Archaeology, with its many branches, provides multiple views on any subject. Let us consider the Roman army, a vast human machine that influenced in some fashion every aspect of Roman life. Art history, analysis of seeds and bones, landscape archaeology, and excavation all illuminate aspects of the Roman army.
Countless military tombstones across the empire record military careers and sometimes show the soldiers themselves. These inscriptions reveal aspects of the soldiers’ self-image, especially when viewed within their particular context. In Mainz, for instance, tombstones of legionaries rarely have figural decoration; the vast majority of tombstones with portraits belonged to auxiliary cavalrymen. Whereas legionaries were Roman citizens, the auxiliary forces were recruited from non-citizen provincial populations and could attain citizenship on the completion of service. The choice of a heroic rider on the tombstones of these auxiliaries may reflect a desire to assert a higher social status and show themselves as the defenders of the Roman people (Hope
2000). Other Roman forts show a similar divide between plain legionary tombstones and decorated auxiliary ones. Interestingly, tombstones naming individual soldiers usually commemorate peacetime deaths, whereas the more anonymous but also more glamorous format of a trophy or other group memorial commemorated the wartime dead (Hope 2003).
Environmental archaeology provides a window into how the Roman army, through its mobilization of goods and people, did or did not influence local peoples. Animal bones and burned seeds from waste heaps, latrines, and other contexts at a wide variety of sites reflect the diet of soldiers, urbanites, and rural dwellers. In central Europe, study of seed remains indicates that numerous Mediterranean foods first arrived in the region in the Roman period (Bakels and Jacomet 2003). Many of these foods, especially fruits, were successfully introduced to cultivation in the area. Such foods appear first at large villas, but became standard at rural sites of all sizes after the mid-third century, and they remained part of the local diet ever afterwards. Other Mediterranean foods such as olives and dates could not be cultivated in northern climates; instead, these were imported, but on a limited basis. These appear earliest in the high-ranking parts of military compounds, and are later found in urban areas, especially those associated with the military, but never spread to rural sites or became common in the diet. Occasionally an imported food seems to pertain not so much to luxury diets as to religious needs. Pine nuts, the fruit of the stone-pine, appear in a number of religious sanctuaries and votive contexts such as a temple of Isis and the Magna Mater in Mainz, where they probably reflect offerings of pinecones (Zach 2002). Clearly some Mediterranean gods, like high-ranking army officers, expected a Mediterranean diet. In terms of meat supply, the Roman army seems largely to have adapted to prevailing local regimes. Thus, although pig was an important and high-status item in the diet of Rome and Italy, forts and other sites in Northern Europe and Britain show a heavy reliance on beef, in keeping with prevailing pre-Roman habits (Dobney 2001; A. King 1999).
Horse bones found at different types of sites in the Netherlands illustrate Roman regulation of stock for breeding larger horses (Lauwerier and Robeerst 2001). The average size of horses varies consistently by the type of site: the largest horse remains appear at military sites and villas within the Roman provinces of Germany, the shortest horse remains appear at sites outside the frontier of the Roman Empire (and at pre-Roman sites within it), and horse remains at native sites within the province are in-between. Evidently, Roman authorities carefully controlled the circulation of stock for breeding larger horses that could act as warhorses and were successful at keeping this stock inside the boundaries of the empire. The distinction in size between native and military or wealthy sites continued throughout the time of Roman power in the region. Cattle, on the other hand, gradually increased in size over time in the Netherlands and other regions of the Roman Empire. Thus, faunal evidence shows a distinctive handling of an animal that was a military resource.
Unusual settlement patterns in northwest Iberia may be related to practices of army recruitment. Field survey in the region has shown that in the Roman period, small hilltop fortresses remained an important focal point for settlement patterns. While overall numbers of rural sites increased in the Roman period, typically Roman features such as villas did not appear. Based on these patterns and epigraphic and comparative evidence, Martin Millett (2001) proposes that heavy recruitment for the auxiliary forces from this area, essentially as a form of taxation, may have inhibited economic and social development (whereas ancient taxes collected in cash are usually seen as stimulating the local economy by forcing the production of surplus).
All along the frontiers of the Roman Empire are physical remnants of the army’s long-term presence: innumerable forts, of course, and also more unique structures such as Hadrian’s Wall. Even traces of some of the army’s less stationary activities occasionally survive in the archaeological record. The ditches around marching camps are visible in crop lines in Britain (Riley 1987; B. Jones 2000). The disturbance caused by the construction of these temporary structures changed the character of the surface soil, affecting the growth of plants above them. At dawn and dusk, especially in dry periods, differential plant growth is visible from the air as crop marks. Roman siege camps and an encircling wall survive in the desert around Masada, a hilltop fortress near the Dead Sea. More astonishing still is the colossal earth siege ramp built right to the top of the fortified hill (a height of 450 meters). These siege structures were built during the six-month siege of the site by Flavius Silva in 73-74 ce at the end of the Jewish revolt (a siege of that duration was admittedly a less temporary affair than the overnight camps in Britain).
Occasionally battles and their aftermath leave archaeological traces. A ten-kilometer long swathe of coins, weaponry, armor, and other Roman objects has helped identify the location of the battle of the Teutoberg forest (9 ce) as a narrow pass at Kalkriese near OsnabrUck (SchlUter and Wiegels 1999). Ancient historians recount how German forces massacred three legions on the march under the incompetent legate Varus in a three-day debacle. Scholars have debated the location of the Varian disaster for a century, but the large concentration of military finds with a rather narrow date makes a very convincing case for Kalkriese. The dating of the Roman finds at Kalkriese is late Augustan. Many of the coins, moreover, are counter-marked with Varus’ name, narrowing their date to his time as governor (7-9 ce), and not one is later than 9 ce. Earthen ramparts lining the pass were evidently part of the ambush. Scattered human bones in the region all belong to adult males; some had been deposited in pits after weathering on the surface for some time.
World History
