinnati in Ohio is named after Kinkinatus, who was a Roman noble who epitomized Roman duty. So he was given a six-month dictatorship in order to defeat an enemy of Rome, and he did it in two weeks and then handed back the power of dictatorship and went back to his farm. That was a really good example of Roman

virtus or virtue. And these four types of legionaries were essentially selected according to age and wealth and social status. So you had to pay for your own equipment. So therefore, the youngest and the poorest were teenagers, probably 16, 17 years old, and they were scouts. They were known as velites. The singular in Latin is veles. And they were armed with little round shields and a bundle of throwing spears and probably nothing else because they couldn't afford it unless they looted it from a dead body.

They had strips of wolfskin on their heads, possibly to identify them at a distance. And their job was to act as scouts and then when a battle was about to begin they would run out in front of the legions throw a load of spears and probably a load of insults at the enemy scouts who'd be doing the same to them and then they'd run away and run back behind the safety of of the legionaries and the legionaries proper if you like there were three types of them and they would be arrayed in three ranks the first rank were called the hastati singular hastatus and these were young men in their

early 20s with something called a pectoralis which was a piece of bronze probably only about 12 inches by 12 inches there were two of them one protected the front of the chest and the other the back and literally all it protected was your heart and your lungs you might be thinking that's not great but the shield that legionaries used at that time was considerably larger than the imperial shield it was curved top and bottom so it couldn't stand flat on the ground like the ones you see on tv and so your average roman was only five foot six and when you've got a great big shield to duck down behind your armor isn't as important because you're being protected by your shield they had two javelins or throwing spears they had a great long sword called a

gladius hispaniensis which is 10 inches longer than the traditional blade you'll see portrayed in the imperial legionaries we've mentioned they had one greave which is a piece of metal armor between the knee and the ankle and that went on the left leg, which is the leg that went right behind the shield. We don't know why it went from two to one, but it was only one at this time. Hobnail sandals and a very, very simple helmet called a Montefortino, which is literally a bronze bowl with cheek pieces that cover your ears so you can't hear a thing. I know, I've worn it, and you literally can't hear what the man beside you is saying, which is possibly why later ones do have ear holes. And that was decorated with three tall black feathers, according to Polybius.

Now, I had those on my helmet when I was dressed as one walking Hadrian's Wall, and they broke within two days with the wind. So, in my opinion, they didn't wear them all the time because they would have just broken every time there was wind or heavy rain. So potentially, in my opinion, I quickly stress, they maybe only put them in on parade. So that was the first rank. The second rank were called principe, singular princeps. These were men in their middle 20s with a bit more money. And the main difference between them and the Astati was that each of them had a male shirt. This was the ancient equivalent of a stab-proof vest. Now, it wasn't worn straight over the tunic. It was worn over

your garment, your clothing, your main tunic. They wore a padded tunic, potentially of felt or wool, and then the male shirt. And those two combined act a bit like a stab-proof vest. And you don't want to be trying to stick your cheap iron sword because that's what most people were using in the third century BC into something like that because it might break or blunt if you hit someone hard enough you might go through it but most people probably couldn't and so it was very effective protection they had the same helm at the same shield the same sword the greave the same throwingars. And then the third rank were known as triari, the singular is triarius. And these are men in their early 30s, and they were the veterans,

if you like, of each legion. And there were only half the number of them compared to the other ranks. So there were 1,200 velites, 1,200 hastati, 1,200 principes, but only 600 triari. And there's a wonderful expression that survives from the time of the Second Punic War, referring to a battle about which we know nothing except the phrase rem ad triarius ridice in Latin, which means matters have come to the triarii. In other words, translating what that means, it must mean something like this. The first rank are all dead and dying. The second rank are about to break. Send in the reserves or we're finished. But we don't know anything else about the battle. But it's a great phrase that I wear on a t-shirt when I'm giving talks. So people ask me what it means, because

most people have never heard of it. So in addition to those 4,200 infantry, if you like, there were 300 cavalry. And again, different from imperial times in numbers, but also Roman nobility who served in the cavalry. By the time of Varus or later on in the Roman Empire, cavalry were no longer citizens. They were generally hired mercenaries, Gauls, Germans, Spaniards, and so on. But this was the period when young noblemen still volunteered to be in the cavalry. A bit like in the British Empire, young noblemen joined the cavalry regiments while ordinary people joined foot regiments. So that was your basic Roman legion during the Punic Wars of 4,500 men. There are some arguments that it might have been a bit

larger, but it's generally accepted to be about that. And so how does this army formation, how does it evolve from, let's say, roughly 202 BC, the end of the Second Punic War, down to the time of the late Republic, to the likes of warlords like Julius Caesar or like Marcus Crassus in the East? And we get a very different, I don't want to say uniform because I know they're not all exactly the same, but we don't get, you know, four almost different classes of legionary within the legion. What is this evolution that occurs over that time? So that change didn't come about for about another hundred years. So if you roll forward to 100 BC, and a little bit more into the 90s BC, this was when the chain of events that had been unleashed by the Punic Wars, which was Rome having to send

hundreds of thousands of men abroad on campaign for years on end instead of their traditional war, just like all civilizations was spring, summer, you go home in the autumn. You couldn't do that when you're fighting in Spain and North Africa and in Greece, for example. So they'd essentially formed unwittingly a professional army and vast numbers of rural poor whose men were away fighting for years on end had starved, abandoned their farms, moved to Rome, profiteering nobles moved in, bought the land and you had this big social change and move of the poor from the countryside to the cities. This led to along with many other things that we don't have the time to go into but along with many other reasons a lot of which or something of which has to do with the fact you

had the continuing military activity of Roman politicians not just Julius Caesar but before him men like Sulla men like Marius who went to Africa and up into Spain and southern France and had these great military victories and the Roman soldier for many hundreds of years had carried his own equipment. And so one of the things that changed in the 90s BC, thanks to a man called Marius, was he, instead of using mules and carts for all the equipment that had to be carried, he got his legionaries to carry their own equipment. And they got christened Marius Mules. Obviously, they couldn't carry their tent. A tent for an eight-man unit or contubernium is about 35 kilos or about 75 pounds.

You still needed a wagon for that. But everything else, Roman soldiers started carrying. And along with that great social move, you then had, rather than legions of men who joined up and fought for Rome, then had, rather than legions of men who joined up and fought for Rome, you had soldiers who were fighting for one military leader, whether it be Julius Caesar or Marius or Sulla, and they fought for them for years on end. So effectively, these men became monarchs slash generals with incredibly loyal and dedicated, experienced troops. And this weakened Rome's democracy. Again, we don't have time to go into much more detail than that. But by the 80s BC, and then rolling forward into the 60s BC, when you had the first triumvirate of Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar, you had essentially professional armies who were highly

mobile. So a Roman soldier of the mid-first century BC with Caesar in Gaul or in Britain, was someone who could march 20 miles a day, and a Roman mile is not much different to a modern mile, 20 miles a day in five hours, or 24 miles in five hours at the double pace. He carried about 90 to 100 pounds of kit, that's 40 to 45 kilos. That was broken down into basically his male shirt weighed about 16 pounds, sandals, belt, helmet, sword, and so on. They would be another 10, 15 pounds. And then he carried a yoke, Y-O-K-E, which was literally nothing more than a forked stick or potentially a long stick with a crossbar tied with leather twine. And from that, he carried all his pots and pans and personal accoutrements like blankets and food and oil

and grooming tools, as well as broken down in an eight-man unit. You had shovels and spades and pickaxes, also fencing posts for knotting together and putting in the gateway of a temporary fort every night. And I can tell you, having marched more than 500 miles as a Roman soldier, without a yoke, I carried about 50 pounds of kit. When you try and carry a yoke, all it wants to do is fall off your shoulder. The shield, that's another thing I didn't mention, that weighs about 16 pounds. And just a quick aside, in my opinion, and in the opinion of anyone I know who's walked long distances in Roman gear,

the Roman soldier wore his on his back. So you never see that on Trajan's column, and you don't see it on carvings or statues, but that may just be an artistic device, because if you try and carry a Roman shield in your left hand for 20 miles, I've done that, and I've ended up with all the muscles in one arm pulled. Then I slung a leather strap around the handle and half carried it from one shoulder and half with my hand and I ended up with all the muscles in my shoulder knotted. And then I fashioned two carrying straps myself and wore it on my back like a ninja turtle. And it's incredibly comfortable. It acts as a windbreak when the wind's behind you and when you're used to it as i am i can have it off my back and in my fist in 15 seconds so you tell me that's that's going to stop you fighting so that's my theory on that one thank you for that whistle stop tool you know so much information to take in there

i know but it was funny because we talked about the background to it and it is such an interesting unit and how it evolves over those centuries as you finally get the fall of the Roman Republic. We've had people like Caesar. Now you get the rise of Octavian or Augustus, the first emperor. And so if we go to that time, let's say the beginning of the first century A.D. But before 9 A.D. because we're kind of going to focus on that area, of course. If you were, let's say, if you're a Roman citizen from a settlement in Italy, maybe let's say, I don't know, maybe Ravenna or even Tarentum or wherever, which has been

under control of Rome for centuries by that time. How would someone who was a Roman citizen go about being called up or being enlisted to the Roman army as a legionary at that time, in that early imperial period? So the Roman army at the end of the civil war that Augustus won after the death of Julius Caesar, 44 to 31 BC, at the end of that war there were 60 Roman legions in the field and that was because of Mark Antony and Lepidus against Octavian slash Augustus. And he disbanded about half of them. So 30 Roman legions became actually the general size of the Roman army for way more than a century. And that was about 150,000 men.

Now, a lot of those legions had strong links to an area of Italy where they'd been raised originally. And they also, a lot of them had been based in various parts of the empire for years at a time. So whether it was, whether you had someone from Italy joining because there was an historical link to a particular legion, that would have been one way. There would have also been locals joining in the bases where the legions were situated so your listeners again will probably know that roman soldiers were not allowed to marry at this time not until the early third century was that permitted but it was normal for settlements

that sprang up outside legion bases for legionaries to have common law wives with whom they had children and when they retired if they survived when they retired, if they survived, when they retired from the legion, they generally married those women who instantly became Roman citizens, and then their children did too. And this was a very rich source of recruits for the Roman army. Just like you have families in America or Britain, wherever today, where there's a tradition of joining the military, it was a massive thing in Roman times as well. I haven't read much about juicy details like recruiting parties because sadly, again, as your listeners may know, a lot of Roman texts are very bare of rich social detail. They tend to just give you dates and names and battles and people who were there. And they're usually rich

and famous. They're not ordinary people. There's a great big screaming silence in all the places that even if you want to know about civilian society, there are huge gaps in our knowledge. But we do know, for example, from letters from Roman Egypt from the first and second centuries AD, letters written by legionaries back home to their families, that when you joined, you were given money to travel to your unit. So there was an allowance for you to get to. If you joined in Italy and you might be traveling to Egypt, that was going to take you a rather long time to get there and would be quite costly. So there was an allowance for that. And it must be mentioned here as well that it was,

Rome was a very martial society and it was, the military was regarded very highly. And so joining the army, because it was also extremely well paid and had a great career structure, it was something that people certainly in this period really wanted to do. Much later on, it wasn't the case, which is one of the reasons possibly why the Roman Empire got weak. So when you joined the legion, let's say you joined in a town, there must have been, I think, recruiting officers. So let's say there was a recruiting officer or officers in your town. You would swear an oath of allegiance to the emperor. Your physical characteristics would be written down because there were no photos and no cameras obviously so scars and height and so on as i mentioned you had to be five foot six to be a

legionary you had to be five foot ten to be a cavalryman and once you had sworn an oath to the emperor you were literally bound to the army for the next 16 to 25 years depending on the period we're talking about and i often get asked when I'm doing these talks, oh, suppose you change your mind, you know, especially if you've been in training and you're in a battle and your best mate gets killed beside you, can you leave? No, you can't. And once you're in, you're in. I don't think it's likely at all that any training would have taken place in the civilian aspect. It would have been once they got to their base. So the majority of

density of legions was on the Rhine and Danube rivers, because those are where barbarians, if you like, used to cross. Britain had a high density of legions as well. For a very small island, very small part of the empire, it never had less than three legions and sometimes had four, which tells you how much military force was needed to keep the British under the boot. times had four, which tells you how much military force was needed to keep the British under the boot. Spain and Portugal, massive area, one legion. North Africa from Egypt to Morocco, two legions. Middle East had more legions as well. And then you had them obviously in Gaul and so on. And when a legionary arrived or a prospective legionary arrived, his training lasted two to three months. Again, we don't know. Maybe explaining for your listeners,

one of the reasons that we don't know a lot of things is because when someone 2,000 years ago was writing about, for example, the army, he would assume, just like if I was writing a book about 2023, I wouldn't tell you what a mobile phone was. I wouldn't tell you what a bank card was or a credit card was. I wouldn't tell you what a car was. I don't have to because you know. So an awful lot of information is inferred in ancient and texts all through history. So we know that it lasted two or three months, the training. It was very physical, but you've got to remember

that your average 16, 18-year-old back then was used to hard physical labor since they were a child. They were infinitely fitter than a 16 to 18 year old now. You just got to look at impoverished areas of the world where agriculture is the main economy and people work the land, plowing their fields with oxen rather than a tractor. And you maybe get an appreciation of how tough people were, but two to three months of drill, weapons training, first with wooden swords and wicker shields, twice the weight of the real thing, so that when you got the real thing,

you had more power. Being trained in centuries. So a century, bizarrely, was 80 men, not 100. Six of them formed a cohort. That's 480. And then there were 10 cohorts in a legion. A centurion commanded each cohort. He had three junior officers that helped him. And they were literally the guys who, if they said jump, you literally said how high. So marching, fighting in formation, commands when fighting were with voice at close quarters, with trumpets at a distance, no evidence of whistles at all. So HBO Rome has a lot to answer for there. Each century had its own standard and then each cohort

did as well. And each legion had a standard, which was a golden eagle on a wooden staff. And there was a special officer who carried that. It was called the Aquilifer. And the training didn't just include being able to fight. They also had to be able to march those long distances I mentioned. We think they were taught how to swim as well. They may even have been taught how to ride horses. And this was the school of hard knocks. You know, I've got a great image in the talk I use with a guy lying on the ground bleeding while the centurion's busy telling someone else to get on with it. You know, there would have been very little sympathy and discipline was brutal.

So we know of at least four offences for which a legionary could be executed. These were stealing from a comrade, running away from the enemy in battle, taking your sword off while you're digging a ditch, which is actually... Taking your sword off while digging a ditch? Yeah, yeah. So your sword tends to swing around a lot on your hip and if you're digging a ditch it's much easier if you're swinging a pickaxe to take it off but there's an example from the second century of a senior officer riding

along the temporary ditch of a fort when they were on the march and there was a sword lying on the side of the ditch and he said whose is whose is this? And this unfortunate soldier raised his hand and he had him taken out and executed in front of the rest of the men because he wasn't ready to fight. So the fourth one was falling asleep on sentry duty. Now, if this, and I always pick out the, you know, eight people in the front row of the talk with my vine stick, which is the symbol of office of the centurion, along with his transverse crested helmet. And let's say the centurion finds this man asleep in the middle of the night. In the morning, they would be lined up all the century, and his seven comrades from his tent unit, the contubernium that I mentioned, would beat him to death with sticks. It was called the fustuarium.

And if the centurion was in a bad mood, they beat him to death with their bare hands. And that didn't need to happen much. And just like decimation, which was one man in 10 being beaten to death. Because if you have a, let's say the town where you live, wherever it is in the world, if one man is beaten to death today because he fell asleep on century duty, I can guarantee you the news would be around the town within an hour and no one would fall asleep on sentry duty for a very long time. So this incredible discipline and these incredible leaders, the centurions, along with the very superior equipment that every soldier had. So if you were fighting Gauls, you were fighting Germans or you were fighting Judeans or whatever, not every soldier or warrior you fought had really good armor. Only some of them did. So this was a huge advantage that the Romans had, equipment,

discipline, and their leaders. Those are the three really big differences, along with artillery, which we haven't talked about yet, because almost nobody had the same amount of artillery, or indeed any artillery, compared to the Romans. Well Well I'd like to focus a bit on equipment there because you mentioned the Romans facing these various different kinds of enemies and you also highlighted earlier how you know one of the key pieces of kit was like the chain mail shirt which was ideal against swords and slashing swords and so on but as we both know as we've studied quite a bit whether you go to the Teutoburg forest and the Germans the main weapon of choice for many Germanic warriors wasn't the sword, it was the spear. Now, with a spear thrust, correct me if I'm wrong, but I know you know better than I would, it feels like a spear thrust would be better against chainmail compared to a sword slash.

against chainmail compared to a sword slash. I mean, so can we therefore see, trying to get to that famous breastplate, that chestplate that we often associate with Roman legionaries, do we think we sometimes see evolution in arms and armour of these legionaries, particularly, let's say, around that time, because of the type of enemy that they were facing? I agreed, but I don't agree with you about chainmail and spears, especially with the German spears, because they were very light. They were called Fromea, and they were essentially just hunting spears. And they wouldn't go through mail either. But you don't have to get, when you're ambushing someone in bog and swamp and forest, I mean, all you've got to do is get close and then you stick them in the neck, or you stick them in the

armpit, or you stab them in the foot. That's something I use in my novels all the time. You stab someone in the foot, he's going to scream and then not be able to fight very well and then he's done. There is definitely some evidence of the Romans in this period of changing their equipment. So some of your listeners will be familiar with the manica, which is like a series of scales armor that goes down the right arm. So it's a leather backing with a series of large interlocking scales, not dissimilar to armor that was worn in the 13 and 1400s, just for the right arm. And that, historians, a lot of them agree, was developed to fight the Dacians. So the Dacians are people that would

live in modern day Hungary and potentially that area. And they were fearsome and they used an awful weapon, awful as in it was really effective, called the falx, which is essentially like a scythe, slightly less curved and with a shorter handle. And they didn't bother with the shield. They just used to wield it with two hands. And I mean, it would take your head off or your arm. So if you're a Roman soldier stabbing forward with your right arm and someone lops it off with a falx, then you're dead, aren't you? Whereas if you've got armor on your right arm, that will probably give you a lot of protection. And there is some argument as well. The Roman helmet changed. i mentioned those early ones uh the very simple ones by the first and second centuries a.d they were a lot better they had ear ear holes and they

had a big brim at the back which was a neck guard and they also had a brow a bit like a very really shortened peak of a cap but much much shorter and there is some thought it's it's argued over a lot but that that strengthening the brow and over the top was done against the falx as well because if someone hits you with the falx and you haven't got a very strengthened helmet it'll go through the helmet and kill you but that's quite a contentious point but the change from the male to the plated armor, which is known as lorica segmentata, sounds Latin, is Latin, but it's a modern name. We know the Romans called the male the hamata, but the lorica segmentata, as it's now known, that plated armor you'll see

in Gladiator on TV, the thinking on the development of that is that it was actually really quick to make compared to a male shirt. A male shirt is 20,000 steel rings interlocked with each other by hand and then closed by hand with a little rivet. It takes a modern armorer about two months to make one. A Lorica segmentata is about 20 something pieces of steel. I haven't got one so I don't know the exact numbers. I've got the male shirt but it's about 20-something pieces of steel. I haven't got one, so I don't know the exact numbers. I've got the male shirt, but it's about 20-something steel plates effectively hung together with leather buckles and straps. And once you are making those steel plates, it's much quicker to make one. And the soldiers made their own equipment,

so they essentially had factories, not with machines, everything done by hand, but they used to make all their own equipment. And when you were turning out 20-something steel plates instead of 20,000 steel rings and you only had to buckle them together rather than all that interlocking, it was much quicker to make and provides about the same amount of protection as the male shirt. It's not actually much better, it's just quicker to make. And it looks a lot better. Your beer belly doesn't show when you're there you go i stand corrected indeed thank you for that ben well i mean let's focus a bit more therefore on the officers before we go to the

various duties of a legionary at this period how possible was it for an everyday roman legion you've joined the army you're going through your years of service, to rise through the ranks? It was eminently possible. So the four ranks of officer were the centurion, below him was the optio, and then you had the signifer, and then you had the tesserarius, just like Tesserae from Mosaics. He was called that because he carried the clay tablet with the passwords for the knight. because he carried the clay tablet with the passwords for the night. And then you probably had gradings of soldier as well. So if you were a dutiful soldier who kept his kit clean and did what he was told, and you wouldn't necessarily have to fight well in a battle because if you lived in Spain and you were in a legion there,

you might not see military action very often. You would become an immunist, as in immunization, and that was someone who was exempt from crappy duties like cleaning out toilets or latrines and potentially sentry duty. And if you continue to do well, particularly if you did well in battle, say if the Legion was involved in a war, it was common for men to be promoted. Now it took a long time for someone to reach the rank of centurion took until a man was about 30. So if he joined at 17 or 18, that was about 11 or 12 years. But the pay of a legionary soldier, which as I mentioned earlier, was good in the first century,

it was 225 denarii a year, which was a lot of money. We don't have comparative wages for ordinary people like builders or carpenters or bakers, but we know that was a lot of money. We don't have comparative wages for ordinary people like builders or carpenters or bakers, but we know that was a lot. It would buy you a lot. A centurion earned 15 times that. Wow. Yeah. And the centurions were ranked one to 60. So the 10th cohort was the lowest ranked cohort. And the sixth centurion in the 10th cohort was centurion number 60. sixth centurion in the tenth cohort was centurion number 60 and centurion number one was the first centurion of the first cohort and it wasn't unknown for him he was known as the primus pilus or the first spear and it wasn't unknown for him to become a camp prefect which was the highest rank generally an ordinary man could hope to get to. And that was third ranked in the whole legion,

an incredibly prestigious position to get. It was in theory possible to be ennobled and to become a knight or member of the equites, but that was pretty rare, very rare. But certainly making a good living and being promoted was definitely possible. And we know of, indeed, ordinary legionaries who did really well. There's a fantastic tombstone in Cologne in Germany, which I've seen. And again, your listeners will

probably know that the roads into Roman towns and cities were lined with tombs because you weren't allowed to bury the dead inside. And the bigger the tomb, the better it looked. So grand tombs were all the thing. And there's a tombstone of this ordinary legionary with his name and what legion he served in in Cologne that's about 50 feet high with a statue of him on top. And ordinary tombs were like 10 feet high. So it's like, look at me and how important I was. Things like that are really great history because they show you something living. They tell you something about somebody that isn't just a tomb. because they show you something living.

They tell you something about somebody that isn't just a tomb. It's like this guy made himself really rich, and he wanted everybody to know that when they walked past his tomb. So I always laugh when I think of that one. I'll have to put him in a book sometime. It's a real symbol of power, isn't it? And I guess when we're thinking of that kind of makeup, you've got the centurions and you've got the legionaries,

should we also be picturing, would there be servants too that would be helping it out or freedmen or i guess even slaves that would also be kind of around the legionaries in the camp and so on certainly the officers will have had slaves yeah without a doubt especially the senior rankers you know above the centurions you had the legate who commanded the legion and he there were tribunes below him six tribunes who were noblemen they would have had slaves. I don't know of, again, and this is just gaps in the knowledge, I don't know of ordinary soldiers with slaves, but it wouldn't have surprised me at all. I say I don't know of them with slaves, certainly other than mentioning. After he'd finished campaigning, or after a particular

period of Caesar's campaign in Gaul in the 50s BC, he gave, I think it was after the Battle of Alesia actually, they took so many Gaulish prisoners of war that Caesar gave every man in his army a slave as a prize. So that was 50,000 slaves. So there you go. Ordinary soldiers did have slaves. They probably sold them fairly immediately to make money because I doubt very much whether they would have been allowed to have them with them on campaign although obviously tens of thousands of people potentially follow big armies they always have done so they may have had them but I would think that the average soldier probably didn't. Well, let's now focus and let's go from a legionary at base to a legionary on the march to a legionary in battle. So if we focus on a legionary at your base, whether it's in Spain

or in Syria or on the Rhine or Danube, what were the duties that were normally expected of a legionary if, let's say, you're not away fighting or you're not defending against an enemy attack? Yeah, so again, your listeners will be familiar with the phrase that a soldier with nothing to do is a dangerous man. So when you've got essentially tens of thousands of men who are armed and trained to go into battle with nothing to do, you can commonly end up with rebellion. And indeed, again, as many of your listeners will know, this was the norm in the third century AD and onwards for generals and governors in various parts of the empire to rebel. But going back to your question, in a peaceful region where there was a legionary base, their primary duties were to keep the peace.

So we know that they acted as police. They weren't called that, but they were lawmakers. And there's a wonderful letter that shows you the power of women and you know we think of women not having very many rights and so on but there are examples that show that they they still did what they wanted sometimes there's a letter that survives from roman egypt which is to a centurion in a rural area so he would have been presumably an imperial official with power and this a man the man that wrote to him his wife had run away to another town and married another man and he was asking for the help of the centurion with this and i suspect centurion probably shrugged his shoulders and said there's nothing much i can do but we know also

from poems that survive that they they did they used to do roadblocks and they would have been checking people coming and going for example on hadrian's wall that was not an impermeable barrier that was manned by soldiers who would have been literally seeing people, who are you? Where are you going? Why are you going there? Are you going to sell your sheep? What are you doing? It was a way of keeping control. They were also tax collectors, again, as many of your listeners will know, and they were engaged in civic engineering projects. They were being paid anyway. So if you're being paid, and like I mentioned, they made their own equipment. They also used to build their own bases.

So they were essentially stonemasons and carpenters and engineers as well. So they built roads and they built Hadrian's Wall and things like that. Most big things like aqueducts and so on were built by slaves, but they built bridges over the river danube for example so they were they were kept busy but also had to be ready to go at the drop of a hat if you know what i mean so and it was also common for units of legions to be sent elsewhere to do things so you might have a legion in one base but a cohort of it would be sent to somewhere else in that area or potentially even to another part of the empire if they were needed so it could be could be quite mobile right so that is interesting in itself and

that kind of feels like a quick tangent i know we haven't got much time but it's great fun a legionary even if you're based through a legion let's say in spain i mean could specific legionaries be relocated to other legions elsewhere or is it almost normally a case that a whole legion would be relocated elsewhere in the empire not necessarily a whole legion you did have cohorts oh the vexillation yes indeed yeah yeah so a common misconception which came about because of a reasonable belief by archaeologists was that the ninth legion which was based in york was wiped out in scotland in the first third of the second century AD. In other words, around 120, 117, 120 AD. And that's because it was based in York around that period, and then

it disappears from the historical record. But roof tiles inscribed with the number nine, in other words, made by the Legion Nine, have been found in Holland and the Netherlands and dated to 10 or 15 years after that period. And we've also got documentary evidence of senior officers from the Legion circa 110 AD in different parts of the Empire in the 130s. So that shows you that different parts of that, well certainly definitely of definitely a vexillation of that legion was alive and kicking in the Netherlands, and that senior officers who, all right, may have been posted to other units, but they were still alive and kicking. So that's just an example of a vexillation being sent away, along with a debunking of the theory about the 9th. So most historians now reckon it was wiped out in either Pannonia, which is sort of Montenegro, Serbia area in the 130s, or potentially Judea about 20 or 30 years after that.

And so, yeah, so it's interesting. We don't have examples of, I'm guessing the knowledge isn't there, that particular soldiers could be relocated elsewhere. We don't know. I mean, I suspect it's possible, particularly if you had a rich relation. It'd be easier if you were a senior ranker. but you know, grace and favor and all that. Yeah, I would have thought it was possible without a doubt, but we haven't really got evidence of it. Just as a quick example of how mobile one man can be, there's a wonderful tombstone of a centurion called Fortunatus, i.e. he was lucky. And it names all the legionary bases he was in. And bearing in mind, he traveled by horse or foot or ship with a sail, no engines.

He was still in the legion age 72, and he had served pretty much everywhere. So I'm talking Israel, North Africa, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, France, Switzerland, Britain, you name it, he'd served there sometimes twice in one lifetime in the army, all travelling at really slow speeds. It's quite amazing. Good old Fortunatus. Yeah. Well, I mean, I likewise agree with you that I don't think the 9th Legion perished in Northern Britain.

However, let's say we are a Legion and we're on the march. And for an example, we're going north of Hadrian's Wall. We're going to Perthshire or somewhere in Scotland. What was expected of a Roman legionary on the march, especially if you were going into territory that was unknown? So there will have been scouts out in front. The cavalry by this stage was about 120 riders per legion they would have probably been riding out in in screens or out to various areas to find out what was going on it's it's also in this day and age where we all use google maps and we know everywhere we're going and you can even look at the terrain i challenge some of your listeners to go for a walk someday

without their phone like obviously not into a wild national park where you get lost, but just go somewhere that you're not going to get badly lost without your phone and try just walking towards landmarks. I was doing this once when I was training for Adrian's Wall, and I went slightly wrong, and I got to a river. And I remember thinking, right, so if this was ancient times, and if we couldn't ford the river or put pontoon bridges, we'd have to turn around and go back. And we've got no idea which way we're going.

So scouts were immensely important. Maps did not exist. And the Legion marched in a particular order. We know this thanks to an historian called Josephus, who described the marching order of a Legion in the first century AD. So you had a strong fighting force at the very front, and then you had engineers quite close behind that, presumably to do things if they needed to. And you then had the commander. I could get this slightly wrong, because I haven't studied it very recently, but the commander and senior officers. Then you had

more fighting troops, then the baggage, and then fighting troops at the back as well. And four miles an hour for five hours, that's easy to say when you're marching on a road. But if you're marching through open countryside or rough terrain or hills, you're never going to do that. So progress could have been actually quite slow. And then you may well have had locals attacking you at various points as well. So legions were highly maneuverable. Centuries were the basic unit. It had been the double century, the maniple, earlier on,

but centuries were the main fighting unit. And they could adapt and fight. We know of situations where many times when they were ambushed, they had leather covers to protect their shields against rain, and Caesar describes them fighting with the leather covers on. They didn't have time to take them off. And so another thing that's worth mentioning was that if there was a road, a lot of historians nowadays think that the legionaries didn't march on the road

because, again, your listeners will know, hobnail boots, think football boots with studs and wet cobblestones, it's lethal. I mean, I've done it. It's frightening. It's like trying to walk on ice in a normal pair of shoes. And also, it doesn't allow wagons to go to and fro. So a lot of people think the legionaries marched on either side of the road

and let wagons and horses go up the road. So, yeah, they broke camp at dawn. They would have had something small to eat and got going. The legion went out always pretty much in the same order and it would have taken hours to empty a camp if it was several legions big. So the men at the front would be arriving at the new camp while the guys at the back were still hours away.

If they didn't have to fight their way through any enemies when they reached wherever they were going to camp, they had to dig out a temporary camp that was the same size and shape as the permanent one they lived in, i.e. playing card in shape with a gate or an entrance in each side and a central crossroads which goes to the four gates, a ditch outside that which was dug every day, two to three meters, six to nine feet deep. The spoil from that provided the wall, and half the legion, if it was a legion that was digging a camp, half the legion acted as

a screen to protect the men digging, so you wouldn't have dug every day, you would have dug every second day, but that's still probably two or three hours hard physical labor after a 20 mile march carrying 90 pounds of kit. You know, you start to understand how fit they were and they may have had to fight fought a battle as well when they'd finished that rampart the tents were laid out in neat lines the same order as the barracks were in the permanent fort with the commander's tent at the in the same place the commander's residence would have been and then the gates were fashioned out of those palisade stakes that i described that they carried as well which are essentially just lengths of wood sharpened at both ends that you you could tie together in sort of things like a like a hedgehog and then sentry duty you know the men on on duty all night they would dig out latrines and the men who weren't on sentry duty would would go to sleep

because they'd be bone tired and then they would get up and do it again that's mad isn't it yeah 24 hours and you know you that kind of the amount of knowledge you just pass it kind of really emphasizes you know the hectic nature and you say even if maybe they were under attack during the day as well they've also got to eat during that time as well do we know much about the food was it kind of ready to eat or what so they carried two to three days rations with them every group of eight had a personal grinding stone, which was the size of like a 12-inch pizza plate, two pieces of stone. The one on top had a hole.

The top one was bound around with a band of iron and a wooden handle, and you poured grain into the top hole, and you wound the top one around the bottom one, and it made flour. So they used to basically bake bread in the fire, so it wouldn't have risen very much. And then they would have scavenged for whatever they could find. And it's funny, visiting this when I've been writing my novels

really made me realize, in a way that you don't think of when you're just thinking of the fighting, of the effect of an army, and this continues to the modern day, any army that's tens of thousands of men in size coming through an area is essentially like locusts, because they needed hundreds of tons of grain and food for their mules, because there were thousands of mules with each army. And so if you were a peasant farmer, and think of medieval times, the whole of northern and central Europe, you didn't want to be a farmer when an army came marching through. It didn't matter if they were friendly or unfriendly. They still took your food.

And even if you didn't get killed defending the honor of your children or your wife, you'd probably starve to death in the winter afterwards because they'd taken everything. They would have literally taken all your grain and all your animals. And so we don't know much about this, but the Romans will have had strong parties going out either side of their army. We know that in Napoleon's invasion of Russia, his soldiers were ranging up to 20, 25 miles either side of the army, and they were on foot and on horse so roman armies may well have done the same yeah that logistic side of the army this is also interesting alexander the great as well especially when he's going deeper and deeper into persia it's really interesting when you

review that all-important logistics and the need for food isn't it i could ask so much more but i know that with your novel was one of the things that you also focus a lot on. You know, you have these battle narratives that occur, especially in ancient Rome. For a Roman legionary, when he was in battle, was he very much trained to fight in various different kinds of scenarios? Yeah, we know that they fought in close formation, very, very tightly together. Again, the distance is disputed from the information that survives but probably no more than a foot and a half to two feet between soldiers because you keep your line tight then people can't get into it think of all those shields together with in between each one there's a nasty sword and there's all you can see of the man holding it or his eyes because he's short and his helmet covers his head and you can see maybe one of his feet. So a line of Roman soldiers was like a sort of armoured wall

with those swords stabbing in and out. They were taught to fight with a one-two manoeuvre, where you punch the enemy with the shield boss. This is a description from Mons Graupius, which was a battle in Scotland in the 80s AD. You punch the shield boss at the enemy's face. If you hit him, you break his nose, and then you stick him with your sword.

If he jerks back out of the way, then you stab him in the throat. So that's one of the only exact maneuvers we know that Roman soldiers were taught. But we know that they were taught to fight in some different formations. I mean, you see the testudo, or the tortoise on TV all the time.

I want to scream, it was not used against enemy infantry it's always shown like that on TV it was not for that it was for defending yourself against arrows or when you were at the bottom of a town wall and your engineers were trying to make that wall fall down, it was to stop

rocks being dropped on your head so they did fight though in a formation called the cuneus, at least we think the cuneus refers to a triangle. So imagine a triangle with the point of the triangle being the centurion and the rest of the triangle being his men. If you form a line of those, it was called the saw and that's the formation that the Roman general who defeated Boudicca used. He had a hill to his back, woods on each side, his men in the saw, and that's the formation that the Roman general who defeated Boudicca used. He had a hill to his back, woods on each side, his men in the saw formation,

and they were told 200,000, let's go with exaggeration and divide it by four, 50,000 British against 20,000 Romans came smashing up against the saw, up like the mosh pit of a heavy metal concert, packed so tightly they couldn't use their spears, and the Romans just slaughtered them. So those are some of the things that we know about. We don't know very much more other than we do know trumpets. So how a battle opened, you bring out your artillery first. So each legion had 55 bolt throwers.

Think massive crossbow head on a wooden stand, the height of your waist and the arms probably as big as your arms if you spread them out. Braided horse hair for the ropes with a pull power of a thousand to two thousand pounds. Shooting steel arrows the length of your forearm, the thickness of your thumb, they can go the length of a football pitch through a shield and into the man behind it. The enemies the Romans faced did not have anything like that. Reenactors today can shoot those bolt throwers four times a minute. I would argue Roman soldiers could do it six or more. 55 times six is 330 bolts a minute down the length of a football pitch, let's say for 15 minutes while your enemy stands

there being pulped. So that probably won a few battles. If that didn't, the trumpets would sound and the Roman legions would walk towards the enemy in complete silence. This was very different to everybody else in the ancient world. When you're going into battle, you're absolutely, I'm not going to use a curse word, but you know, you're doing something in your pants because you're so scared. So you're banging your sword off your shield boss, or you're screaming, or you're doing both, and you're yelling at your friends to get your courage going and to try and scare your enemy. The Romans walked towards the enemy in silence. So imagine 25,000 Roman legionaries walking towards you in complete silence. All you can hear is their feet on the ground. Quite scary. This would be after the artillery. Then at about 50 paces, they started

to shout and they threw their javelins. And we think that they probably threw the first maybe three or four ranks through their javelins in one go. And they were charging while those javelins were still in the air so they were landing when the Roman soldiers were arriving and you know I again would suggest that most enemies broke when the first time the Romans hit them cavalry was was never really a big thing for the Romans so their cavalry was actually quite weak and often inferior to the people they faced but the battering ram of the legionaries was so effective remember that figure i mentioned way back at the beginning of 70 success over two centuries in war it's startling so punch stab

punch stab you don't need to stick much of a steel blade into somebody for him to be finished you know all this sword fighting you see you know and slashing and everything in tv and films you don't need to do that and exposes your armpit well. You just stick six inches of your sword into somebody anywhere, and he's going to scream and be badly injured, and then you finish him. Hobnails, great to stamp on your enemy as you're going by. We know of some hobnails that were actually sharpened, and that was probably just for using in muddy terrain.

But imagine what that does to someone's face when you're stepping over them. And then you just continue we also know that the discipline of the soldiers was so good that even in battles that they were losing like the battle of the Angravarian wall which was in 16 AD in Germany Germanicus who was the the general at the time he had the trumpet sound and the legionaries withdrew in good order they didn't run away and pretty much nobody else did that in ancient times. They withdrew, they regrouped, he used his artillery, he charged in

a different way and they won the battle. What were the commands the trumpets could use? Sadly, we don't know, but they must have been very simple because the noise level was so extreme. So probably charge, left, right, stop, retreat. There may have only been six or eight, but we know that they were effective because there's an example. And then the centurions at close quarters would be, when they were using that saw formation

with the centurion at the point, you don't send a senior ranking infantry officer into battle in the 21st century because if he's killed, his men don't know what to do. So that shows you that battles were desperate when the Romans did that. We note Gergovia, Julius Caesar lost I think it was nearly 70 centurions and that tells you that it was a desperate battle because that wasn't common. In extremis sometimes the eagle which was this standard that each legion had which was a quasi-religious symbol it was regarded with you know incredible reverence had its own shrine in the legion base if it was lost to the enemy

the legion was disbanded in disgrace and the survivors were never allowed to go back to italy but we know of an example in the second century bc where a roman general had the eagle brought right up to the front rank of of his army which was losing and he took it from the aquilifer and he threw it like a spear into the enemy ranks so there's a spiked butt on the end of it you could stick it in the ground like a flagstaff he lobbed it like a spear into the enemy and his men took one look and they knew if they didn't get it back their legion was was disbanded so they charged and they won the battle. Oh, this is Pidner, isn't it? Is that Pidner? Might be. It might be. I got asked the other day and I can't remember.

In my earlier novels, I didn't used to write down all my sources. For the last five or six years, everything I write down, I literally write the page number and the text so that I'll always be able to answer that exact question. That's okay. That's right. You know enough, so it's all quite understandable. But basically, exact question. That's okay, that's right, that's right. You're known after, so it's all quite understandable. But basically, as you were saying, therefore, there's these various different methods that can be employed in the extreme to try and get those legionaries to win the day. There was an example.

When Caesar was invading England, his men wouldn't get out of the boats, and so the Aquilifer of the 10th Legion, his favourite legion, actually jumped into the sea and started walking towards the beach with the eagle. And his men were so ashamed, they followed him. Yeah, great examples. It's things like that, just to explain for your listeners, it's little details like that you get in Roman histories that really open up the history to show you something really human or really alive, as opposed to just a piece of a sandal or or you know a bit of a sword which is great but it doesn't tell you about the person who used it or wore it so it's details like that that i look for when i'm in museums or textbooks because that's the kind of information

that your listeners will find interesting but also makes a book a novel about history more real because if it's something that actually happened, you know, then it's, yeah, it just gives more richness to the tapestry, if you like. A lot of richness, as you say, and, you know, you can obviously, you know, and you add that all to a novel, or in your case, for example. Last question, but this has been brilliant, but we've got to start wrapping up. Yeah, sorry. no no i could ask questions all days but with the roman legionary let's say he survived that period of service he hasn't been discharged dishonorably his legion is still intact what could happen to a roman legionary at the end of his service so if a legionary survived and i always

get asked how many of them survived and and again, we just don't know. It must have been a decent number of them, though, because of the evidence that we have. So the word colony comes from the Latin colonia. And so it was common in the first and second centuries A.D. for a colonia or a colony of veterans from a particular legion base nearby to set up and live, and then this settlement would become a town. For example, Colchester in England was the first colony in Britain. And what they got at the end of their period of service was either a lump sum of money or a small farm.

And what's absolutely magical is that some of the what you'd call discharge papers nowadays survive. And the discharge paper of a Roman soldier was a little bronze plaque. And I've seen a few of them in museums. And they're sometimes only maybe four inches by four inches or four inches by six inches with tiny Latin cursive, i.e. abbreviated script. inches with tiny latin cursive i.e abbreviated script and it tells you the name of the man and where he came from and what tribe he was from in in italy and where he served and which legion and which base and then he got moved to another legion and so on and so on and who the emperor was and what he got given at the end of it it's like a little abbreviated history of somebody's life and things like that are magical and they're very rare to find.

But we know, you know, I've seen probably four or five of them in different Roman museums. And so let's say this was a man in Colchester in England. He would leave the Legion and, as I mentioned earlier, probably marry his common law wife. His children would then become Roman citizens. as I mentioned earlier, he'd probably marry his common law wife, his children would then become Roman citizens. If he was hale and hearty, he would still want to, he would have some money, but probably not enough to live on and do nothing. So if he'd been a carpenter or a stone mason or a leather worker, he would probably continue to do that. Or he might set up a shop, he might open a tavern because Roman soldiers, just like soldiers today, used to like drinking. And a business of some kind is highly likely.

You might even become a farmer of some kind because obviously there's good land all around the Roman Empire. Gloucestershire is an example in England where there are loads of Roman villas. Okay, those wouldn't have been ordinary soldiers, but he would have engaged in business. And as I mentioned, it would have been very common for his son to join the legion after him, or sons, because that was what your dad had done, and you'd be very, very proud of it.

It's worth mentioning here that I saw a ring in Vindolando, which is one of the forts on Hadrian's Wall, and I've had it copied, which I wear when I'm giving talks, and it says Matri Patrionit, which in Latin means for mother, for father. So because of the context, it was found in a Roman fort. It was almost definitely owned by a Roman soldier who was potentially quite a hardened killer, but he still loved his mum and his dad.

Lots of bones of dogs, pet dogs, from tiny little lap dogs all the way up to big hunting dogs. So they liked their pets. There are some examples of Roman gravestones to dogs. Not many, but there are. So they were very tough and they had slaves and they killed people, but they loved their pets and their families. Again, many of your listeners may know of the birthday invitation as well, the letters that survived from Hadrian's Wall. This one is from the wife of a fort commander to the wife of another fort commander, inviting her to her birthday party from the second century AD. So, you know, nowadays it would be WhatsApp or text message, but back

then it was an actual letter. And things like that are, those are what really bring history alive for me. Well, Ben, this has been absolutely fantastic. Last but certainly not least, talk to us a bit about those, that plethora of novels that you've written from the ancient Roman world, that cover the Roman legionary and so much more about that aspect of Roman life. Oh, thank you. So I've had 18 novels published, 14 set in the ancient world. My first trilogy was about Marcus Crassus and his terrible campaign into Parthia, which is modern day Turkey, Iran, where he came very badly unstuck. Seven legions wiped out in one day in 53 BC, and some of the survivors we know were marched nearly to Afghanistan

and lost to history. I then tackled the Second Punic War and wrote it from both points of view, Carthaginian and Roman, and haven't finished that series yet. That's three more books. I've also done two books about Spartacus, the most famous slave that ever existed, really. And he led the biggest slave rebellion in history. A fantastic

story that just screamed out to be written. I've written three novels. You mentioned the Varian disaster in 89. I've written a trilogy about that that was immense fun. A veteran centurion who's just seen it all and done it all and he's got to try and get some of his men out alive. And I've written several novellas about that guy. So I do Kickstarter campaigns and I let my readers vote and they always vote for that centurion. So I've done novels about him as a mercenary in later life in Poland buying amber, which is a big thing. And I've also written two novels about the Roman invasion of Macedon. So literally 18 months after defeating Hannibal, having been at

war for nearly 20 years, the Romans invaded Macedon and Greece, just like at the end of World War II, you know, saying, do you want another war tomorrow? No, thanks. But the Romans did. And then I've had a book of short stories come out as well one of which is a very long novella really about gladiators and nero which was good fun because i that's the most modern of all my roman books i tried to stay in the republic because as we were talking off air most novel writers tend to focus on the first century d why i don't know man i'm just waiting for when you get to pyrrhus and you get to the sam light wars or something that will be good fun in the future to talk about but But thank you. It just goes to me to

say right now, thank you so much for taking the time to come to the podcast today. Oh, thanks, Tristan. It's been a pleasure. And that's apologies to your readers or listeners, I should say for going off on a tangent regularly. This is what makes the podcast. That is what makes the podcast. that is what makes the podcast my man well there you go there was ben cain giving a masterclass in the story of the roman legionary soldier i hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as i did recording it ben is an absolute legend now last things from me first off as mentioned at the start very special time at History Hit because we've just received the first physical copies of our new book, The History Hit Miscellany, with facts and stories stretching from ancient times to the 21st century. Now, that book is

coming out on the 28th of September and you can pre-order it from Amazon by searching for the History Hit miscellany or you can visit historyhit.com book to order today from your favourite bookshop. Do go and check it out, it's a perfect gift for the history loving buffs in your family this Christmas. But that's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.