What Did Ancient Roman Soldiers Do for Fun Inside a Fort Full of Rules?

What did ancient Roman soldiers do for fun, inside a fort that ran on rules, punishments and a trumpet for everything? The answer is stranger, smaller and far more human than any film has shown you. You'll recognise more of it than you expect from ancient Roman soldiers: a greasy dice cup, a hot bath after a hard day, a cheap tavern just outside the gate, and a day off that someone carved into stone. Follow ancient Roman soldiers from the bunk room to the baths, from the pay table to the amphitheatre, and out into a frosty forest where one officer finally caught the boar that had beaten every man before him. We read Tacitus on the mutiny that taught Rome why bored soldiers are dangerous, the Vindolanda tablets, the altars of Britain and a papyrus calendar from the Syrian desert. Chapters: 00:00 What Ancient Roman Soldiers Did for Fun 04:05 The Dice Cup, the Law and the Centurion's "Cold" 08:03 The Bathhouse Outside the Walls 16:24 The Loudest Building in the Fortress 19:49 The Stone Somebody Paid to Carve Sources and evidence used in this video: Tacitus, Annals 1.16-17 (the mutiny of the Pannonian legions, AD 14) · Germania 24 (gambling) · Agricola 21 (baths and "civilisation") Suetonius, Domitian 7 (the fourth pay instalment) Vegetius, Epitome of Military Science 1.10 and 2.20 (swimming; savings held at the standards) Josephus, Jewish War 3 (drill as "bloodless battle") Arrian, Tactica (cavalry displays) and Cynegeticus (hunting with hounds) Hadrian's address to the army at Lambaesis, AD 128 Vindolanda tablets 593 and 233 (fowling and hunting nets) and the gaming boards found at Vindolanda RIB 1905 (altar of the hunters of Banna, Birdoswald) and RIB 1041 (altar of the prefect Micianus, Stanhope) Feriale Duranum (festival calendar of the Twentieth Palmyrene Cohort at Dura-Europos) Digest 11.5 (the law of ancient Rome on gambling) Archaeology: the bathhouse at Chesters, the amphitheatres of Caerleon, Chester and Tomen-y-Mur Where ancient sources disagree or the evidence is thin (the Feriale Duranum, the law on soldiers' gambling, Tacitus' own colouring), the video says so. If you like history told from inside the cloak, not from the top of a statue, subscribe for more stories of ancient Roman soldiers and the ordinary people of ancient Rome. #romansoldiers #ancientromansoldiers #ancientroman