How Many Roman Soldiers Survived to Retirement?
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2024
- Soldiers served an average of 25 years in the imperial Roman army. How likely were they to reach retirement?
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:08 Terms of service
1:33 Death in battle
2:42 Wondrium
3:55 Fatal discipline
4:41 Disease in the ranks
5:33 Sweet release
5:59 The odds of survival
7:53 Hadrian's Wall
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I live in Albania. I am in my 50's. I have never been to war, yet I am full of scars and limp from just daily modern life. I cannot imagine Roman times.
Pershendetje miku shqiptar.
How about this. Alexanders Silver Shields elite phalanx unit were in their SIXTIES!!!
Name checks out for being 50
You have a fantastic username
Because you are Albanian!! You are strong, I'm am half Albanian!!
As a child, I loved the Asterix book. 'The gift of Caesar' (Le Cadeau de Cesar) in which Roman veterans get their discharge reward after 20 years of service. One of them has been a drunk during his active duty, so Caesar 'rewards' him with the deed to the Gaul village of Asterix......
Unforgettable episode! René Goscinny knew a lot of Roman history. I still have the whole collection...
That's the best part of the series. Ancient life depicted just normal as our modern lives. It's not only funny, but also make readers understands how different things were
@@TriviRocks they are all good, except those after the death of Goscinny. the very first album is a bit weak, but even that already has plenty of history and roman and gaul culture
@@Blackadder75 Totally agree!
@@Blackadder75 I agree, there has been a very significant drop in quality after Goscinny died. There is one significant exception, though: "Le grand fossé" (Asterix and the Great Divide) was fairly good.
I did 16 months in Nam. By the grace of God I'm still alive at 74 yrs old. Back then anyone who made it to 60+ was a very lucky man.
🙏
Inflammation of the eyes - I have a theory. During WW2 my grandad served in France initially working as a cook. The French base kitchens used very old fashioned wooden 'cookers' of some sort. Anyway, as a result of all the smoke from the 'cookers', my grandad developed a terrible case of conjunctivitis. It took him a long time to recover and he said that he wasn't the only one. Perhaps it was the same for the Romans?
Quite possibly...unfortunately, we only have a few Roman strength reports, so it's difficult to say how widespread the problem was.
Maybe there was just a good deal of pranking so, to pass the time, their fellow legionaries would fart into their pillows so the rank miasmas (and thus bacteria-crawling shit particles) would puff up into their eyes when they laid their heads down for sleep? Pink eye is basically septic inflammation. Who knows.
A food friend of mine is a retired Classics professor of Greek and Latin and he says that inflammation of the eye was one of the most common diseases throughout the Roman Empire. It is mentioned in the New Testament and also other ancient documents during this period. God bless.
@@Goodkidjr43 well, they did have young boys with them in battle for “release” needs, so god only knows what diseases or ailments they had?
Vitamin deficiency can be a major cause of eye issues. I imagine they were not getting a complete diet, especially while on the march or during the winter.
As Primus Pilus Marcus Caelius of Legio XVIII bled out in the Teutoburg Forest he muttered to himself “Damn you Varus, I was only XII weeks away from retirement!”
I love how we have thousands of artifacts about the remains of ordinary roman people, from fishmongers to concubines to legionnaires... while we have absolutely nothing on biblical people, which means all of those are shoved into the realm of myths.... Religion is myth.... collective wishful thinking....
@@Blackadder75 If you think there’s “absolutely nothing” in regards to evidence of religious figures you haven’t done enough research on the subject.
@@JaelaOrdo I challenge you to name 5 characters in the bible with historic evidence
@@Blackadder75 Ok
Zedekiah
Nebuchadnezzar II
Cyrus II
Herod I
John the Baptist
There are plenty more than just those 5, they just have particular historical significance so I picked them.
@@JaelaOrdo nice, swap John the baptist for Emperor Augustus (Gaius Octavius) and you have a nice list of kings and other heads of states..... I agree that those names that are mentioned in the Bible are historic but they aren't really important or central for the religious message , they are just decor.
It's like using some Muggle names like that in Harry Potter novels, to give the fantasy some 'historic' setting.
It's worth bearing in mind that, at 20 years old, the probability of an average Roman man making it to 55 was only about 50%. People often focus on the huge infant mortality of pre-modern history, but we shouldn't forget that regular adult mortality was also very high. That's really the baseline we should be using to assess military survivor rates.
our frend julius form the intro becoming 100. is not that crazy. lets say he retirement at 50 took the momey to set up a buisnes and made more money, his kids took over and he had the money for good food. afther age 60/65 he doenst need to do more manuel work. and he joins the ctiy council or something. with good genes and acces to good food and no manuel work afther 60 becoming 100 is plausible.
@@mitch8072 plausible but extremely rare, Toldinstone has a chapter on life expectancy in his book which was quite illuminating
If you were hearty and didn't get sick or injured often then you could expect to live as long as anybody today.
@@doublem1975x Well yes, not dying of the most common causes of death would make you live longer. I'm glad we cleared that up.
If you survived childhood you had a pretty good chance of surviving till 50. It’s childhood that was most risky
"The life span of humans - opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct - hasn’t really changed much at all." - Walter Scheidel
A statistical construct? An observable reality.
Fun video! I just retired from the Army this year. I'm happy I made it to thirty-eight. It is also great to be retired before the age of forty in a country that got rid of retirement for its civilians.
Allow me to congratulate you on Veteran's Day.
Congrats man, glad you did your time and made it out in one piece!
vatican?
Catastrophically unsustainable system though. It is why governments have to use inflation to pay for it all. After stealing a portion of course.
Cool story
45 with some money in your pocket isn't that bad. I wonder how many drunk themselves into an early grave shortly after retirement though? I've seen a lot of soldiers have real trouble readjusting to civilian life, especially if they've had traumatic experiences.
You brought up an interesting point that applies in today's world: Lots of retired military and first responders can't relate to civilian societies that lack any sort of professional ethos and begin significant downward spiritual/health spirals.
There are numerous sources that describe Greek or Roman soldiers showing behaviour that closely matches our modern understanding of PTSD. So your point seems very reasonable.
@@jaysmith8347 Ex soldier myself as was my father, when he retired he said the biggest killer of soldiers is retirement, not only just excess and adjusting to civilian life but the stupid shit that just happens. A friend of his after 21 years of being deployed in the middle east and africa, blown up and shot at was struck by lightening 2 months after retiring, another was fording a river in a tractor when a rock slipped from under flipping the tractor pining him, and a friend of mine after 17 years in the french foreign legion was swiped by a drunk driver. Idleness and loss of purpose does get to a lot but the amount of silly stupid shit that happens is unreal, especially after a rough life full of danger.
@@jhnshep Holy cow those poor fellows! What bad luck they had after the good luck of surviving in a military for many years.
Lucius Vorenus character in HBO Rome is an excellent example of this, very sad
Then there is the city of Mérida in Spain. Its name is a worn-down version of Emerita Augusta. It "was founded as a Roman colony in 25 BC under the order of the emperor Augustus to serve as a retreat for the veteran soldiers (emeritus) of the legions V Alaudae and X Gemina." (Wikipedia)
There must have been a reasonable number of veterans to justify founding a whole settlement, although it was created to guard a bridge, so there may have been a dual purpose🙂.
I spent a day there in 1996, and it had better preserved Roman buildings than much of what I later saw in Italy, and had all the "modern conveniences" such as a circus, amphitheatre, theatre, bridge over the river, aqueduct, forum & triumphal arch.
I often wonder what the locals thought of these retirees? Where they like demi-gods with their fantastic tales of battle? Or were they carpet baggers that the locals hated?
Maybe more tourists came to Italy and damaged the buildings over time somehow?
@@tedolphbundler724 IDK, but that would make a good novel either way!
It was not by any means unique. Colonies for ex-soldiers were founded all over the empire. Often in strategic locations, as with Merida's bridge, or Colchester's coastal location next to a major native capital.
@@tedolphbundler724 One gets the feeling more towards the latter. The colonia at Colchester was the first target for Boudicca's rebelling Iceni.
I just finished reading "The Memoirs of Cleopatra" by Margaret George, a fascinating and serious historical novel about the Ptolemnaic queen and her Roman allies. It describes how countless Roman soldiers perished from diseases and other hardships before and after battles, some even starved when their supplies ran out, etc. It must have been a hard life and I imagine a short one for many of them.
yes... ww1 was first war where more soldiers died in battles than from disease. but either way mortality was not so high because there would be no army left
On the bright side life was probably equally hard or even harder for many poorer folks not in the legions. I'd guess it might have seemed like paradise to them as they had shelter, food etc guranteed.
A "serious historical novel" should never be taken seriously; the line between fact and fiction can be impossible to find.
Life was hard in Ancient Rome. It tends to be glamorized, but this was only true for the elites. The rest of us don't know what we are talking about, so thanks Garrett.
why are you goat?
You always manage to find such interesting topics that no-one had yet looked into! Excellent video as ever :)
Mediterrane food, not smoking yet and 20 years of daily cardio created very healthy old dudes !
most were too poor to eat anything other than bread as a large portion of their diet
My understanding is that if you lived that long, the normal period of service was 20 years rewarded with a grant of land (usually in the province where they were serving) plus their pension. This was a very good way of maintaining the Pax Romana.
genuinely something i've always wanted to know. Thanks again!
Initially, I thought it would be a much lower rate. But if you consider all the dangers due to labor, marching, diseases etc. it's quite an achievement to get 50% into retirement. The others didn't have died most of the times too but probably were forced out of service due to amputations or other sever injuries.
If the retirement benefits were generous, that would indicate that not too many got to enjoy them!
eh... no. they needed to colonize lands that they got so yeah they were happy to give it to soldiers
@@jebise1126 I guess disciplined soldiers tends to survive their service, and such disciplined characters would probably also be of good use in a "new" colony to extend Roman authority and law.
Wow this channel is a true gem! Sooo glad I found it!
Very interesting Dr Ryan! Keep up the great work!
In other words, there weren't any Roman Legion halls having Fish Fry Fridays.
Very interesting as always Garrett.
The life span of. Roman legionnaire in 200AD was twice as long as a civilian. They were recruited at about 20 years old and served about 21 years, unless retired for I’ll health. Their diet was superb by modern standards. Their health care was far superior to anything else available, because with Roman thoroughness, they only used what worked and innovations from all over the empire were speedily propagated.
Inflammation of the eyes? .... Conjunctivitis (pink eye)? I imagine that soldiers in the field (and especially on campaign) found it difficult to keep their hands clean. Despite the Organization of Marching Camps, Latrines must have been problematic to safely locate....and imagine the blood and gore remaining long after the end of a battle.
The Romans were actually pretty strict on where to put the latrines. They knew you shouldnt eat where you shit.
I was thinking this as well. I spent four years in an infantry Marine battalion, and yes, “pink eye” was very common amongst the infantry overseas , likely due to living outdoors, sleeping on the ground, often eating close to the dirt, local visits to the brothels and living in such close quarters with other Marines.
I wonder if the dust raised from sandaled feet on dirt might have contributed to the conjunctivitis in soldiers?
@@cw4608 likely, the dust itself can be an irritant but also contains germs
Maybe smoke exposure is a cause. Native tribes who use firewood have similar problems.
I wonder if they did the discharges every two years rather than every 1 specifically to get a cheeky free year out of half their soldiers.
Thank you and Much Love from the Philippines.
Thank you for the video 👍
The numbers are interesting. It seems to my eye that first cohort was used sparingly in combat. Caesar didn't throw them in till right at then end during Alesia. If that particular cohort consisted of the veterans then simply being part of it increased your life expectancy. So that is going to distort the figures somewhat. The records that survive for the fort based legions can also be a bit deceptive. In peace time they would have been widely spread so those left behind would hardly have been the elite. At Vindolanda the sickness rate could have been as high as 30%. I wonder how many of those were terminal. It's often quoted that the training was harder than anything they might face in battle so that also makes me wonder if some of the recruits never even made it to the battlefield.
No matter what the average life expectancy is, there will always be a handful who exceed that wildly. In the modern world there was Queen Elizabeth, Eubie Black and best of all Madam Calmat at 122. In the ancient world there was also Cassiodorus writing until he died at 93. It's not just that it's average lifespan and some must be in far end of the curve. I think it has something to do with the immune system.
Look up the hallmarks of aging if you're interested in the some of the current biomedical discourse on this. There's also different pathways like the sirtuins and certain organelles like the mitochondria that are probably involved in the aging process as well.
The current thinking on a broad level is that we have pathways that confer resilience to wear and tear on multiple levels, and we experience stressors as time goes on. The people who age most gracefully have some combination of extra strong resilience (which can be a matter of lifestyle as well as innate) and possibly less exposure to extreme stressors like war or chronic abuse. If one's resilience is so low that it becomes overwhelmed prematurely, or the stressors are too great for the resilience that would otherwise offset it, that's when people may display "premature" frailty. But not everyone of the same chronological age is actually of the same physiological age.
Incredible about Madam Calmat, if indeed she did reach actual age 122. I have some doubts that that age is off by a few years but I believe she did survive well over age 100 and maybe she did reach 120 after all. It was the Lord God in Heaven who dictated the maximum lifespan of Man would be 120 years only. Why did God mandate 120 years when you and I as far as we know, don't know of anyone on this planet making it to 120, although a few individuals reputedly lived to over 110? I think the answer is, God was foretelling the future when far advances in medical science, nutrition, medicine, et al, extends the lifespan of humankind to 120 and a realistic 120 at that. That is why people seeking the 'elixir of life' or cryogenics, and stuff like that are wasting their time. They're fated by the Lord to fail.
Timekeeping wasn't as good back in the ancient world. For the romans, as an example, they didn't keep track of years numerically they kept track of years by who was consul. Ask any random person on the street who the last 20 heads of state were for their country, they won't get it right. I wish I could remember where I saw it, but I read that most ages in the ancient era were just guesses, which is why you run in to weird abnormalities like 90 year old frontliners and things of that nature.
@@jeffyoung60 🤣
@@jeffyoung60 bunch of superstitious nonsense as usual.
Interesting topic!
Great post
Good stuff!
Was the life expectancy used calculated from birth, or adjusted to people who survived into adulthood? In the latter case the life expectancy of people who made it to army ought to be significantly higher. It's counter-intuitive, but the longer you live the longer your life expectancy. For example, if the average life expectancy is 30, a 60 year old person has better odds at living 10 more years than someone who's 10.
The odds given were for those survived to adulthood
yoooo love your videos
I’m a new subscriber. Great video. I’m looking forward to watching more.
Excellent!
Thank you so much for this content. It always seems to come out right at the best time. I just made a sandwich and I'm about to lay in bed and you put out a video on roman history. Thank you so much!
It makes sense that many to most would make it otherwise the draw would be lessened to join the ranks. Granted, there was a thing of "live well" which the army at least ensured its people did to the best of its ability, that doesnt change that soldiers would look forward to being dominus' of land and having official families at some point, not to mention the massive prestige that came with being a veteran.
Can I suggest maybe trying some long form content? I would love a 1-2 hour video from you going over the fall of the Roman Empire. I know that's not nearly enough time to cover everything, but it would probably be enough to cover the general gist of it.
This is really impressive for the Romans considering the Average American man had a life expectancy of about 45 years only a little over a century ago
child mortality. if you got past infancy you would likely live to be 60 or 70.
Like the guy before me said, before the 19th-20th century every place in the world had a low life expectancy because of high child mortality rate, people didn't struggle to live more than 45 years back in the day, if you had luck and survived your childhood you'd most likely make it to your 60s
@@bahshas Nice copy-and-paste. As the video has shown, it wasn't common at all for a person who survived infancy (a two year-old) to live to ages 60-70.
@@timothymatthews6458 dumb ijiot
That is a higher number than I would have imagined.
The means of naming in Roman times would make an interesting video.
Please. If you have the opportunity, make a video of auxiliary troops. What did they do? How were they organised? etc
Nice, I actually managed to catch a toldinstone video before its title is changed.
Another great video! On a side note, I'm going to have to ask you about the source on that female wraith tale that crumbles when the parents confront her, on your book's ghosts chapter! ;)
that nay dude must have been the luckiest person ever, given the Romans track record in all things naval.
It would be very interesting to watch a documentary about retired Roman soldiers. I mean once they were about 45-47 and especialle the clear majority of privates, were expected to become farmers or artisans. For sure the artisans might have an easier life by working in professions that they had specialized in during their military servive. They could set up shop in a city or a village as blacksmiths, shoemakers, engineers, tailors, horse breeders, masons and so on.
But what about all of the soldiers who became farmers? Most of them must have been pretty worn out from over 20 years of physically and mentally harsh life in the army. They kept their bodies in shape but hard manual labor wears a body out. Combat excercise was not the physically worst part of everyday life for a Roman soldier. They marched for hours every week as excercise. They built and maintained roads, aqueducts and imperial buildings.
Did most of these farmers toil the land they were given all by themselves? Or perhaps with the assistance of their kids, their wife and occassionally a slave or more?
I guess the officers class that could retire with quite a handsome pension lived life much easier.
Probably had slaves, the legionaries weren't only paid in coin, but also received bonuses, war loot and so on. so if they managed to do their full contract i expect they were quite wealthy unless they spent the money as fast they got them.
@@andreasfjellborg1810 yes they would have slaves who lived on and likely did most of the hard work on the land...it would have resembled medieval serfdom
@@andreasfjellborg1810 lots or Roman soldiers waisted their income on gamling and prostitution and they had to pay for their own food and personal clothing including shoes when in the army. Shoes were worn out within about three months.
Still, even ordinary soldiers without an special qualifications or ranks could save some decent money. And they were given a full years pay on retirement. Loot and plunder could be good in some cases, but for most of Roman history, military campaigns were rare.
Although I don't know and would like to be better informed, my take is that most retired Roman soldiers who were ordinary infantrymen could get by when they retired and with the help of their extended family and friends. But I take it that few ordinary soldiers could afford to buy slaves to help them.
I live near Colchester which was a Roman Colonia, a colony for Roman veterans. They had it pretty good there, two theatres (3000 seats and 5000 seats), the only known chariot racecourse in Britain with seating for 8000, huge temple. Estimated population of 30,000. At least right up to the point where Boadicea arrived with a few understandable grievances, burned the lot to the ground and ended the retirement of all the veterans. The survivors ran into the Temple of Claudius and locked the doors and held out for two days, but she burned that too. The Ninth Legion came down from Lincoln to put an end to it all but got hammered, losing all their infantry and having the cavalry scattered. London sent two hundred troops who were obliterated.
The Norman castle is built on top of the temple and the French used Roman brick and tile and salvage from the temple to construct the walls. You can still see parts of the temple foundations in the cellars under the castle, and the old town still has a thick layer of ash and soot from the burning if you dig down.
very nice!
Given that life was still very much nasty, short, and brutal, 50% doesn't sound that bad.
and BORING because there was simply nothing else to do except scratch out a living or fight
That’s a lot more than I expected. I expected it to just be a few here and there
I'll just mention the HBO series 'Rome' - I've watched the whole thing several times. While everything in that series may not be 100% accurate it really paints a good picture of what kind of lives these people lived.
I can guarantee you that any fictionalised account of history, while entertaining to watch, needs to be taken with a bucket of salt. HBO, Hollywood, whoever... they just don't care for facts. The more you research the ancient world, the more you find fictionalised TV impossible to take seriously. They get virtually everything wrong, and they don't care.
I love Rome also, but I prefer to think people lived closer to the show Plebs.
The estimate of 50% making it to their retirement is not very good odds for an army, but there again, life was much cheaper and death much more present than it is today. Joining the army wasn't (and still isn't) a 'safe' choice to make, but it did offer advantages and if you were one of the lucky ones, could take you into a comfortable retirement!
I'd disagree. In the modern western military, the rate of death at ALL is phenomenally low. In fact, commanders who have soldiers die from anything other than heroics in battle often find their careers over because they didnt take care of their soldiers well enough. A soldier dies in training? A commander can basically sign his career away.
That's a bit of an exaggeration, but I see the point you're trying to make. I'm just saying that joining a career field where you travel a lot, potentially work around heavy equipment a lot, and your actual job description is to fight other people to the death is not a safe choice. It is orders of magnitude safer now than it used to be, sure. We have better trauma care, hygiene standards, and living standards. But that doesn't negate the fact that military members have agreed to accept the risk of dying in the course of their job.
Most people back then did not have a birth certificate nor an ID to show. In many cases adolescents were also accepted to serve in the legions: they only needed to lie about their age. This was still a common practice in the United Kingdom's Navy during the Victorian era. So, I would say the ages mentioned in this video are inflated by an average of 5 years.
You are a blessing and make great content
Even Socrates lived to 71.
Inflammation of the eyes being the result of sitting in smokey rooms with fires to hold off the cold. Roman forts didn't have fancy hypocausts and indoor chimneys weren't invented yet.
Pink eye from wiping and rubbing eyes without washing
This is good odds. Id take working for The Roman Legion over a solid 90 percent of the job options out there nowadays, where modern humans die to work without the benefit of retirement.
Maybe inflammation of the eyes really meant inflammation to the eyes, meaning unknown illness or injury causing noticeable swelling to a part of the soldier's body.
I've also read that it may have been a generic way of saying AWOL - in other words, of covering unauthorized absences.
Or it could be that conjunctivitis was just really common, going to toilet and not washing hands etc that kind of thing tends to spread like crazy. And once one soldier in a unit has conjunctivitis, even just shaking hands with another soldier in his unit or using the same door will spread it around. It's still quite a common thing even in modern militaries.
There are old soldiers and bold soldiers, but there are very few old, bold soldiers
Quite a few I'd guess; Lincoln, the city I live in was originally a colony for retired roman soldiers I believe.
They must have built the A17. Sure it hasn’t been resurfaced since Roman times.
@@jarraandyftm 🤣🤣🇬🇧👍
@@andrewdaley5480 lost 2 tyres to potholes passing Cranwell.
@@jarraandyftm expensive. 🇬🇧👍
Red eye's, funny but some years ago I had conjunctivitis on exercise not far from the wall at Otterburn.
Perfect Subject for Veteran's Day! Thank you!
I've been subscribed for over a year and I just realized your name is not TODD in STONE.
Makes more sense your way 😂
Those were very good odds, considering alternatives available for most young men in that time and place.
Malaria, I understand, was common in Italy, until recent times. Enteric or tifus was another fever that killed many in the med during the first ww.
I live in the Caerleon, the Roman Ampitheatre here is so cool.
Also the Temperatures back in those days where about 2 degrees Celsius higher than today, so heatstroke was a common cost of death amongst soldiers at the time 🤨
I winced at the descriptions of the punishments.
6:25 I'd recommend you use Wonderium for basic Latin
5.00 A West Point lecturer said the Roman Army had medical specialists trained to extract casualties from the front line and provide skilled first aid before passing them on. Something European armies did not have until the second half of the 19th century.
Awesome.
That was one bloody long advert for Wondrium
holy shit, a 50% casualty rate is insane.
A great question, a great video.
So you have no idea and are guessing as to the answer!
Nice Work. 💯
I live near Caerleon 😁 🙂 this is cool!
Half seems extremely high. the toll put on the body just living at that time plus the extra toll of serving, battle, battle wounds, marching fatigue, illness in camps, and punishments to name a few would greatly lower a soldier's life expectancy.
Your Wondrium link triggers browser security settings as it's not an HTTPS link and it's a shortened URL which is pretty iffy as it is. Just wanted to throw that out there as I am interested in checking the platform out but it's a tad discouraging.
How strange - that's the link I received from the sponsor, so I can assure you there's nothing underhanded going on. To the best of my knowledge, it is completely secure.
@@toldinstone oh yeah I trust you're not giving out malicious links. Just wanted to point that out for future reference.
Playing as a newly enlisted Legionnaire would make a great MMORPG. It would require an incredible amount of research, though.
As a forestry tech I had to pace distance to find things in the woods
Mile comes from Latin "mil" or 1000
From legionaires 1000 paces per mile
I'm 6 ft
Legionares were around 5 ft
Those little people paced the same as me
That is trucking
Hard times create tough men
Bro they were not 5ft tall
Thx
I was a soldier for 10 years service reaching the rank of Sergeant. It was not easy duty but i bet the roman soldiers had it much worse because of disease. I served with the US Army in Europe during the Cold and in the US . GLAD AND PROUD TO BE A VETERAN,
As someone from caerleon I love the mention
podcast >? does your computer voice do it too ?
Actually there is a much easier mothod to find out. We know about the yearly new enlistments of Legionaries and also the yearly payouts of retirement funds of many years, so we can very percesely calculate the survival rate of the soldiers in the early imperial time. If I remember correctly, it was around 41%, which isnt too bad, considering they could have died in their civilian life as well in that time.
What is the time frame that these estimates originate from? I am assuming a legion had a higher survival rate under Augustus rather than in 400AD.
I think around Trajan they reached their peak
I focused on the early imperial era, roughly the first two centuries AD
I went to visit the fort/museum of Lei Yue Mun in HK island and was stunned to read that up to 40% of the news recruits there would die of tropical illnesses in the first 2 years of their service. HK was spread with malaria and yellow fever (still has but much much less since the swamps at Happy Valley were dried). Almost half of the youthin service in the late XiX century, imagine in Roman times!
Roman soldiers, no doubt, led a hard life, but considering they had the best quality medical services available, best food, and were kept in shape by exercise, training and fighting, those who did not perish in battle very likely lived a good long life. So much of this information is probably wrong with a good smattering of it good.
At 6:21, there is an image of inscriptions presumably in Latin. Garrett Ryan, did you have to translate 100 of these from Latin yourself, or did you use some app? I'm guessing you are proficient in Latin, Greek and other ancient languages. True?
Theres abook giving all latin inscriptions and the translation
I read them in Latin. I'm getting rusty these days, but I can still manage formulaic inscriptions like those.
I wonder if there could be a comparison to the modern flying so many missions until you get released.
What was the average life span of a normal person at the time? Need to compare both to understand how dangerous life was . Non combat related Thanks for the video
Average life span is not what you want it's skewed by very high infant mortality. What you want is life expectancy at age 20 or thereabouts.
On the tombstone of the father and son killed near Hadrian's Wall it repeats the line "to the shades of the dead..." Is this some sort of rest in peace sort of saying? Is it something many romans said whenever discussing a dead person?
D M (Dis Manibus) is the conventional beginning of a Roman epitaph
And yet non Roman soldiers had it worse. When Celtic and Germanic tribesmen first encountered the Legions, they were astonished to see some of the legionaries with grey hair. Very few tribal warriors survived long enough to go grey.
It's interesting to note that despite their fearsome prowness at war, the 'extinction' of the Spartans was partly due to the high percentage of death in battle among their ablebodied men.
What was the survival rate of the casualties?
Is the voice for this video a real person, or computer generated? Sounds too smooth for a real person.
The rate of survival was probably on average higher for an average legionary than for the average non legionary. Yes, you had the risk to die in battle but you also had better food security, better medical services and a more stable life routine. The non legionary was also exposed to crime, assaults and robbery and not to forget to legionaries marauding villages during campaigns.
Hunters live longer than the hunted.
I am 31 and i have fought in second Karabagh war now i look like 41.God knows only what i have seen and been through
Dr. G - please tell me you didn't ask a native where the nearest 'gas' station was?
No - I just mistook one winding country road for another, and ended up very far from Hadrian's Wall
That thumbnail, though...I felt that. He's obviously thinking, "I'm too old for this s--t."
My understanding is that most legionnaries died from malaria and the annual death tolls during normal peace times were quite high. Then I guess soldiers who had contracted malaria a few times and survived were immune from that disease.