A life with the Roman army

A hotel in Croatia I recently stayed in had a face-in-the-hole photoboard in the reception area. The theme was in keeping with the nearby Roman remains — a Roman legionary of sorts. Of course, I had to have my photo taken.

This wasn’t the first time I had appeared as a Roman soldier. Almost exactly forty years ago, I was persuaded to don an ill-fitting set of “lorica segmentata” armour and an uncomfortable pair of hobnailed sandals (uncomfortable, as they’d been made for someone else’s feet) in fulfilment of my part of a bargain.

Bargains are very Roman. Dozens of ancient altars were set up in fulfilment of a bargain with a particular god or goddess; the dedicant expressly votum solvit libens laetus merito (“fulfilled his vow willingly, gladly, deservedly”), usually abbreviated to V S L L M, but very occasionally written out in full (e.g. AE 1934, 280).

In summer 1984, as a recent graduate student embarking upon the study of the Roman army, I had made a bargain with Chris Haines, or rather Lucius Flavius Aper, centurion of the Ermine Street Guard. I had become rather interested in ancient artillery (and was even then eagerly awaiting the appearance of my first “proper” academic article, which discussed catapults en passant) and I knew that the Ermine Street Guard had built their own catapult. In fact, the only reconstructed catapult then in existence, apart from Erwin Schramm’s classic reconstructions built for Kaiser Wilhelm, on display at the Saalburgmuseum.

I suggested to Chris that I should visit him in Gloucestershire to see his catapult in action. He suggested that I should accompany them on a tour of France, Germany, and Belgium, the only proviso being that I should make up the numbers in a couple of displays. My votum was duly solvit.

As I recall, I never got a chance to see the catapult up close, it being jealously guarded by ESG “regulars”. But I did get to see (for the first time) the Saalburgmuseum (where we slept on the floor of the principia forehall), the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz (now in a different location under a new name), and (if memory serves) the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn (now extensively remodelled).

This photo, snapped forty years ago, shows that the Ermine Street Guard had a better grasp of Roman armour than today’s Croatian hospitality industry. Naturally.