The Unknown Warrior Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Middle to Late Bronze Age. He had been speared in the back and pelvis with such ferocity that on each occasion the spear had broken off and remained in the bone. Once the man had fallen to the ground, he was finally killed by a blow to the head. The man was in his mid-20s when he died and was quite tall, being some 178–81cm in height. Analysis of his skeleton showed that the lowest lumbar vertebra had fused to the top of the sacrum although the man would have been unaware of this ailment. His skeleton also bore traces of Schmorl’s nodes indicative of him having lived a fairly active life. No dental disease was noted on this man. Skeleton 2 from Tormarton is to date the most unequivocal evidence for combat in the Bronze Age of the British Isles.

TWO
    Under the Eagle’s Wings: In the Service of the Roman Legions
    The Romans were faced with very grave difficulties. The size of the ships made it impossible to run them aground except in fairly deep water; and soldiers, unfamiliar with the ground, with their hands full, and weighed down by the heavy burden of their arms, had at the same time to jump down from the ships, get a footing in the waves, and fight the enemy …
    (Caesar, The Conquest of Gaul , IV, 3: The First Invasion of Britain, 55 BC )
    One could write a huge volume on a particular type of Roman armour, on weaponry of the legionary, on graffiti found on pottery within a military context. I am simply trying to draw together some of the strands of evidence. Archaeology is only one source of information on the Roman soldier. I shall, however, stick to archaeology as far as possible when examining the life of the legionary – be it finds from military battle sites, or fragments of writings uncovered on excavation sites. Thus, while it is possible to draw information from written sources on elements such as the pay of the Roman soldier, I shall not be doing so. The Roman Empire spanned several centuries, but here I shall focus on the Roman soldier of the first couple of centuries AD , on the legionary soldier rather than the auxiliary – the latter without citizen status. Many of the examples are drawn from Britannia, the most far-flung post of the Empire.
    These caveats in place, a large amount can still be said about the unknown Roman soldier, those citizen soldiers of the Roman Empire. The Roman army was a formidable piece of organisation and much has found its way into the archaeological record; the huge numbers involved in the army and it logistics rendering this more or less inevitable. Britain was one of the most garrisoned of all of the provinces, de la Bédoyère (2001: 17) putting a figure of some 16,000 legionaries and the same or more of auxiliary troops in Britannia.
    According to Brewer (2000: 32), legionary life included many military chores – patrols, escorts, sentries – and also those connected with the day-to-day running of the camp, such as stoking furnaces, cleaning latrines, sweeping barracks and maintaining armour: ‘A surviving duty-roster from Egypt, for ten days in October 87, reveals a varied existence for an ordinary legionary. One of the men listed worked in the armoury, the quarries, the baths and on the artillery, as well as doing other general duties on different days over that period.’ The soldier would have to construct forts, camps and roads.
    WEAPONRY
    Our examination of Roman weaponry is devoted to the legionary and excludes archery and artillery. It is based on a summary of some of the material taken from the sites of forts, encampments, battlefields and a small number of stray locations. Weaponry can also be seen depicted on tombstones, sculptures and triumphal arches, and it has been recovered from sealed stratigraphic deposits.
    Blade Weapons
    The Roman infantryman used both dagger ( pugio ) and sword ( gladius ) against his enemies. The latter was not just a short stabbing weapon, it could be used effectively in a slashing motion,