Life In Roman Army: Living Conditions And Free Time

What was life like in the Roman Army?

Intro:

Life in the Roman army was often hard and gruelling. Roman boy’s looked up to them and the society at the time did so as well. The main include the living conditions, free time and the general life in the army for a general soldier.

Living Conditions:

If you sign up you will most likely be a soldier. Regular soldiers are living in barracks. Barracks can fit up to 6,000 men but usually would hold around 4,500. These barracks were split into eight-man rooms called contuberniums. They are crowded living spaces, but not much time was spent in them. If you end up becoming a higher officer, you will be housed in a single praetorium. These uphold a high standard of living. They had private baths, gardens, and heating. The barracks, praetorium, the hospital, and the headquarters are all in the boundaries of the camp. The camp is well protected with a ditch and other things to guard outside of the strong wall. A camp is typically 50 – 60 acres. Overall the living conditions for soldiers in this time were above average and for a soldier, it was a good lifestyle

Free Time:

Roman soldiers had minimal free time. Between marching and training in-between battles the spare time they had they played games with dice and other board games. Some of these board games included, chess, knucklebones, marbles and a form of checkers. As well as these roman soldiers often hunted during their spare time. This is as it uses skills that are similar in battle and hones in skills that help improve them when in battle. This includes reaction time and fighting techniques. Most of the free time was spent resting and eating. The food that was eaten was mostly carbohydrates, this was 70% of their diets as it was easy to create and was filling. Depending on the area of where they were at the time the food would be different as they survive off of their surroundings. Proteins that were consumed include mutton, pork and beef. As well as this they would spend a large portion of their time resting to regain strength and gain energy ready for the next battle. They would also spend much of their time in the bathhouse with many of their fellow soldiers and often homosexual sexual intercourse was done.

Life in the army:

A new soldier was made to take a military oath, He had to remake the oath once per year, usually on New Year. The veteran legionary’s had lot’s of training and experience to bring him up to the level of a veteran legionary. Everyone was made to march about 30km and did this up to three times a month, they learned how to build a camp and many other things. The new soldier was trained in slinging stones, using the sword, swimming and other general things. Training with weapons they practised on a wooden stake the height of a man about 6 feet, with a wooden sword and a shield. They were taught to thrust with his sword, not slash. The life of a Roman soldier was hard. Roman soldiers were taught how to march with the burden of approximately 25 – 30 kg, this being the armour. Roman Soldiers had the skills to climb mountains, navigate through forests, and to encounter many types of danger. Roman soldiers also provided hard labour, this was used to build walls, forts and roads. All up the Roman’s built almost 250,000 miles of roads.