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Legionaries were given a grain ration, which they were expected to grind into flour using each squad’s grinding stone. They cooked their own loaves, typically round and cut into eight slices, one for each member of the squad. Legionaries drizzled their bread with olive oil. They also ate meat, but thiswas considered supplementary to their bread ration. Coffee, tomatoes and bananas were unknown to the Romans, as was sugar; honey was their only sweetener.
    The quantity of grain provided for the troops depended on the available supply and the generosity of commanders. In Polybius’ day it was half a bushel per legionary a month, and the cost was deducted from the soldier’s pay. In imperial times, the legionary’s grain ration was free. Much of the general population of Rome at that time was also provided with free grain by the government, although bakers, pastry cooks, and other commercial operators had to pay for it.
    Like the upper class, Roman soldiers ate with their fingers. They used their dagger to cut bread and meat. The fork was unknown to all classes. Romans drank wine with their meals, but it was diluted with water; legionaries are rarely recorded drunk in camp. Breakfast for Romans was often just a cup of water. Lunch, prandium , was a cold snack at noon, or a piece of bread at the end of the day’s march. For legionaries, the day’s main meal was in the evening.
    By late in the first century, with legions based in permanent winter camps, rations were being acquired from local merchants who themselves sourced food and wine from the far corners of the empire. Some of those foods could be quite exotic, and both legionaries and auxiliaries ate well. Parts of the handwritten labels on amphorae have been found on pottery shards discovered in a fort which housed the cavalry of the Ala Augusta at Carlisle, Roman Luguvalium, in Britain. One had contained the sweet fruit of the doum palm from Egypt. Another reads: “Old Tangiers tuna, provisions, quality, excellent, top-quality.” Tuna fish ( cordula ) netted in the Straits of Hercules (off Gibraltar) was processed at Tingatitanum, today’s Tangiers, being chopped up and packed in its own juice into amphora for shipment. The resultant fish paste was a great delicacy; at the Carlisle base it was probably exclusively consumed by officers. [Tom., DRA ]
    Amphorae containing provisions were also marked with the age of the contents in years, the capacity of the container, and the name of the firm that had produced it—a label found at Colchester named the firm of Proculus and Urbicus. Another label from the very same firm was also found in the ruins of Pompeii in Italy. [Ibid.]
    XIII. FURLOUGHS AND FURLOUGH FEES
    During the first century, and probably for much of the imperial era, when a legion went into winter quarters each year one legionary in four could take leave. The job ofrecording leave details fell to each unit’s records clerk, who was “exact in entering the time and limitation of furloughs.” [Vege., DRM , III ] To receive their leave pass, the enlisted men of each legion had to pay their centurion a furlough fee, which the centurions retained.
    Until AD 69, centurions could set the fee at any amount they chose, and this became a source of great complaint from legionaries. Tacitus wrote, “A demand was then made [to new emperor Otho] that fees for furloughs usually paid to the centurions be abolished. These were paid by the common soldiers as a kind of annual tribute. A fourth part of every century could be scattered on furlough, or even loiter about the camp, provided they paid the fees to the centurions.” The officers had not given any attention to these fees, said Tacitus, and the more money a soldier had, the more his centurion would demand to allow him to go on leave. [Tac., H , I , 46]
    Otho did not want to alienate the centurions by abolishing furlough fees, a lucrative source of income for them, but at the same time wanted to ensure the loyalty