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Everyday life of auxiliaries

The professional soldiers of the Principate, both legionary and auxiliary, were in combat operations for only a small portion of their working careers. Most of their days were spent on routine duties, both military and non-military. These, together with soldiers' social and private lives, are virtually ignored by the contemporary historians such as Tacitus and Dio Cassius. But modern archaeology, especially excavation of Roman forts, is casting an enormous amount of light on this topic.

In particular, the breakthrough discovery in the 1970's, and continuing unveiling, of the Vindolanda tablets in a fort site in northern England offer a unique glimpse into both the lives and culture of auxiliary troops stationed in Britain in the period 85-122, preceding the construction of Hadrian's Wall (122-132). The tablets are a series of letters and memoranda, scratched onto wooden tablets, between members (mainly officers) of three cohortes from Germania Inferior (S. Netherlands, NW Rhineland) stationed in the fort of Vindolanda on the line of the later Wall. The only other comparable documentation of routine Roman military life is on papyri discovered in Egypt. An important benefit of the tablets is that it sheds light on the lives of auxiliaries, whereas most of the Egyptian and other evidence concerns legionaries: the tablets prove that auxiliaries were involved in much the same activities, both military and non-military, as their legionary counterparts.

Military duties: The routine military duties of auxiliaries included patrolling, guard duty, and weapons training. These were not limited to the unit's base fort and its vicinity only: the Vindolanda tablets show that detachments of the unit could be deployed in several different locations at once: one renuntia (personnel deployment report) shows a detachment of nearly half the effectives of cohors I Tungrorum deployed at another fort. Combat training and exercises were a central part of an auxiliary's weekly routine. One tablet probably contains a scathing comment of an officer, possibly after an inspection, about the horsemanship of young provincial trainees in the cohors equitata: "on horseback, too many of the pathetic little Brits (Brittunculi) cannot use their swords properly or throw their javelins without losing their seat".

Other fort duties: Non-military duties on-site included the routine chores of fort life (cleaning, washing clothes and equipment, feeding horses) and working in the fort's fabrica (workshop where armour and weapons were made and repaired). An essential activity was the procurement of the supplies the regiment needed. For raw materials, the army purchased what it could locally, and imported the rest from elsewhere. For manufactured goods, the regiments would produce some of their needs themselves e.g. evidence of leather tanning and beer brewing at Vindolanda and nearby Catterick fort. The tablets attest the procurement of cereals, beer, animal fodder; manufactured goods such as clothing, nails and vehicle parts; raw materials such as stone, iron, lead, timber, animal hides.

Construction: A major non-military activity of the Roman army was construction: the army was a large workforce of fit, disciplined men skilled in building techniques: they were on regular salaries anyway, so it was cheaper for the government to use them for big projects, if the security situation in the province allowed, than to hire private contractors. Soldiers naturally built forts and fortifications: Hadrian's Wall itself was built by the army. But they also built much of a province's infrastructure: trunk Roman roads, bridges, docks, canals, aqueducts, entire new cities such as coloniae for veteran legionaries, public buildings (e.g. basilicas and amphitheatres). The army also carried out large-scale projects to increase the land available for agriculture, such as forest clearance, draining marshes (e.g. the large-scale drainage of the Fens in eastern England, which were probably developed as a huge imperial estate) or excavating irrigation channels. Most of the available evidence relates to legionary construction. But the Vindolanda tablets attest auxiliaries' construction activity: one tablet refers to 12 soldiers detailed to work on the construction of a bath-house (balneum) at Vindolanda. Another possibly refers to the construction of a bridge elsewhere.

Police duties: Off-site duties included many routine police and even administrative tasks. Provincial governors had only a minimal administrative staff at their disposal, and no regular police force. They therefore relied on their troops for many such duties: escorting the governor or other senior officials, patrolling trunk roads, assisting and escorting tax collectors, carrying official despatches, arresting wanted men. Thus a renuntia shows a detachment of 46 men of I Tungrorum on escort duty (singulares) with the provincial governor's staff. Trunk roads were routinely garrisoned and patrolled along their entire length. Small detachments of troops would be based at the way-stations: mansiones and mutationes. These stations may well be the 6 unidentified locations where small detachments of c10 men, each under a centurion, were deployed according to a renuntia of cohors I Tungrorum. They would check the identities and cargoes of road users and keep the roads clear of robbers. They would also assist agents of the procurator (the senior financial official in the province) to collect the portorium, an imperial toll on the carriage of goods on public roads, payable whenever the goods crossed a toll line.   

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^ w: The Vindolanda tablets are believed to relate to the cohortes I Tungrorum (mainly), III Batavorum and IX Batavorum. 573 have been published to date. The tablets survived organic decomposition because they were deposited in anaerobic environments (such as waterlogged soil).

^ x: In general, legions took the lead in big construction projects because, being much larger units than auxiliary regiments, they contained most, if not all, of the army's leading constrcution experts such as engineers, architects and master craftsmen. Auxiliary regiments had their own craftsmen, but on a lower level and smaller scale: independently, therefore, they could only carry out smaller projects such as individual buildings. For the construction of Hadrian's Wall, there is only inscription evidence for the participation of the 3 legions then in Britain: II Augusta, VI Victrix, and XX Valeria Victrix. But given the enormous manpower requirements of the project, and the fact that auxilia by then outnumbered legionaries by 2.5 to 1 in Britain, it can be safely assumed that auxiliaries were heavily involved. A possible explanation for lack of auxilia evidence on the Wall is that they were given tasks, such as excavating the huge fossa (= "ditch") behind the Wall

^ y: Judging by the numeration of such units as survived into the 2nd century, the following types of citizen units were raised to face the Illyrian crisis: at least 33 cohortes voluntariorum (= "volunteers". These were the slaves purchsed and freed by the government. The deal offered them no doubt promised their freedom in return for satisfactory service); at least 6 ingenuorum ("free-born"); 3 Campestris ("rural"); 2 classica ("naval"); 2 simply civium Romanorum; 2 Italica; 1 Cisipadensium; 1 Campanorum. After Augustus' time, many other auxiliary regiments were granted the c.R. title when the entire unit was granted Roman citizenship by emperors "on the spot" as reward for exceptional service during major campaigns. Such a grant would only apply to soldiers serving at the time, and not to later recruits to the regiment, but the regiment would retain the c.R. title in perpetuity

^ w1: Vindolanda tablets