How Did Roman Soldiers Survive the Desert?

25 BC: ten thousand Roman soldiers march into Arabia. Only seven are killed by the enemy, and the army still comes home broken. How did Roman soldiers survive the desert? We follow them from the forts built around wells on the road to the Red Sea, to camel riders, a centurion's poem about a bath house in the Sahara, hidden wells, water bags made from cowhide, insect bombs at Hatra, and two armies sent by Augustus into two deserts in the same years, one destroyed, one victorious. Chapters 00:00 Ten thousand men, seven dead 01:33 The road to the Red Sea 03:15 Forts built around wells 05:31 Granite for the Pantheon 07:05 Camels join the army 09:30 A poem for a bath house 11:03 Hidden wells and the Garamantes 12:24 Marius and the cowhide water bags 14:47 Digging for water in Alexandria 15:49 Hatra: flies and insect bombs 19:24 Julian and Dura-Europos 21:54 Two armies, two deserts 22:44 Aelius Gallus in Arabia 27:34 Petronius and the one-eyed queen 34:20 The answer 35:55 The head under the temple step Sources: Strabo (Geography 2.5.12; 16.4.22–24; 17.1.53–54), Pliny the Elder (Natural History 5.14, 5.36–38, 6.102–103, 6.181), Augustus (Res Gestae 26), Cassius Dio (68.31; 75–76), Herodian (3.9), Ammianus Marcellinus (24–25), Livy (37.40), Sallust (Jugurthine War 89–91), the Alexandrian War (5–9), Seneca (Natural Questions 6.8), Ptolemy (Geography 1.8), Procopius (Wars 1.19), the ostraca of the Eastern Desert and Mons Claudianus, the Bu Njem bath inscription (IRT 918), the Dura-Europos papyri, the Qasr Ibrim Gallus papyrus, the Philae stele, the Regina tombstone (South Shields), and the Meroë Head of Augustus (British Museum). Subscribe to True Romans, and help us bring more of the real Romans back to life. #RomanSoldiers #AncientRome #RomanArmy #RomanHistory #History #HistoryDocumentary